Better ICT links for unleashing Africa
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Better information and communication technology (ICT) links would help Africa to unleash its economic potential, United Nations and business leaders said at a press briefing at UN Headquarters in New York last month.
African countries have registered the world's highest mobile phone growth, ranging from 50 to 400 per cent in the last three years, said Dr Hamadoun Touré, Secretary-General of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). Africa's goal should be to replicate that success in broadband capability, also achieving "Internet access in every village, every school, every university, every hospital." Lack of Internet access is holding back growth, according to ITU figures. Less than 4 per cent of Africans have Internet access, broadband penetration is below 1 per cent and 70 per cent of all continental traffic goes outside Africa, driving up costs for consumers. The cost of Internet connectivity in Africa, says the World Bank, is the highest in the world - some USD 250-300 per month. Africa needed a competitive ICT infrastructure, Dr Touré said. "By bringing optical fibres in some of the networks, by just closing the loops, you will avoid excessive Internet transit costs, bringing down the cost by two-thirds," he said. China and India had increased both public and private investment in ICT in Africa, and other countries could do the same, he said. "Once the infrastructure is there, once you have the proper capacity building, you can have real growth, with exponential figures," he said. Dr Touré said that a Marshall Plan for ICT connectivity was required to provide universal access by 2012. "ICT is a catalyst, an enabler in all sectors of the economy," he said. "This would be the accelerator to achieve the Millennium Development Goals by 2015." Pressing for aggressive action to build ICT infrastructure, Dr Touré said, "We don't need charity for the ICT field. We need pure business sense." The success of Africa's telecom industry, said Mohsen Khalil, Director of Global ICT at the World Bank Group, had shown investors that in Africa they could "contribute to development and still make money". About USD 25 billion in foreign direct investment had been invested in African telecoms in the last 10 years, he said. Two factors, he said, had contributed to the success of the telecom industry: technological innovation in the mobile area and the adoption of liberal policies. What was now needed for broadband expansion were regulations ensuring an even playing field, and public-private partnerships. When you give access to a human being, you unleash the power of human innovation and entrepreneurship," he said. "It is really so powerful - all they need is access." The Connect Africa Summit in October in Kigali, Rwanda, will focus on making ICT capability available for economic development and connectivity. "We will try to push as hard as we can to get the public and private sectors together to achieve this," Mr. Barrett said. Walter Fust, Director-General of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, said his Agency was supporting the Kigali summit to keep ICT for development high on the political agenda, to broaden the discussion to innovative financing mechanisms and local content, and to support "the mobilizing of the doers, not only of the talkers." The Connect Africa Summit is organized by the International Telecommunication Union, the African Union, the World Bank Group, and The Global Alliance for ICT and Development, in partnership with the African Development Bank, the African Telecommunication Union, the Global Digital Solidarity Fund and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa. It is the first landmark in ITU's Connect the World initiative. Source: e-agriculture |
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