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What is “international� ICT policy? Who are African stakeholders? Why should they care?Submitted by Editor on 25 February, 2005 - 12:09.
Why International Policy is Important The ability to make an international telephone call or send a letter across the world is the direct result of long-established international agreements that set out rules for telephone traffic and postal systems. Since the end of World War II, international cooperation has played an increasingly important role in setting global rules for trade, dispute resolution, and technical compatibility. Globalisation is viewed by many as a threat to national identity, culture, and indigenous business. Yet more effective international cooperation may be the only hope for addressing the most critical problems the world faces today, including massive poverty, environmental degradation, and health crises. And these issues are inextricably tied up with socio-economic development on one level, and national security on another. The result is interdependence of national economies, and interconnectedness of national and international policy-making processes. All of this makes international policy more important than ever before.
International ICT Policy Basics "International ICT policy" includes a wide range of agreements, white papers, strategies, and other forms of government plans that frame legislation, regulations, or government actions, which govern or affect the use and usefulness of information and communications technology (ICT) in the short and long-term. For example, ICT policy takes shape at the international level in treaties on telecommunications or trade practices, and model laws on e-commerce or electronic signatures. It sets out rules for Internet governance, as well as technical standards that allow Internet infrastructure to connect seamlessly. At the regional level it is seen in cross-border affairs, like Internet exchange point negotiations, technology trade and investment cooperation, or consortium bids to roll out Internet backbone infrastructure. Developing countries are affected by ICT policy linked to donor aid, such as World Bank deliberations on ICT infrastructure investment. And they are affected by US and European-led policy processes that will have an eventual impact for them, such as the Council of Europe Cyberlaw Treaty, software patent discussions, or deliberations on national environmental legislation mandating life-cycle responsibility for computer purchases.
Identifying African Stakeholders Any African that wants to make a phone call or log onto the Internet has a stake in the way in which these resources are managed, regulated and run. But the reason Africans should care about ICT policy extends beyond that. ICT offers tremendous potential to empower Africans to overcome development obstacles; to address the most important social problems they face; and to strengthen communities, democratic institutions, a free press, and local economies. All individuals or organisations that want to put ICT to use for the benefit of citizens, constituents, customers and employees in Africa are stakeholders who should care about how international ICT policy affects the continent.
Institutional Processes ICT policy-making processes play out in various institutions at international, regional (and sometimes national) levels. Traditional international treaty organisations like the ITU*, UNCITRAL*, and WTO* organise negotiations among government representatives through formal procedures, usually in international capitals like Geneva, Paris, or New York (and often behind closed doors). New kinds of policy-making institutions have emerged as part of the Internet age –- such as ICANN*, the regional Internet registries, the IETF*, and the W3C* –- which have open, community-based, consensus-driven decision-making processes. (*See below for a description of acronyms used here.) Effective participation requires far more than showing up for meetings. By the time an issue reaches the agendas of international meetings, it has been discussed by numerous stakeholders in various national and regional fora. Identifying issues as they stand within national and regional contexts, setting agendas, negotiating with other stakeholders and implementing and evaluating policy programmes and action plans are all important aspects of effective participation in international ICT policy. But most international ICT policy-making processes are difficult to penetrate. Participation in traditional treaty organisations often means navigating a maze of bureaucracy and requires extended commitments to stick with slow processes. New institutions operate at lightning speeds in ways that demand participants to have deep knowledge of the technologies and their policy implications. In these environments, African stakeholders face tremendous disadvantages.
African Participation Sometimes African representatives are ill-prepared for international ICT policy deliberations. For example, busy government officials responsible for a broad portfolio can be out-manoeuvred by high-level specialists representing the world's richest countries. In many cases African stakeholders are left out of ICT policy discussions that affect them, simply because they do not now how to get involved. Most African stakeholders lack the knowledge, funding, and institutional capacity to participate on an equal basis with those from the developed world. Moreover, African participants at international meetings are fewer in number, and are consequently often overwhelmed with the demands of representing entire regions, building local stakeholder communities, keeping up with the latest developments, providing substantive input and commentary, and, usually, earning a living elsewhere at the same time. Ineffective participation in international policy-making processes ultimately has serious implications for whether and how ICT can be used to improve people's lives and reduce poverty in the places that need it the most. In many cases, important policy decisions regarding the rollout, access to and use of ICT in Africa are being made without the input of the stakeholders on the continent. Improving the participation of African countries in these international processes will only be achieved through improved coordination and a reduction in duplication of effort, the availability of more relevant information for African decision-makers, and a greater role for African stakeholders.
We Want To Know What You Think! Broader debate and coordination are needed for improved participation by African stakeholders in international ICT policy. CIPESA has launched a discussion forum that aims to achieve just this. Please let us know what you think about the following questions:
Please share your views with us via email to cipesa@bridges.org or post them using the "comments" link under this commentary. (Email responses will be posted to the website too.)
Acronyms Used Above
Dear Joy and everyone else, I’d like to take the opportunity to comment this piece and to answer some questions that you posed at the end. I think the ICT sector is facinating from a CSR point of view, because here we can test if a newer industry is quicker to adopt better stakeholding practices so they could have a wider role for socio-economic development. I’m currently doing fieldwork in Accra, Ghana, where also the World Summit on Information Society Africa regional summit took place at the beginning of February, planning ahead for the next world summit in Tunis. It would be too vast to summarise those discussions, but the participation was for once of course mainly African. ICANN was there, so were many other development agencies, as well as leading African ICT companies. The governments seemed most interested in the digital solidarity fund, a foundation created at the last WSIS world summit in Geneva 2003, where municipalities and individuals in the developed world donate for specific ICT community projects in Africa, the management of the fund was the main discussion between governments. Their other interests were to ensure access to the Internet in the most remote regions, but how this would happen was beyond them. Access was also of interest in the civil society spheres of the confernce, taking palce a bit on the fringes as well as in the official programme. Though first excluded from the opening ceremony, opened by the president of Ghana, J.A. Kufor, they got a symbolic slot in the end in varius youth, womens, stakeholder groups. They all also wanted access, but it was the ‘techies’ who were making access happen. The linux user grous in Africa are coming up with models on bringing costs down, but using a thin client software. This means that one CPU with a gigabyte of memory runs up to 40 old 386 or 486 defunct PCs as terminals for reading material, especially ebooks should be the killer app, along with surely word processing and possibly limited internet. All users would log in, as in an traditional unix mainframe. Another great idea involves splitting down VSAT connections (too expensive for single organisations, but feasible when shared), satellite internet connections to get access in the African interiors, not benefiting from the coastal fibreoptics. In Accra a few cafes have DSL internet, and VSAT is fast, but I’m told in Mali and Burkina-Faso the only way is dial-up on poor phone lines. This then leads to the corporate side…. since surely the schools, community centres, internet cafes need to purchase the VSAT and the rest from someone operating the satellites. Understanding that there is a whole pyramid of users, and companies can’t reach with current models the vast majority of consumers with current technological arrangements, making solutions for such users (Linux OS, thin clients, sharing VSAT, home-made wireless antennas) would seem to be very good business. There are many enterprise models that could benefit from such ways to add value!! So again CSR is very good business indeed, and cheaper communication is a significant factor for socio-economic development, especially if content is locally relevant. Finally policy, some interesting ideas were floated around, and YES, policy is crucial. One was to get rid of punitive roaming charges inside Africa, as traders already cross-borders daily, why have European prized roaming charges, maybe we could have a single mobile phone space for all of Western Africa, Eastern Africa and Southern Africa. The discussion took actually place under the topic ‘a SIM card for all of Africa’. ICANN could also see with African stakeholders the need for a .af domain name, or other similar extensions for africa, though domain extensions are often less important than most people think. Many in Africa are happy to use .com domains and they are relatively cheap, though need a credit card, which is hard to get in here, which means going through intermediaries for payments, which again is an extra cost. This is a matter in policy. Again technology should server the customers an the mobile operators should listen to the needs of the customers so both prosper. In Ghana alone there are nearly 2 million mobile phone users (population 20 million), though GDP per head is 340 dollars. GPRS is being rolled out in Spacefon in March I believe, and 3G next year. There is a market for this, and they have studied it!! One more enterprise model I found facinating was a telephone booth, operated by a mobile phone company (since Ghana telecom doesn’t have that many landlines to spread out the city of Accra even), and since it’s mobiles, the booths are on a bicycle operated by a handicap person. This creates a job for someone otherwise has serious impediments to participate in the job market, so CSR pays off again. African stakeholders need to be listened for first, their needs for improving development through effective use of ICTs is pressing. Forums for such stakeholders should be creted which will have a real impact on policy to follow for ICTs e.g. in rural areas, ICTs in schools etc. The government projects are too easily miracle stories that function with the energy of an exceptional regional governor, or other people who personally pull together resources. Such social entrepreneurs have an important role, but dispersed their energy doesn’t have the full impact that more concentrated stakeholder forums can achieve. The spread of linux user grous is one example of such forums, which can be hosted by companies as part of their CSR programmes, providing facilities and paying for transport of at least of the key stakeholder group representants. This is being done at BusyInternet, a high-profile Internet centre in Accra, who organise the Cyber Series, whe ICT issues relative to socio-economic development (last time e-health, chat councelling on HIV / AIDS e.g.) were discussed. This again is so good business, because it introduces new relevant applications ‘killer apps’ for ICTs indeveloping countries where home computing will not kick off in the next 10 years maybe… (then again predictions on technlogies are set to fail). I hope I was able to show with a few anecdotes that ICT policy in Africa is a pressing matter, and that the same models will not work here (home computing, individual household bandwidth, stand-alone PCs with latest software, expensive and fragile wireless technology). Secondly for policy in a continent where states do not represent ethnic or economic boundarie, a state by state ICT policy will just add more divisions to the economic landscape. Finally companies have an interest to allow for breaking the rules set in the West, e.g. sharing WLAN connections can pick up in a real way in here… or some radio waves, the optins need to be tried and tested, and the infrastructure has to make local (resource availability) sense, and hopefully induce local industrial development. All the best greetings from Ghana, Matti Kohonen ICTs are important to africans in as much as other countries in the world.The major setback in ICT policy framework in africa has been the lagging behind in these technologies.For instance,aids which plagued africa in the last 2 decades has only received policy and attention at government level in the late 90s.The tendency in africa has been the curbing approach to policy formulation rather than the regulatory approach. Some countries have indeed produced blue prints of their ICTs policies,but it still remains to be seen whether these are going to be implemented and updated.To be feasible ,the african governments should created departments that study the development of ICTs and how these can be used for development.While this has been a consensus view,the hurdle has been is it practical to channel resources intended for health,education and food security to ICTs,hardly.This gives the rise of affordability and return on investement. It is my view after considering the above impediments that it is still possible for governments to create not only ICT policies but structures for their implementation.Companies that are involved in any ICT selling or production should have a percentum of their corporate tax channel towards this fund,however ,all stake holders should be involved in the steering of the policy.The problem in africa and particularly in Zimbabwe,has been we are good planners and policy makers but we do not deliver. l think a policy can be achieved ,but implementation ,thats another story. |
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Do you think international ICT policy is important for Africa?
I believe an international ICT policy in necessary for Africa.However, this should seek to collate information in national ICT policies.
Are you an African stakeholder in international ICT policy-making?
I am an MCDBA, BA(hons) economics working in the field of micro finance Management Information Systems(MIS).I intend to register an ICTs for Development NGO in Kenya in a bid to reduce the digital divide more so as it relates to the youths.
What do you think are the most pressing international ICT policy issues facing Africa?
Why do you care? Why should other Africans care? Is it worth it for Africans to participate in international ICT policy processes?
The proposal on ICTs policy is espoused in the background of low and declining per capita rural incomes, declining primary, secondary and tertiary education enrolment resulting from the poor coffee sub sector performance, high open and disguised unemployment, and low life expectancy attributable to the HIV/AIDS scourge.
The majority of the people (Sub-Sahara Africa) have never even made a phone call and access to the internet is negligible.
Irregular and nonexistent electricity supplies is a common feature of the countryside and a major barrier to Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) use.
Furthermore, most tax regimes still treat ICTs (personal computers, televisions, radios and print media) as luxury items, which makes these almost exclusively imported commodities all the more expensive, and thus unobtainable by the majority. The ICT density in the region is definitely led by radio ownership, television, personal computers and fax in that order. Sharing of ICTs e.g. radio, newspapers and television is dominant. Personal computers and fax usage is insignicant and restricted to the few financial institutions and maybe two �elite� secondary schools. The overall teledensity is about 1 telephone line per 500 residents and this is coupled by concentration in the urban areas.
Since much of the telecommunications network is analogue, it is saturated and highly unreliable especially in the rainy seasons. The cost of connection is almost the GDP per capita and this in an area where most people lie below the poverty line ($365 per annum). Local call tariffs are high and make extensive use of the World Wide Web (www) unaffordable but by a tiny elite. Mobile cellular telephony has experienced rapid national growth (maybe due to innovativeness and aggressive startup plans of the private sector providers and retailers) but usage and ownership in the rural areas still lags well below the national average owing to the low rural incomes. Nationally, internet services are largely confined to the urban centers but in our zone of intervention they are nonexistent. This has hampered development as shown by the fact that the zone has not been able to tap such opportunities as the African Growth and Opportunity Act promulgated by the US government despite the large pool of cheap labourforce. There are no indications among the decision makers on commitment to achieve substantial change.
The proposed policy should provide innovative efforts to improve accessibility to services through the use of shared public access facilities that exploit the convergence of technologies to provide cost effective services in under serviced and isolated areas.
What is needed for African stakeholders to participate more effectively?
Formal Forums for discussions eg workshops, conferences, electronic forums etc
Structured questionnaire to conduct baseline studies
Financial; and logistical facilitation