[A12n-forum] Africa, the EU & the "digital divide"

["Don Osborn" <dzo@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

This item may be of interest. It would be great if the EU's commitment
extended to support for building capacities and infrastructures in the
area of localization and multilingual uses of ICT in Africa.

Don Osborn
Bisharat.net
PanAfriL10n.org

--- In DigAfrica@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "Chifu" <chifu2222@...> wrote:

Africa and the EU

Bridging the digital divide is a key theme of the EU's relationship
with Africa, writes Viviane Reding in the Parliament Magazine's latest
Research Review.

"The fight against the digital and scientific divides in Africa have
been identified as key development and cooperation priorities of the
Joint Strategy between the EU and the African Union (AU) to be adopted
at the EU-Africa summit in Lisbon on 7-8 December 2007.

The EU has already adopted, in July 2006, the EU-Africa Partnership on
Infrastructure which includes as a key component, support to the
deployment of electronic communication backbones across the continent.
A total of ?5.6bn from the 10th European Development Fund has been
allocated to the partnership for the period 2008-2013. This will be
complemented by a new financial fund for infrastructure in Africa,
implemented jointly with the European Investment Bank.

But investing in infrastructure is not enough. The experience gained
in the EU, notably through the i2010 initiative, has demonstrated that
the successful development of an inclusive and accessible Information
Society relies on a good and mutually reinforcing relationship between
public sector activities and private investment.

There is a need to stimulate public-private partnerships based on the
principle that investments in infrastructure should be complemented by
simultaneous investments in capacity building. This is indeed
necessary for infrastructures to be both financially secure and
sustainable, and to offer affordable access and the widest possible
use for citizens.

i2010 is therefore a comprehensive strategy to promote an open and
competitive digital economy and emphasise ICT as a driver of inclusion
and quality of life. The initiative includes parallel actions on
regulation, with the creation of a Single European Information Space,
on inclusion, digital literacy and e-services, and on innovation and
research.

A dialogue on Information Society was recently initiated with the
commission of the AU based on such a comprehensive approach and the
synergies to be found between i2010 and African priorities and needs.
In conjunction with commissioner Michel, my ambition would be to
jointly define a regional ICT capacity-building programme that would
go together with the partnership on infrastructures. Such a programme
could notably concentrate on key issues such as electronic
communication regulation, human resources, development of content and
services of high societal impact for the information society.
Capacity-building initiatives are also fundamental in the scientific
domain. In this context the commission supports cooperation in the
field of research and education networks and also participation of
African organisations in the ICT FP7 research programme.

In the field of research and education networks, the objective would
be to extend the reach of GEANT2, the pan-European communications
network for researchers, to sub-Saharan Africa, on the model of what
has been achieved with other developing world regions. In sub-Saharan
Africa to-date, only South-Africa benefits from such an
interconnection. However, deployment of broadband infrastructure in
that region today opens tangible opportunities to provide African
research and education organisations with high-speed connectivity.
Extending GEANT2 to sub-Saharan Africa would considerably boost the
integration of the African Scientific community at a global level,
facilitating international collaboration, providing access to digital
libraries and allowing the sharing of remote scientific instruments
and facilities. This would in particular contribute to fighting the
brain drain which is a serious obstacle to Africa's development. The
commission has started discussions with African stakeholders about the
feasibility of such deployments, and this objective needs now to be
further promoted both in the EU and Africa so that it can benefit from
development funds.

The ICT Theme of the FP7 cooperation programme (ICT/FP7) is open to
the participation of African organisations, which are in turn fully
eligible to receive Community funding. In addition, the ICT/FP7 Work
Programme for 2007-2008 includes specific development-related
objectives, notably related to e-health, prevention of natural
disasters, open source software, low-cost technologies and mobile web
applications. In order to further identify directions for ICT research
cooperation with Africa and promote EU-African collaboration in
ICT/FP7, the commission is funding two support actions: START
(www.euroafrica-ict.org) and IST-Africa (www.ist-africa.org).

Both of these initiatives are very active in promoting ICT/FP7 in
sub-Saharan Africa, as illustrated by the recent success of the
IST-Africa Conference Series.

Part of the IST-Africa initiative and hosted by national governments &
technical co-sponsored by IEEE, the IST-Africa Conference Series
provides an opportunity for European and African organisations to
share knowledge and experience, qualify potential partners and to
identify research collaboration opportunities relevant to the ICT FP7
Programme.

Over the last two years, the IST-Africa conference series has grown
from strength to strength, building a community representing leading
government, commercial and research organizations from Europe and
Africa interested in exploring research cooperation and bridging the
digital divide by sharing knowledge, experience, lessons learnt and
good practice related to applied ICT. Building on the very successful
inaugural IST-Africa 2006 Conference hosted by the Government of South
Africa in Pretoria in May 2006 (304 delegates from 38 countries,
including 13 African), the IST-Africa 2007 Conference & Exhibition
(www.IST-Africa.org/Conference2007) took place in Mozambique on May 09
? 11.

Hosted by the Mozambique government through the ministry of science
and technology, and organised by IIMC Ltd (Ireland) with support from
the National IST-Africa Partner, the ICT Policy Commission, IST-Africa
2007 attracted over 480 delegates from 52 countries (including 25
European and 23 African).

Focusing on EU-Africa S&T Research Cooperation, the Scientific
Programme complemented the Plenary Sessions and featured over 150
presentations focused on applied ICT research in areas including
Networked Enterprise, eGovernment and eDemocracy, eHealth, eInclusion,
eInfrastructures and Technology Enhanced Learning.

Overall, IST-Africa 2007 was very successful in helping to forge the
personal and professional relationships essential for international
research cooperation. Namibia has confirmed its intention to host the
next conference in the series, which will be held in May 2008 in
Windhoek.  I invite all interested stakeholders, already at this
stage, to consider participating in this very important event."

Viviane Reding is European Ccmmissioner for information society and media

http://www.theparliament.com/EN/News/200707/a161021c-05d7-4592-9095-0a362bc30b9e.htm

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