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June-July 2003
- Volume 1, Issue 4
Narrowing
the Digital Divide
A Big Challenge for African Governments and Stakeholders
In the opinion
of the Regional Conference, narrowing the digital divide must go
with the development of telecommunication infrastructure suited
to the need of African people. It has, therefore welcomed the regional
and global initiatives being taken to narrow the digital divide
particularly from ECA, ATU, ITU, the UN ICT Task Force, the Francophonie Agency, etc., bilateral and multilateral agencies. It has
also invited partners to study how best to optimize the cost of
access to ICTs with the view to identifying the rules for organizing
the international connectivity market and the sharing of markets
at the national level.
The Conference
further requested African States to contribute fully to the preparations
for both phases of Geneva 2003 and Tunis 2005 WSIS and adopt policies
to stimulate the building of ICT infrastructure and providing universal
access particularly in rural and remote areas through innovative
and Africa-friendly solutions. In this regard, African governments
should:
- Fully involve African civil society organizations in the formulation
of the operational strategy and implementation of the ICT component
of NEPAD;
- Remove duties levied on ICT hardware and software WSIS Tunis 2005;
- Formulate coherent national and regional policies and strategies
of ICTS development;
- Adopt the "African Charter" on radio broadcasting as
a framework for the development of policies and legislations regarding
information technologies and broadcasting in Africa;
- Set up national committees comprising the three components - the
public sector, private sector and civil society and actively involve
the youth in national and regional ICT activities with better gender
balance; and
- Recreate the "African news exchange and establish a multilateral
African television network.
On the other
hand, the World Summits in Geneva and Tunis should adopt a plan
of action for developing infrastructure and narrowing the digital
gap that would address the needs of developing countries with particular
attention to Africa.
In a similar
manner, bilateral and multilateral funding agencies are urged to
pay particular attention to finance infrastructure facilities with
the involvement of the representatives of civil society in all decisions
relating to ICT development and failure. Development partners are
also urged to assist the human resources training and development
with a focus on teachers and students.
Intergovernmental
and non-governmental organizations such as ECA, ITU, UNESCO, and
UNITAR to actively and effectively promote and implement concrete
projects in their areas of competence. In this regard, ECA should
implement AISI in line with the formulation and implementation of
national Information and Communication Infrastructure (NICI) policies
and strategies while IT should pay particular concern to the implementation
of the Istanbul Declaration and Plan of Action on the digital divide
based on priority areas set out in the Yaounde Declaration.
Similarly, UNESCO
would mobilize its national committees for the WSIS preparatory
process while UNITAR should propose training plans in consultation
with local stakeholders.
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