On 23 March in Maputo, African leaders in ICT (Information and Communication Technology) development joined some 130 stakeholders at the 4th annual e-Governance Africa Forum to propose solutions to the numerous challenges facing African governments in their efforts to develop and deploy information and communications technologies to improve government service delivery, build capacity and skill sets, and ensure citizen empowerment.
The Forum was organised by the Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation (CTO) in collaboration with Mozambique’s Ministry of Science and Technology.
Delivering the keynote address on the topic “Unlocking the key to Africa’s e-Development: A challenge for all’, Dr Henry Chasia, Executive Chairperson of the NEPAD e-Africa Commission, contended that development in Africa is synonymous to resolving the fundamental paradox that “Africa is rich but Africans are desperately poor.’
According to Dr Chasia, education and greater access and use of ICTs holds the key to the liberation and empowerment of Africans. “In NEPAD, we have placed great stock on the application of ICT to education’. This focus, he said, has resulted in the NEPAD e-Schools Initiative which aims to use ICTs to support teaching and learning in all primary and secondary schools on the continent. He was hopeful that, just as the last decade has seen a diffusion of cellular phones in Africa, the next decade will see an even deeper diffusion of computers and the Internet in the professional and social lives of Africans, fuelled in part by the NEPAD e-Schools programme.
In his introductory remarks, Dr Ham Mukasa Mulira, Senior Presidential Advisor on ICT, Uganda and Chairman of the occasion, said that constantly evolving ICTs and services have provided African policy-makers with ways and means to jointly address the issue of “digital divide’.
He said, “We, in Africa, should not be left behind and should strive to move in tandem with the rest of the world. This forum, therefore, provides us with the opportunity to meet as African policy makers, regulators, solution providers and various stakeholders and share experiences and strategies on making ICTs play their role in development.’
Touching on the concept of e-Governance as part of his opening address, Dr Ekwow Spio-Garbrah, CEO of CTO, said e-Governance must be seen as an important match-making between citizens and national or public ICT service providers with the aim of ensuring smooth multi-directional information flow as well as interactions between governments, businesses, other stakeholder groups and citizens. He enumerated weak political leadership, low education levels, lack of coordination, poor infrastructure especially of energy, resistance to change and other human impediments as some of the obstacles to successful e-government implementation.
Dr Spio-Garbrah urged African leaders and ICT experts to note that for Africa to catch up with the industrialised world in ICT penetration, its leaders should not think of “leapfrogging’ but rather adopt a “cheetah pole vaulting’ approach to implementation programmes.
Welcoming the delegates, Hon. Prof. Venancio Massingue, Minister of Science and Technology Mozambique, was appreciative that stakeholders have travelled from far and near with a common objective to join Mozambique in discussing the future of ICTs, especially in relation to governance, citizen empowerment and public service delivery. He said his ministry has taken on the challenge of explaining to the people of Mozambique how e-Governance can help government institutions be more effective and responsible.
Declaring the conference officially opened Hon Massingue thanked the CTO and other private sector organisations who contributed, in diverse ways, to make the conference a reality.
Other dignitaries who spoke at the conference included Hon Ben Kargbo, Minister of ICT, Sierra Leone; Hon Ignatius Gatare, Minister of ICT, Rwanda; Hon Dina Pule, Deputy Minister of Communications, South Africa; Hon Leckford Thotho, Minister of Information and Civic Education, Malawi; and ministerial representatives from the Government of Southern Sudan, Zambia, Kenya, Israel and Uganda. Other speakers at the conference comprised heads and senior officials of ICT regulatory agencies, ICT implementation bodies, and a number of major ICT operating companies and equipment manufacturers.
The conference ends on 25 March with a workshop on “The Road to 4G’ and a focus session on ICT Technologies.
