It is generally believed that if Africa is to achieve the majority of its Millennium Development Goals, it must address quickly and creatively the special challenges posed by poor, illiterate, marginalized and disadvantaged rural populations.
Connectivity in Africa illustrates the global digital divide. Bridging the digital divide is important for Africa’s development, especially in education.
ICTs and their contribution to areas such as distance learning, telemedicine, and e-governance result in healthier, more literate populations better positioned to actively participate and advance national economies.
This is what the Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation (CTO) focused last week as it made bold attempt at better Information and Communications Technology (ICT) connectivity for Africa to unleash the continent’s economic potentials.
This move is in recognition of power of connectivity to ICT to serve as effective tools for development.
For three days, delegates from CTO member nations comprising policy makers, regulators, operators, financiers, academics, technology and software developers, international aid agencies and civil society organizations steered links to fire the kiln of Africa’s development.
The summit with the theme "Ensuring Effective Connectivity for a Socially Inclusive and a Commercially Vibrant Africa" also explored Africa as a fertile emerging market for ICT business and benchmarked one’s strategies against other regional and international colleagues and competitors.
While some delegates tried to push their business objectives onto the African rural connectivity agenda, other were busy networking and interacting with senior decision makers from the private, public and the third sectors.
The summit also gave insights into current trends in technological advancements – the latest products and services demonstrated in the exhibition area.
Beyond the public speeches and passion expressed at the summit, Africa must begin to take into account the technology transfer opportunities while looking to assemble a body of knowledge that could constitute a ‘connectivity roadmap for Africa’, which would be of enormous interest and benefit to various stakeholders, most particularly the investment community and the ICT sector.
CTO should also try to bridge the gender digital divide through strategic partnerships.
Africa should support the development of a critical mass of ICT skills required by the knowledge economy by establishing a network of ICT Centres of Excellence in each sub-region of Africa and ICT capacity-building and training centres in each country.