Developing Africa's information and communications technology (ICT) sector is vital to the continent's growth and development, says Sami Al-Basheer, director of the development bureau of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU). The ITU helped organize the Connect Africa Summit that was held in Kigali, Rwanda, in October 2007, and more recently, ITU Telecom Africa in Cairo, Egypt, last May.
Can you tell us about the ITU's strategy to accelerate the end of the digital divide in Africa?
As you know the famous Millennium goals are set to be achieved by 2015.
We believe that in order to achieve these development goals we must achieve our own goals a little bit earlier. So it was an initiative of the ITU last year to hold the Connect Africa Summit in Kigali, which was really a milestone, and following up the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) process.
Could you elaborate on the information society summit?
The World Summit on the Information Society was held in 2003 in Geneva and in 2005 in Tunis, where the world community on the highest level decided to implement plans of action in all fields to create and realize the information society we are all seeking to have.
The ITU, a key player in this summit, was the organizer and we had many heads of state. We are following to implement this process by focusing on a regional basis. We are giving priority to Africa as most of the need is in Africa, although we have similar problems in the rest of the world.
The idea of these regional summits is to attract investment and concentrate the efforts of all stakeholders, from governments, the private sector and civil society, to focus on the continent. We have managed to do that and we are now following to implement this. We have a commitment of 55 billion dollars for Africa... for the next five years.
So you can see how impressive the investment in Africa is going to be.
Who are these investors?
The great majority come from private industry, especially the mobile [telephone] sector. Some of them come from development agencies like the World Bank, the African Development Bank, other institutions, and also other private sector players around the world.
How far have you come in reaching your goals?
Of course connecting Africa is not an easy task. So we thought in the [Kigali] summit to have some tangibles, some reasonable goals to achieve. So the goals of the Connect Africa Summit were to interconnect all African capitals and major cities with ICT broadband infrastructure and strengthen connectivity to the rest of the world by 2012 and connect African villages with broadband and ICT services by 2015.
We have already achieved some progress but we are at the beginning of our road. We have ITU projects with several partners to deploy a wireless broadband network in a number of countries because we managed to get some funds from foundations like the Macao Foundation. We are also working with Microsoft where they are not only committed to donate money and help Africa... but also what works really for these companies and for Africa is that Africa is ready for business on the highest level. African leaders have spoken out and said they are ready for business and they are willing to open their markets and welcome these investors to come and make a profit in Africa. It's really a mutual benefit for both sides.
What is the cost to Africa and to Africans if these connectivity goals are not achieved?
The cost if this is not done is tremendous. The African economy, like any other economy around the world, is dependent on this kind of sector and the ICT sector is the basis for all other sectors to grow. We've seen the relationship between the penetration of these services in a country or in a region and the economic wellbeing of that region. Later on, probably, we'll talk about the great revolution in mobiles in Africa, in mobile voice, for example, in the last few years. Nobody could imagine that this would happen just five years ago. Now some African countries are doubling [subscribers] every year or so.
The only way that Africa can really develop its economy and the wellbeing of African citizens is by concentrating on this sector, making the infrastructure needed, opening the market and having the regulatory framework to attract investment. That is what we are doing with our partners.
And the fortunate thing and the thing we're very happy and proud of is the African decision-makers are ready to do that. These decisions cannot be made in Geneva or New York or Vienna or any other capital where the UN agencies are. These decisions are done in Africa by Africans. When they are ready the money will be coming. The investment will come and this is what we are realizing now and the ITU is simply helping in this regard.
And how about taxes? Are governments getting closer to lowering these to make connectivity more affordable?
We have to admit that the cost of these services is still high in some African countries. But the good thing is by opening up, promoting competition, we're coming to what we call the new wave of regulation for the future that will lower these prices for sure. We're seeing examples of this every month. In the countries where they have more than one operator and they have introduced competition in a transparent way the prices are going down. But we still have a lot to do. We are working with African decision makers to help them achieve this.
And this is the second wave of regulatory reforms that the ITU speaks of?
Absolutely. As Africans made this great story in the last five years in the mobile side, it is all due to the first wave of regulation. Many years ago, in the 90s and 80s, we were talking about a penetration rate of less than one percent in most African countries, simply because the regulatory framework was non-existent at that time; it was government controlled.
As soon as the Africans were convinced -- and the ITU did a lot with that enabling environment -- we saw the boom in the mobile industry. We feel now in the second wave of regulation that... the same thing will happen to lower prices, to have the rural community connected and so on.
The ITU says Africa is at a crossroads and complacency risks dooming the continent to last place in the ICT race. Whose complacency and what can be done about it?
The most important thing is the African decision-makers. We made sure that the highest level and also the ministerial level and the private sector and civil society in Africa are all aware of the importance of this. They are all working together with international community, with agencies like the ITU and other partners, regional organizations in Africa, to remedy the situation.
We've seen the progress. People are seeing Africa lead the world in some indicators for the first time in history in this sector. We are proudly talking about now being the leading continent in adding numbers in mobile and fixed services. So Africa is making progress, and making progress in this sector means making progress in all other economic sectors.
How about the status of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and the role of old state-run telecommunications companies? Do you see VoIP as something that is going to gain more momentum?
Oh, obviously. It's coming. This is a technology proven elsewhere. I think it will benefit society. We have a problem -- not only in Africa but in most developing countries -- in the number of users of the Internet simply because of the lack of broadband services. That is why the ITU, African agencies, African governments and the private sector are all working to try to remedy this situation, to encourage more fiber cables to connect Africa to the rest of the world, to nearby countries and continents and across the seas, and also within African countries.
We need fiber within countries and between countries in order to increase the number of Internet users. As more people use the Internet, infrastructure improves because the technology is there, it's available.
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We just need to have innovation and ways and means to have the right infrastructure to use it and with affordable prices.
To what extent will the new cables being established off the African coast help to lower connectivity costs?
This is the only way we can really encourage lower prices and increase the number of Internet users is by having more of these cables.
Unfortunately, the African continent was late with this. It is good that we have many ambitious projects -- not only ambitious, they are achievable -- and they are coming soon. The one will go around the east coast of Africa. Another will go around the west coast of Africa. There are other links also with neighboring countries. There's a cable now linking Mombasa in Kenya with the Gulf. All this was missing before...
I am very proud and happy to say that there is good development after the Connect Africa Summit because we put all these projects on the table and had the investors there. We had the policy makers, we had the governments and they all debated and discussed this. Everybody benefits and they realize now they have to go ahead with these cables.
How is the ITU supporting the development of indigenous software or young ICT entrepreneurs?
In our big forums we have youth forums where we encourage young people to come and join us and meet with the decision makers in the public and private sectors and learn more about the new technologies and how it can improve their lives and their communities and their countries.
In May we had one for Africa in Cairo and it was very successful. We encourage young people to come. Some of them showcase their experiences and their innovation and how they make use of this new technology to improve their, their family's or their community's lives. We are also doing that for our special initiatives and we work with the public and private sectors to encourage these kinds of experiments with young people.
