Binyam Tamene
2 July 2009
Addis Ababa — The future leaders of Africa are up against major barriers to knowledge access, which could mean lost opportunities in university learning and teaching.
The UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) said this is for the reason that policy makers frequently omit the need for reliable access for knowledge and information in their development strategies.
The recurring omission means that African development efforts have not been sufficiently based on the critical knowledge and capacity for delivering and benefiting from development programmes.
Lalla Ben Barka, Deputy Secretary at the ECA said development and use of information, knowledge resources and services are critical for inclusive development and empowerment.
The Deputy Secretary added the digital age has brought with it new frontiers and possibilities for libraries and archives, with regard to the sharing, preserving and providing access to information and knowledge.
"Although many countries and continents have moved with these new developments, Africa is still lagging behind, not just in its general development but also in its acquisition and use of technologies to preserve and provide access to its own content for its people", the deputy secretary said.
She therefore pinpointed the need for enabling policies and strategies to move forward as one continent to preserve the content for its people.
"We need to form partnerships in and outside Africa to ensure access to our information and knowledge for our people, while ensuring also that knowledge and information is part of Africa's development strategies to enhance economic and social development," she said, opening the first of its kind conference on African digital libraries and archives.
The conference is being held under the organizing umbrella of the First International Conference on African Digital Libraries and Archives from 1-3 July 2009.
Research has shown that reliable access and use of knowledge and information resources and services have been omitted in the design and implementation of most past and present development strategies designed to bring about positive change in African countries, including Millennium Development Goals (MDG).
In addition, Kingo Mchombu, a professor at the University of Namibia told the press at the sideline of the conference that African countries have faced a huge challenge on how to capture and harness knowledge so that it could be used in their development.
The professor said the continent was marginalized when it comes to practicing due knowledge.
"That is why many of our development agenda failed to yield fruit," the professor said, urging the need for basic knowledge and information for development agendas.
The regional conference brought together key programme managers, project leaders, policy makers and technical experts working in the knowledge for development sectors, to discuss critical policy issues and explore approaches and challenges they face, as well as to seek ways of strengthening, coordinating and forging stronger links between their various initiatives, networks and projects, so as to deliver greater development outcomes in Africa.
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