The African Union has set aside the 19th to 24th of November as Africa ICT week in recognition of the ever increasing relevance of the convergence of telecommunications computer and audio-visuals in the last two decades or so in an information age. The week thus underlines the importance that information, knowledge and technology play in modern socio-economic development by highlighting the importance of ICT as a tool of development.
The World Summit of the Information Society (WSIS) of Tunis in November 2005 adopted the Tunis Commitment that has become the framework of building the Information Society and harnessing it for rapid development being, that the effective use of information and knowledge has become the most critical factor for rapid economic growth and wealth creation, and for improving socio-economic well-being.
The celebration of Africa ICT week from the 19th to the 24th of November is, therefore, meant to provide a constant reflection of the gains Africa has made even if minimal, in harnessing ICTs to realize a knowledge-based economy in order to ultimately achieve the millennium goals of 2015. It is generally acknowledged that ICT will pave the way for Africa to bridge the digital divide and make a success of its transformation from an agricultural society to a knowledge society.
As is the case, all pan-Africa seminars and workshops engender one basic conclusion-Africa is aware of the obstacles that have prevented its societies from developing to bridge the gap with other developed countries. These include the still too high cost of communications, existence of social barriers (gender, language, culture, lack of social content etc), affordability, lack of access to communications and electricity.
Thus this year's celebration on the theme-Promoting Pan-Africanism and African Renaissance Through ICT- has a huge relevance to Ghana’s ICT for Accelerated Development (ICT4AD) policy whose major thrust is to:
Create the necessary enabling environment to facilitate the deployment, utilization and exploitation of ICT within the economy and society
• Support the development of a viable knowledge-based ICT industry to facilitate the production, manufacturing, development, delivering, and distribution of ICT products and services.
• Facilitate the modernization of the agricultural sector through the deployment and exploitation of ICT to improve on its efficiency.
• Support the development of a competitive high value-added services sector, to serve as an engine for accelerated development and economic growth, with the potential to develop into a regional business-services and ICT hub.
• Aid the process of the development of national human resource capacity and the nation's R&D capabilities to meet the changing needs and demands of the economy
• Promote an improved educational system within which ICT widely deployed to facilitate the delivery of educational services at all levels of the educational system
• Facilitate a wide-spread deployment and exploitation of ICT within the society to support the delivery of social services.
• Support the modernization of the civil and public service through institutional reforms, renewal and the deployment and exploitation of ICT to facilitate improvements in operational effectiveness, efficiency and service delivery
• Facilitate the development, expansion, rehabilitation and the continuous modernization of the national information and communications infrastructure
• Guide the development and implementation of e-governance, as well as electronic commerce, business strategies and action plans
• Accelerate the development of women and eliminating gender inequalities in education, employment, decision making through the deployment and exploitation of ICT by building capacities and providing opportunities for girls and women
• Facilitate the development and implementation of the necessary legal, institutional and regulatory framework and structures required for supporting the deployment, utilization and the development of ICT as well as
• Facilitate the development and promotion of the necessary standards, good practices and guidelines to support the deployment and exploitation of ICT within the society and economy.
The purpose for the celebration is therefore to raise awareness of the need to collectively profit from the possibilities offered by ICTs; to encourage the private sector and civil society to work together to improve access to infrastructure, enforce capacities and increase confidence and safety in the use of ICT, to support and raise consciousness towards developing African cultures and cultural diversity.
Ghana has actualized this ICT4AD policy by implementing pan African network projects as demonstrated by the collaboration between the Government of Ghana and the Government of India to promote tele-medicine, tele-education and closer interaction with Heads of State across Africa and the rest of the world. The facilities of the projects are located at the University of Ghana, Legon as well as the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology and the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital in Kumasi.
The country has also established direct fibre optic interconnection with Togo and Burkina Faso to provide broadband capacity for ICT development and empowerment to its people.
Markedly, during the pan African Regional Preparatory Meeting of ITU in Accra in September this year, the nation's telecoms sector regulator National Communications Authority convened a meeting of radio spectrum managers within the sub-region to harmonize frequency allocation to avoid interference in cross-border situations for socio-economic development.
This is in recognition of the fact that Africa's capability to accelerate its socio-economic development process and its ability to gain global competitiveness and improve the wellbeing of its people will depend very much on the extent to which it can develop, use, exploit and sell information, knowledge and technology in one form or another.
It also underlies the fact that information, knowledge and technology will only continue to become the key to move Africa's industrially weak, subsistence agriculture based economy towards a knowledge economy if Africa develops and implements comprehensive integrated ICT-led socio-economic development policies, strategies and plans.
As Africa celebrates this year's ICT week under the auspices of the Africa Union, we believe that if African countries and developing partners develop and implement the right sets of policies and action plans it will be possible for the continent to speed up its socio-economic development process through the development, deployment and exploitation of ICT within the economy and society without necessarily going through an extensive industrialization process.
(Issued by the Corporate and Consumer Affairs Division, National Communications Authority)