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Mauritius: Cyber-Island Strategy
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AfricaFocus (Washington, DC)
ANALYSIS
26 June 2008
Posted to the web 25 June 2008
Washington, DC
"Mauritius remains unique in its region in having identified ICT as a fifth pillar of its economy alongside sugar, textiles, tourism and financial services. However, it not only described a compelling vision but it went out and put it into practice. ... the need for cheaper bandwidth became an essential part of delivering this vision." - Russell Southwood
While Mauritius has a number of advantages not open to most other African countries - including a population that is well-educated and bilingual in English and French - their strategy does have significant lessons for a number of other countries that are considering making such a bid for building ICT into their development strategies. Taking advantage of cheaper bandwidth and available human resources, a number of African countries may able to complete not only in call center provision and other lower-end business process outsourcing projects, but also "moving up the value chain" to provide software programming and other higher-end services. Countries with potential in this regard include Ghana, Kenya, Senegal, and Rwanda, as well as South Africa.
This AfricaFocus Bulletin contains excerpts from a newly released case study on Mauritius written by Russell Southwood for the Association for Progressive Communications. Southwood is a leading analyst of the African ICT market and editor of the weekly Balancing Act News Update (http://www.balancingact-africa.com).
For previous AfricaFocus Bulletins on information and communication technology, including earlier reports from Balancing Act Africa, and a custom search of sites specialized in ICT in Africa, visit http://www.africafocus.org/ictexp.php
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The Case for "Open Access" in Africa: Mauritius case study
by Russell Southwood
Association for Progressive Communications (APC)
Commissioned by the Association for Progressive Communications (APC)
Conducted with support from the Social Science Research Council's (SSRC) 'Collaborative Grants in Media and Communications'.
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Sharealike 3.0 Licence
[Russell Southwood is a leading analyst of the African ICT market.
He is a specialist of internet, telecommunications, and media developments on the continent.]
[excerpts only:full text available at
http://www.apc.org/en/pubs/research]
Introduction
This case study looks at the relationship between international bandwidth prices in Mauritius and the impact of its Cyber Island strategy. Whilst other countries along the SAT3/SAFE cable have struggled to find ways to address the high costs of monopoly international bandwidth on this cable, Mauritius has used a price determination to address the issue. Interestingly, once the process was announced, the incumbent Mauritius Telecom itself decided to lower prices ahead of the determination.
The example of Mauritius perhaps has lessons for other countries in Africa that want to find ways of changing the basis of their economies so that they can add "smart exports" alongside raw materials extraction, agriculture and tourism. Whilst it is always hard to draw direct causal links between bandwidth prices and wider changes in the economy, it is clear that Mauritius' call centre / Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) sector began to get significant growth in the years when the international bandwidth prices came down.
The nature of "smart exports" - where countries use brain-power to add value to basic tasks - may change in the coming period.
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Although multinational companies have been driven to reduce their operating costs, they are also reflecting on the successes and failures of outsourcing. But there will also be new waves of outsourcing: for example, Lucas Films (responsible for the Star Wars movies) has set up a major new operation in Asia to do animation and specials effects. But whatever happens next, competitive international bandwidth will be essential to any country that wants to get this kind of work in the future.
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