HEADQUARTERS PRESS CONFERENCE BY PARTICIPANTS IN ICT TASK FORCE

As part of its vision for Africa’s future, the E-Africa Commission is laying the foundation to make the continent’s high school students information technology (IT) literate by 2009 and ensure that all primary school children are IT literate by 2014, correspondents were told today at a Headquarters press conference by the United Nations Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) Task Force.

Participants in the press conference included Henry Chasia, Executive Deputy Chairman of the E-Africa Commission, which serves as the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD)-ICT Task Force, John Sarpong, CEO of Africast and co-founder of the Digital Diaspora Network; Debra Dunn, member of the ICT Task Force and Senior Vice-President of Corporate Affairs at Hewlett-Packard; and Akhtar Badshah of Digital Partners, a Seattle-based non-profit organization.

Mr. Chasia told reporters, “We have instructions from our leaders that, in the next five years, starting from the beginning of 2004, each child graduating from an African high school would be IT literate; how we define IT literate will, in due course, be determined.  We also have been instructed that, at the end of

10 years, any child graduating from an African primary school should be IT literate.”

He added that the Commission covered 10 focus areas embracing such issues as human development, commerce, programmes for e-applications and others for building public e-awareness.  It aimed to build the necessary infrastructure by making use of the surplus capacity of satellite operators, hopefully without cost, who had footprints over the continent.  Also, the submarine fibre optic cable from Portugal to Cape Town would be extended along the east coast of Africa to Djibouti, allowing countries there to connect with countries in Asia, Europe and the Americas.  After that, landlocked countries would be targeted for connection to the cable system.  Of special concern would be the incorporation of rural areas and populations that were at present underserved.

Mr. Sarpong added that Africans in the United States, numbering some six to 10 million, would be mobilized to make an impact on the situation in Africa.  Once organized, he said, that group held the key to Africa’s social and economic development.

He mentioned four initiatives that he hoped would gain ICT support and facilitate Africa’s development:  the social enterprise laboratory, which had been identifying and selecting specific enterprises experimenting with digital technology in the areas of health and grass-roots empowerment for the poor; a global venture capital fund for Africa, which had so far attracted $100,000 in pledges and hoped to have $500,000 in hand by February 2003; Afro-Share, which

would remit African expatriate resources and skills back to Africa, using a Web-based platform; and a fourth initiative involving the launch of the “global classmates” project linking classrooms in the developing world with those in North America.

Asked whether the conditions existed for ICT projects to succeed in Africa, Mr. Chasia responded that NEPAD had an agenda to promote peace and stability on

the continent.  Mr. Sarpong explained that instability in one part of Africa did not mean that the entire continent had become unstable, just as trouble in one part of Europe did not mean that all of Europe was affected.

In response to a question about the likely involvement of overseas Africans in the various projects, he said United States-based Africans were disposed to do so because of their affinity to Africa.  Mr. Badshah added that the United Nations ICT Task Force had been incredibly visionary in this respect, launching its African initiative in the United States and Europe.

A question about the gender divide brought the assurance from all speakers that women had not been left out of the various ICT projects and initiatives.

Mr. Chasia said NEPAD even had a special project in that regard which was headed by a West African woman.

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