Africa appears to be in a catch-22 as far as Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) are concerned. Should it have tighter regimes so as to attract foreign investments and encourage technology transfer? Or should it have softer IPR policies that encourage greater access to knowledge and technology?

It may seem like a chicken-and-egg scenario but in the meantime stakeholders in the East African region are moving to create IPR policies that reward innovation and encourage foreign investors to put their money in the region. Critical to the debate on science and technology capacity has always been the issue of IPR protection.

"In recent public policy discourse, there are those who argue that developing countries such as those of East Africa need to provide strong IPR protection regimes as a means of stimulating technological innovations, facilitating technology transfer and attracting Foreign Direct Investment," said Ronald Naluwairo, Research Associate at the Uganda-based Advocates Coalition for Development and Environment (ACODE).

"Yet others have challenged this assertion pointing out that the utility of IPR policy, legal or administrative regimes lies in their ability to harness IPR as a policy instrument for achieving clearly set development policy objectives," he added.

Intellectual property refers to creations of the mind: inventions, literary and artistic works, and symbols, names, images, and designs used in commerce. The World Intellectual Property Organisation

(WIPO) divides intellectual property into two categories. One is Industrial Property (IP), which includes inventions (patents), trademarks, industrial designs.

The other is Copyright, which includes literary and artistic works such as novels, poems and plays, films, musical works, artistic works such as drawings, paintings, photographs and sculptures, and architectural designs.

Some experts say with globalisation and changing technological environments fuelled by continuous innovation, we are currently living in an information society where a wealth of knowledge and information is available at our fingertips simply by searching the many Internet and World Wide Web sites, databases, and other information services.

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Comesa’s telecoms project adopts Open Access

 

By Wairagala Wakabi

As wrangles continue between governments and telecom operators over the East African Submarine Cable System (EASSy), the Comesa Telecommunications Company (COMTEL) is getting back to its feet, one year after the Anderberg-Ericsson consortium’s pull-out grounded the project. And the new-look COMTEL, which Comesa will unveil in June, is singing the Open Access song.

Sindiso Ngwenya, the Assistant Secretary General of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa), told CIPESAFOCUS that they have repackaged COMTEL, and will unveil it in June at a meeting for regulators, government officials and telecoms operators in the region. Comesa technocrats have over the last two months been holding talks with telecoms companies and ministers in member states ahead of the meeting at which the new-look COMTEL will be made public.

Originally mooted in 2000, the plan was for the COMTEL network to be built on the existing infrastructure where available, but in most cases new transmission routes employing a mix of fibre-optic cable and digital microwave infrastructure would be constructed. The envisaged COMTEL route traverses Angola, Botswana, Burundi, the Comoros, Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Madagascar, Mauritius, Namibia, Rwanda, Seychelles, Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, DR Congo, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

 

Infrastructure in Africa: The role of NEPAD

 

By Anthony Mugeere

Formally embraced as the “vision and strategic framework for Africa’s renewal” at the 37th Summit of the Organisation of African Unity in July 2001, the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) is one of the continental bodies tackling the major obstacles to Africa’s development.

Although it is very much geared to reducing poverty levels and scaling up development, its promoters cast the net wider while formulating its ‘holistic’ programme of action that embodies the vision of its founding fathers, notably South African President, Thabo Mbeki.

Prominent among the three key priority areas for the Pretoria-based continental body is “building and improving infrastructure--including Information and Communication Technology (ICT)”.

In addition to the e-schools project geared to enable African schools have access to ICT, NEPAD is also actively involved in the development of an e-governance framework incorporating the public service sectors, election commissions and local governments of Africa.

President Abdoulaye Wade, one of its promoters, is also the brain behind the Digital Solidarity Fund initiative—a voluntary drive to raise funds for extending ICT services to rural areas.

ITU: Is it Still Thinking Globally and Acting Locally?

Founded in 1865, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) is arguably one of the exceptional global bodies based on partnerships between government and the private sector. While other similar world bodies comprise politicians and other bureaucrats, ITU membership boasts of telecommunication policy-makers and regulators, network operators, equipment manufacturers and hardware and software developers.

Anthony Mugeere examines its origins, role in developing infrastructure and what Africa should look forward to.

The ITU is by far living up to expectations in its mission to coordinate global telecommunications and services. Working in collaboration with governments and private sector enterprises, ITU has, through regular global and regional conferences, facilitated the establishment of best business practices for the deployment of, and maintenance of ICT infrastructure.

For Africa, ITU has worked closely with the regional bodies to support programmes aimed to achieve the UN Millennium Development Goals. Following the completion of the study on the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD) in January 2005 for instance, ITU convened a meeting of core partners active in ICT to explore ways of developing the use of ICT in the region. The Union was also a key player in the identification of core ICT indicators during the Botswana regional workshop in October 2004 and participated in the International Labour Organisation (ILO) sponsored meeting on poverty reduction in Burkina-Faso. This was in addition to the institutional support to the NEPAD Secretariat by providing experts to compile a list of all known terrestrial telecommunications infrastructure development initiatives and projects and advocacy through seminars and workshops.

The role of the ITU-Development sector

The most notable undertakings in supporting infrastructural development have been through the Telecommunication Development (ITU-D), one of its three sectors that specialises in designing programmes to improve telecommunications infrastructure. Like the Radio communication (ITU-R) and Telecommunication Standardization (ITU-T) sectors ...

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