allAfrica.com: Africa: Decision-Makers Play Key ICT Role (Page 1 of 2)

African decision-makers in government, the private sector and civil society will play an important role in helping achieve the goal of connecting all African villages with broadband and ICT services by 2015, says Sami Al-Basheer, director of the development bureau of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU). The ITU helped organize the Connect Africa Summit that was held in Kigali, Rwanda, in October 2007, and more recently, ITU Telecom Africa in Cairo, Egypt, last May.

Can you tell us about the ITU strategy to accelerate the end of the digital divide in Africa?

As you know the famous Millennium goals are set to be achieved by 2015. We believe that in order to achieve these development goals we must achieve our own goals a little bit earlier. So it was an initiative of the ITU last year to hold the Connect Africa Summit in Kigali, which was really a milestone, and following up the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) process.

Could you elaborate on the information society summit?

The World Summit on the Information Society was held in 2003 in Geneva and in 2005 in Tunis, where the world community on the highest level decided to implement plans of action in all fields to create and realize the information society we are all seeking to have.

The ITU, a key player in this summit, was the organizer and we had many heads of state. We are following to implement this process by focusing on a regional basis. We are giving priority to Africa as most of the need is in Africa, although we have similar problems in the rest of the world.

The idea of these regional summits is to attract investment and concentrate the efforts of all stakeholders, from governments, the private sector and civil society, to focus on the continent. We have managed to do that and we are now following to implement this. We have a commitment of 55 billion dollars for Africa… for the next five years. So you can see how impressive the investment in Africa is going to be.

Who are these investors?

The great majority come from private industry, especially the mobile [telephone] sector. Some of them come from development agencies like the World Bank, the African Development Bank, other institutions, and also other private sector players around the world.

How far have you come in reaching your goals?

Of course connecting Africa is not an easy task. So we thought in the [Kigali] summit to have some tangibles, some reasonable goals to achieve. So the goals of the Connect Africa Summit were to interconnect all African capitals and major cities with ICT broadband infrastructure and strengthen connectivity to the rest of the world by 2012 and connect African villages with broadband and ICT services by 2015.

We have already achieved some progress but we are at the beginning of our road. We have ITU projects with several partners to deploy a wireless broadband network in a number of countries because we managed to get some funds from foundations like the Macao Foundation. We are also working with Microsoft where they are not only committed to donate money and help Africa… but also what works really for these companies and for Africa is that Africa is ready for business on the highest level. African leaders have spoken out and said they are ready for business and they are willing to open their markets and welcome these investors to come and make a profit in Africa. It’s really a mutual benefit for both sides.

What is the cost to Africa and to Africans if these connectivity goals are not achieved?

The cost if this is not done is tremendous. The African economy, like any other economy around the world, is dependent on this kind of sector and the ICT sector is the basis for all other sectors to grow. We’ve seen the relationship between the penetration of these services in a country or in a region and the economic wellbeing of that region. Later on, probably, we’ll talk about the great revolution in mobiles in Africa, in mobile voice, for example, in the last few years. Nobody could imagine that this would happen just five years ago. Now some African countries are doubling [subscribers] every year or so.

The only way that Africa can really develop its economy and the wellbeing of African citizens is by concentrating on this sector, making the infrastructure needed, opening the market and having the regulatory framework to attract investment. That is what we are doing with our partners.

And the fortunate thing and the thing we’re very happy and proud of is the African decision-makers are ready to do that. These decisions cannot be made in Geneva or New York or Vienna or any other capital where the UN agencies are. These decisions are done in Africa by Africans. When they are ready the money will be coming. The investment will come and this is what we are realizing now and the ITU is simply helping in this regard.

And how about taxes? Are governments getting closer to lowering these to make connectivity more affordable?

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