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Published on: 12/1/2007
Last Visited: 7/7/2009
“The goal is, in the next four to five years we should be able to obtain full coverage of the African continent with affordable broadband access,” says Sarbuland Khan, executive coordinator of the Global Alliance for ICT and Development (GAID), a UN task force.
But Khan and other international stakeholders have a lot of work ahead of them.
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“The problem in Africa is that there is a vicious cycle: There is not enough demand for ICT services, therefore there is not enough investment to bring high-speed broadband or wireless and satellite connectivity to Sub-Saharan Africa, except for very few exceptions, and there are big gaps,” says Khan.
He adds that GAID is currently helping countries analyze what IT policies will be the most effective.
“There are gaps in the land coverage and ‘last mile’ [getting internet connections from high-speed backbones to the end user] issues are there,” he notes.
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According to Khan, the World Bank, after a five year “hiatus,” along with the European Commission, has committed $417 million in loans to improve connectivity to countries that have “a good [IT] policy and regulate the [IT] environment.” The funding comes alongside increased pressure for African governments to cut the cost of internet access by encouraging competition, as well as getting hospitals, schools and ministries computerized and online by 2012, Khan’s ideal deadline for widespread broadband access.
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“Governments need to develop local private sector civil society applications for e-education, e-health, e-government driven systems,” Khan says.
“But there are also e-services that the private sector can use for connecting local enterprises with the international market, or making available e-commerce training programs, training enterprises, incubation of small enterprises, linking the agricultural, rural markets with the market in the cities.”
For Khan, Africa has some advantages over regions with long-established communication technology policies.
The developed world’s adoption of the internet has been bogged down by pre-existing telecom infrastructure.
In developed countries, according to Khan, the technology has surpassed the policies that regulate it, and these existing regulations now block reform.
In contrast, the lack of an established regulatory structure means that African countries can tailor their telecom systems to best suit local needs and guide investors into what could be considered an intimidating market.
“This will help them to roll out other investments better, because this will help them to get connected with the world markets much better, and people will see that there is an opportunity in building highways or power lines — these are going [to be done] by the private sector,” Khan says, noting that governments by themselves will never have the resources to modernize highways, ports and power facilities.
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“What has happened in mobile telephones is really the result of policy [implemented] in five or six years, but the results are visible now,” says Khan.
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Khan says that education and health must both get on-board with IT development.
He believes it “will require integrating and creating IT systems or linking up the education policy level, the Ministry of Education, the boards of education, the universities, the training institutions, the curriculum development, the training of teachers for schools and the schools themselves.
“They are working with them, and the other partners, to develop an educational system built on IT networks, IT platforms, so that is the kind of thing that needs to happen in all countries.
And the outcome of that is it will generate a demand for IT services, so the [countries] need to invest, there is no other option,” says Khan.
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Khan sees an emerging technology sector in Egypt and across Africa that is capable of playing a significant role in the development of the continent.
“Here in Egypt, call centers and so forth are developing.
They are also developing in Ghana, and here are the companies who can really also teach the others how to do it.
And not only teach, but also to take advantage of creating the market; then they can expand in that market,” he says.
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For Khan, it’s “cross-fertilizing” the technology that is important.
“Even some of the other countries, we have learnt, Ghana for example, with ISPs working there you can also go into neighboring countries and teach locals to incubate them and give them confidence,” he says.
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