Addis Ababa — Economic Commission for Africa's Deputy Executive Secretary for Knowledge Delivery Giovanie Biha recently met with Estonia's Ambassador to Egypt and Ethiopia, Mr. Sander Soone, to discuss areas of cooperation with regard to information and communications technologies (ICT).

Ms. Biha applauded Estonia for its advancements in the field of ICT and shared the ECA's vision to support African countries in their development efforts, using industrialization as a pathway for structural transformation. She further acknowledged the tremendous potential of ICT as an enabler for structural transformation on the continent and underscored that cooperation between Estonia and ECA in the area of ICT, for which Estonia is a recognized leading innovator worldwide, would yield great outcomes.

Ms. Biha informed the delegation of the work of the African Institute for Economic Development and Planning (IDEP), specifically as it relates to the training of midlevel African government officers in various development and policy fields.

"I hope that Estonia's experience in developing e-learning technologies could be leveraged to support and expand the work of IDEP," said Ms. Biha, who also took the opportunity to share with the delegation, the Egypt and Morocco 2015 Country Profiles.

Ambassador Soone said the path toward Estonia's place in the ICT world was born out of necessity, following its independence from the Soviet Union in the early 90s, and the urgent need at the time to establish governance and administration structures.

At the time, the Internet was in its nascent stages, and Estonia seized the opportunity to establish a robust ICT infrastructure. The private sector, he said, stepped in to bring innovation and created several applications, which span every sphere of public service including health and education.

He informed the meeting that the three structures that underlie Estonia's ICT comprise legal, technical and methodological pillars.

In Africa, Estonia's bilateral cooperation in ICT includes countries like Botswana, Namibia, Nigeria and Zambia.

"We welcome the ECA's efforts; and we look forward to future cooperation between Estonia and the ECA," said the Ambassador.

Key areas of potential collaboration discussed include collaboration with ECA's Training IDEP, on e-learning and other related platforms and technologies and a proposed jointly organized side event in the margins of the EU-Africa Summit in Abidjan in November 2017.