Transcript Towards an African Information Society

POLICY FORMULATION IN AFRICA: A
REGIONAL OVERVIEW AND
COUNTRY CASE STUDY ON EGYPT
Prof. Nadia Hegazi
Consultant to Minister of ICT
Consultant to Minister of Education
March 2004
The Main Concern is:


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To create and activate the knowledge economy
focused on extending Internet connectivity in the
African states.
To generate growth through translating
connectivity into economic activities stimulating
services, applications and content that create new
markets and reduce costs and eventually increase
productivity throughout the economy.
Collaboate previous efforts and presenting
guidelines for critical areas
Aspects of the African Information
Society

Capacity Building, human resource
development, education and training.

E-Government and serving the citizens.

Cultural Diversity and Supporting
Multilingual Content.
Aspects of African Information Society
Cont’d

Building a regional information
infrastructure and info-structure

Trade, Commerce, research and
development and Piracy in ICT.

Security Issues.
Suggested Strategies and Policies
To achieve a real information society, governments need to
develop and implement regional policies that:

Access: by making information,
communication, and their underlying
technologies central to the development of
the region.

Awareness: by making information,
communication, and their underlying
technologies known, available to and
accessible by the public,
Strategies and Policies: Cont’d

Using of not only innovative private-public
partnerships between government and the private
sector but also partnerships with civil society and
nongovernmental organizations;

E-Learning: Promote ICT education in schools and
universities and ICT skills training in the
workplace.

Establishing a benchmark, using relevant, realistic
indicators
Strategies and Policies: Cont’d


E-Government: Ensure Governments’
understanding and use of ICT at all levels to
promote efficiency and transparency and
provide cost-effective ICT-based information
services to citizens.
Ensure that best practices are followed and
ICT experiences are exchanged horizontally
across countries within African states and
with the international ICT community.
Regional Policies: Cont’d

Ensure adequate planning of infrastructure
to enable the region to embrace new
communication modalities.

Actively develop information systems to
enhance health services and to foster
employment, economic growth, and rural
development by the year 2010.
Regional Policies: Cont’d

Fostering the creation of an environment
that will allow, by the year 2008, the
capacity to trade goods and services by
electronic means (e-commerce),

Provide, through a competitive market
environment, universal access to
information and communication facilities,
The opportunity

The information society is an excellent
chance for :

Developing other sectors
Developing an ICT sector by itself
Socio economic development


Urgency of Regional Integration

Regional integration is believed to be
an essential condition to cut down on
the cost of ICT services and provide
better security
Urgency of Regional Integration
Creating Regional Network:

This network is based on centers to transfer data,
and focal Internet exchanges in the region. Such
centers are the corner stones and base of this
network.

Data centers and exchanges require fast
connecting lines of fiber optics to link such points
together.
Urgency of Regional Integration:
Cont’d

This regional network is connected, on one
hand, with corresponding ones in other
regions (such as Europe, Asia, and others)

On the other hand, this network is
connected with national networks of the
region.
Urgency of Regional Integration:
Cont’d

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The African Network will make use of innovations
such as wireless fidelity commonly known as Wi-Fi
and other low cost technologies and business
models.
African states should make use of the existing
fiber optics network in the region to establish
regional backbone.
The e-africa Commission is running a project to
have the sea cable in the east coast ready for 2005
Building a Regional Information
Infrastructure and Info-structure

Bulk purchase of International bandwidth to
reduce cost of internet connectivity to the
international backbone through coordination with
the e-Africa commission.

Establishing own data centers or will set peering
agreements with the existing data centers in the
region, thus preventing regional communication
from passing into other regions
Building a Regional Information
Infrastructure and Info-structure
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Finalize the establishment of AfriNIC the
African address registry.
Encourage e-business and content
development to achieve a fair formula for
payment for internet connection which
should only be based on half a circuit and
not both circuits in country and in
termination country.
Building a Regional Information
Infrastructure and Info-structure
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The Top level domain "Africa" should be
delegated to e-Africa Commission.
Support the operation of a root server in Africa as
part of e-Africa to participate in all aspects of the
Internet.
Promote the establishment of Uniform Domain
name dispute-Resolution policy UDRP service to
provide for Internet domain names disputed in
Africa
Create a regulator consortium through a formal
organization such as NEPAD with the help of the
e-Africa Commission
Capacity Building: Human
Resources Development, Education,
and Training.
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Priority must be given to Training the Trainers in order to
ensure the long-term impact in this area as well as handson training, especially for women and young professionals
in developing countries.
Training of regulators
The provision of support for the production and
distribution of multimedia, modular training course
materials and information processing tools, based on the
model of open source software.
Run a survey of supply and demand for e-skills and make
it public on the information portal to be established
Encourage the establishment of the African Diaspora
Network
Illiteracy Eradication
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Ensure that a renewed, concerted effort is made to
tackle and substantially reduce illiteracy by the
year 2008, using all available methods and media,
including television and leveraging on the
investment made on community telecentres;

The use of ICT should be dedicated to illiteracy
eradication. Technologies such as CD Rom, radio
and TV or a mix of them can be combined with the
Internet to extend its reach. Radio can be used as
a gateway to the Internet for its listeners in remote
rural communities
Egyptian model for
Affordable PCs and access
Free internet
 Affordable PCs
 IT CLUBS

No. of subscribers
million
11.0
10.5
10.0
9.5
9.0
8.5
8.0
7.5
7.0
6.5
6.0
5.5
5.0
4.5
4.0
3.5
3.0
11.1 million
8.5 million
No. of fixed lines
96
97
98
99
2000
2001
2002
4.7 million new lines since October 1999
Sept.
2003
No. of subscribers, million
6
5.42
5
4.50
4
3.44
3
2.35
2
0.93
1
0.08
0
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
Sept .
2003
The number of subscribers increased more than eight folds
since October 1999
No. of Internet Users
Million
2.6
2.4
2.2
2
1.8
1.6
1.4
1.2
1
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0
2.4
1.7
1
0.6
0.3
1999
2000
2001
2002
Sept. 2003
International internet traffic increased from
20 Mb/s to 900 Mb/s in 2 years
Capital Investment
3015
3500
2737
million L.E
3000
2500
1791
2000
1500
1202
1000
500
0
1999
2000
2001
Source: The General Authority For Investment & Free Zones
2002

Transforming ARENTO into Telecom Egypt by
law 19 for the year 1998.

Establishment of the Telecommunications
Regulatory Authority by presidential decree
number 101 for the year 1998.

A new telecommunications law that promotes:
 Transparency in licensing.
 Phased deregulation of services.
 Establishment of a universal fund to
accelerate tariff rebalance.
Establishing E-Government systems
and providing E-Government
services

Setup a Regional E-government Institute to foster
and promote e-government, provide advice and
conduct research. The Institute will adopt a
multidimensional approach to e-government,
addressing its legal, technological (ICT) and
administrative aspects, and focus on policies and
processes necessary to deploy e-government
services. The Institute should be operative by the
year 2006.
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Conduct regional training of decision makers to enable a
better understanding the dynamics of e-government;
Trade and commerce in the Information Society
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The implementation of a regional root Certificate of
Authority (CoA);
Multilateral and/or bilateral agreements on electronic
commerce and trade;
Facilitation of regional transport and shipping mechanisms
to accelerate the movement of goods; and most importantly,
The adoption of uniform legislations to protect the rights
of the consumers and operators and establish policies and
guidelines for electronic commerce.
The African states with their rich culture and history
should invest in e-services and offer user friendly public
information for culture and tourism.
ICT Funding and cooperation
Research and Development
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Research areas need
1-Design and implementation of low cost
computers and wireless connectivity as well
as prepaid chip - card software for ecommerce without credit cards.
2-Low cost fuel cells on photo voltaic for
decentralized electricity supply.
VISIT EGYPTs WEB SITE AT
 http://www.mcit.gov.eg
 You can find all the projects and the egyptian
information society initiative “Building Digital
Bridges”
 Also visit the web site for all the Egyptian
companiesat http://citegypt.com
 Visit the TELECOM AFRICA at
http://www.itu.int/itutelecom
 For any enquiries contact me at
[email protected]
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