Report of the ADF4 ICT Focus Group Pre-Meeting 12 October 2004 Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Discussions and Recommendations

Meeting on Africa’s preparation to the WSIS Phase II

The Meeting  Organized by the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) in collaboration with the “Organisation Internationale de La Francophonie”.  Objective: to brainstorm on different regional activities undertaken in the framework of the preparatory process of the Second phase of the WSIS  Close to 50 participants representing Member States, regional and international organizations, civil society and the private sector attended the meeting.

Discussion Topics  The preparatory process of the Accra WSIS Regional Preparatory Conference  Outcomes of the Ouagadougou Conference on Open Source and the plans for the Accra Conference  Outcomes of ECA’s activities in the framework of the Academia Research Network  Internet Governance and the planned regional meeting in Mauritius  Regulatory aspects of ICTs in Africa, from the CTO’s perspective  EPol-NET activities  The VaristyNet activities at the AAU and the IUCEA  E-government case studies from Ethiopia and Kenya

Recommendations  Need to support and promote free and open source in Africa  Need to mainstream gender issues in all ICT based programmes and events  The instrumentalization of African languages in the cyberespace should be given due consideration  Need to promote and support in local content management systems  To develop competencies in the use of open source software, opportunities in coordinating open source activities during different meetings and initiatives should be encouraged  The ICT regulatory authorities need to be proactive, responsive and and have regulatory visibility  §Regulatory authorities have responsibilities in terms of taking informed regulatory decisions, ensuring investor’s confidence and promoting reduced anti competitive practices

Pre-Event Meeting

Issues  Emerging issues and challenges of e- governance in Africa  Exploring the Issues and Setting the Scene  ICTs and local governance  Africa and the International Co-operation on Assigned Names and Numbers  Perspectives on the Regional Dimension  Perspectives on Open Source Software  Financing ICTs

Discussions and Recommendations

Financing of e-Goverment in Africa  Internal/external resource mobilisation both at national and regional levels to finance e- government  Forging Public Private Partnership (PPP)  Provide continued and organised support to the Digital Solidarity Fund  Need for political will and vision as well as commitment of Governments to bring concrete results in financing e-Gov in Africa  Appropriate regulatory and legal frameworks to encourage the development of the ICT industry

Open Source solutions  Recognize the important role that the use of OSS plays in advancing the ICT industry in particular and the African IS in general  Governments should prescribe free choice to the public  Need for raising awareness on OSS issues particularly at research and academic institutions - capacity building programmes

e-Gov opportunities/Threats  e-Gov applications have proved to bring increased transparency and openness in public services leading to greater level of reduction in corruption and promote good governance  e-Gov implies active involvement of citizens in the decision making process  Governments should consider e-Gov rollout rather than conducting pilot projects  Pilot projects have increasingly become failures, particularly those that are donor driven or initiated with top-bottom approach  Need for caution in replicating models that worked elsewhere particularly in the dev’d world

The regional perspective  Strong e-Gov strategies and applications at national level are pre-requisites to effective and efficient systems at regional level  Harmonization of policies and strategies should be the focus areas for e-Gov systems at regional level  The e-gov process should be demand driven whereby the needs and views of the beneficiaries at the respective levels

Internet Governance  There is great importance of strengthening AfriNic so as to ensure that Africa’s concerns and interests are adequately addressed at global fora/decisions on issues related to Internet Governance  With AfriNic African countries will be totally independent from USA or Europe concerning Internet registration and will also save the money they use to pay for this purpose

Thank You !