POTENTIAL OF INTERNET IN AFRICA IS REVIEWED AT ABIDJAN SEMINAR
Press Release
PI/1160
POTENTIAL OF INTERNET IN AFRICA IS REVIEWED AT ABIDJAN SEMINAR
19990728 Specialists from Nine French-Speaking Countries Takes Part In Session Organized by United Nations and Francophone InstituteNEW YORK, 28 July (DPI) -- The Department of Public Information (DPI), with the support of the Organization Internationale de la Francophonie, held a seminar on the theme "The Internet as a Tool for Development", in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire, from 5 to 16 July.
The seminar, which took place at the Institut des Sciences et des Techniques de la Communication/Centre Africain de Formation aux technologies de l'Information et de la Communication, was attended by 23 specialists in the field of institutional communications. They represented ministries and institutions in the fields of education, information/communication or development from nine countries in French-speaking West Africa -- Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, Guinea, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal and Togo.
They also represented United Nations Information Centres in Dakar (Senegal) and Ouagadougou (Burkina-Faso), and the Abidjan office of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
The seminar was led by Jean-Pierre Bugada and Anna Manikowska of the Information Technology Section of DPI, and by Fabrice Mesplé of the Institut Francophone des Nouvelles Technologies de l'Information et de la Formation. The participants were trained to set up Web sites and to present their institutions and their activities. They were also introduced to information resources on the United Nations and the United Nations system Web sites, and on those of the Francophone organizations. Samba Koné, Director of the Agence Ivoirenne de Presse, the national press agency, gave a detailed presentation of the steady development in the use of the Internet in the region and in Côte d'Ivoire in particular.
The objective of the seminar was to promote the use of the Internet as a tool of economic and social development efforts in the region, pursued in particular by the United Nations and the Organization Internationale de la Francophonie, while the world is undergoing an information and communications technology revolution.
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This revolution, and especially the Internet, offers access to knowledge and represents new opportunities for the South. As indicated in a recent article in the publication "Africa Recovery", access to the Internet in Africa, even it has spread rapidly, is still below the world average. However, recent developments -- including the convergence of the television, telephone and computer -- promise to provide completely new ways to deliver basic broadcast and communication services at far less cost in the future. This, it was said, may make it possible for Africa to bypass the massive capital investments in older communications systems that the developed countries had to make, enabling the continent to "leapfrog" some stages and move directly into the information age.
There are already numerous examples of the uses to which low-cost communications are being put in Africa. Electronic mail, in particular, has been adopted by almost every agency with international communication needs. Instead of a one-minute international fax call costing up to $20 in some countries, a one-page e-mail requires a local call of only a few seconds. For African businesses, such a cheap and rapid means of communication can greatly improve efficiency, by widening the access to markets and suppliers. In addition, many government departments, especially ministries of health, now are beginning to use e-mail for their administrative functions. Access to the world's best specialists is now a possibility as well, enabling, for example, the remote development of a specialized drug-treatment programme.
Independent newspapers and magazines now are published daily on the Web in a growing number of other African countries, allowing users in remote areas to obtain the latest news and independent analysis without waiting days or weeks for local postal deliveries. The prospects for delivering educational support, through the use of the Internet in schools, to extension and technical training programmes and even to individuals, are beginning to show exciting possibilities.
Lishan Adam, Regional Adviser for information and connectivity for the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), stresses in the same issue of "Africa Recovery" that expanding African content is as important as widening access. Content development is a two-way process: while access to global resources for those residing in Africa is important, enriching the Web with Africa-related information is crucial to the promotion of indigenous content.
There are already pilot projects in many African countries to develop "telecentres", which seek to provide communication, education and health-care information, generate income and facilitate the exchange of government documents. There also should be greater national efforts to train users in Web site development, provide support for the creation and recognition of sites useful for development, promote local content-building service centres, find ways to address the multiplicity of languages used in Africa, and support and train "information brokers", such as librarians. * *** *