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Africa
calls for action to bridge the digital divide
18.10.2003
Action to bridge a widening digital divide that threatens to isolate
the developing world was demanded at the UNI-Africa Regional Conference in
Johannesburg.
Information and Communication Technology has the potential to help reduce
poverty on the continent and overcome barriers of social, economic and
geographical isolation.
UNI and UNI-Africa are helping to modernise unions with a UNI Online
project to hook up unions to the Internet and UNI Bridge to help them
launch their own websites with the help of other affiliates.
UNI has identified the Internet as a key ingredient in its global
solidarity campaigning that empowers unions with its potential for fast
and cheap communication and easy access to information.
The task facing Africa is immense.
African countries currently have to spend $400m a year to route telephone
calls between each other via Europe and the United States - because the
infrastructure currently does not exist in Africa.
Thailand has more mobile telephones than the whole of Africa. With 13% of
the world’s population Africa has only
1% of the world’s mobile phones - and 80% of those are in South Africa.
95% of Internet users are in developed countries and only 1% in Africa and
the Middle East.
Only 1 in 40 Africans have a fixed phone line but the variation within
Africa is enormous - ranging from 3 telephone lines per thousand people in
Burkina Faso to 138 in South Africa and 224 in Mauritius.
But there are initiatives to change all this.
Nigeria has its first communications satellite, an association of African
Internet Service Providers (ISPs) has been set up and NEPAD (the New
Partnership for Africa’s Development) has ambitious plans to stimulate
ICT infrastructure and usage to create an e-Africa.
A South African Internet
consultant urged delegates to back affordable options - including
telephone calls via the Internet and free, open source software.
"The digital divide is not just about the Internet," he
warned. It also includes telephone communications and multi-media.
Without the infrastructure and the training and the ICT specialists,
Africa will miss out on the opportunities of e-commerce - which
allows companies large and small to sell into new markets without a
big investment in those countries.
And, he told delegates, Africa was missing out on the growth of the
call centre industry with companies relocating from higher wage
Europe and the United States. |
Geoffrey Rehmet,
Internet Consultant
South Africa
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"Africa is lagging well behind
Europe, the United States and even behind South America," said Gabou
Gueye, UNI-Africa Vice President who has been chairing the conference.
In a PowerPoint presentation he outlined the NEPAD programme – which
includes preparing countries to use electronic communication and increase
teledensity (usage of telephones) to two lines for each 100 people by
2005.
Plans for 32 fibre optic links between African countries are being
discussed, along with an African Internet ‘backbone".
"We need an equilibrium between the need for profits and the
development that Africa is obliged to seek - so we don’t miss out on the
third revolution (after the agricultural and industrial
revolutions)," said Gilbert Ekogha of SYNAPOSTEL Gabon.
Karthi Pillay,
South Africa
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"We are in
an age of information - a knowledge based society and information is
power," said Karthi Pillay of the CWU South Africa.
The digital divide he said "is the rich versus the poor, the
north versus the south, the developed world versus the developing
and the haves versus the have-nots".
Telecommunications he said is "no longer considered a luxury
but is a basic right".
He called for an economic and social balance, which acknowledges a
business role with corporate social responsibility.
Education in maths and sciences has lagged behind since colonial
times.
"We need to make (ICT) training user-friendly and software Afro
centric."
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"Bridging the digital divide must not be left to the government
alone," said Peace Obiajulu, of SSA-NIPOST Nigeria who urged "we
should not think of equipment but of human resources".
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