The Ghana experience with ICT Policy Development William Tevie tevieghana'com

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The Ghana experience with ICT Policy
Development William Tevietevie_at_ghana.com
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Digital Divide Measures

• Population of Ghana 20,000,000 people
• Active Computers lt 500,000 (2.5)
• local email Addresses lt 100,000 (0.5)
• telephones lt 400,000 (2)
• computer science engineers/yr lt 300 p.a
  (0.0015) In - 0.1 EE produced lt 50 p.a
• literacy 50 (opportunity!)

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Scale of the Digital Divide

• Awareness for 20m population and population
  growth rate of 5, must train 1m people a year to
  keep the divide from widening?
• To provide 1m additional PCs could be 1b,
  additional 1m telephone lines could also be 1b?
  Backbone costs much more?
• Government annual revenue lt 2bn ( other demands)

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Knowledge Resource Requirements

• Example
• typical SW is 100 man year code, 1 million lines
  of code
• need 100 new / enhanced products a year
• gt 10,000 graduates active (minimum)
• LOTS more needed!
• May Cost 10,000 to produce a graduate

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Building IT

• Large RD costs (Government critical in LDC)
• Build Technical Workforce (Knowledge in People
  they may leave to work for Multinationals)
• Be very applied, reduce decision times (requires
  less but sharp management)
• Move Up Value Chain ( where possible)

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Internet Penetration and GNP Per Capita
Internet users, percent of population
GNP per capita, US
Source International Telecommunication Union,
2000.
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Different ways of deriving ICT policy
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Different ways of deriving ICT policy
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Rules of behavior

• Rules of behavior important
• Purpose is to get buy-in of stakeholders
• They must be owners
• Get their Insight
• Seek Feedback, modification
• Build trust between stakeholder, industry and
  policy makers

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Rules of behavior

• Therefore
• Must announce this policy development process
• Announcement must go with set of ideas, questions
• Comments Period- anybody can comment
• Collated around key issues
• new position
• facilitator less a decision maker
• discussions must be trying to get closure.

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Rules of Behavior

• Policy lags Technology
• Participate in Global Fora
• Start Roundtable from Ground up and refine and
  refine till you get final document.

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Ghana Policy -1975

• Establishment of civil service IT dept (CSDU
  Central Systems Development Unit)
• Import Control (High Cost) demand
• Ministry of Transport and Communications
• Frequency Board ( Military)
• Telecom and Post were combined PT

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Ghana Policy - 2000

• Unification amongst Operators
• fixed (2 operators)
• cellular (4 operators)
• Value added services (26)
• Internet (27)
• NCA Independent regulator,7 member board
• Ministry of Communications
• Media commission content regulator

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Ghana Policy - 2000

• Split Post and Telecom
• Private media , print , radio and TV

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Ghana Policy-2000 ICT

• Considerations
• Build an active local Market
• Promote access and usage
• put a cultural stamp on ICT
• attain competitiveness in indigenous ICT
  development

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Ghana Policy- 2000 Government Shall

• Speed up computerization in educational
  Institutions and others
• step up formal ICT education at all levels
• Computer Drivers License for informal education
• Networking of public institutions
• Make Internet Access affordable

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Ghana Policy- 2000 Government Shall contd.

• Develop local manufacturing of ICT devices
• Fiscal measures including tax incentives
• Explore, research and develop technological
  capacity
• Forge closer relationship between education and
  industry

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Ghana Policy- 2000 Government Shall contd.

• Mandatory National archival . Folklore etc
• Appropriate legal and regulatory framework for
  e-commerce
• Greater participation of WOMEN
• Measures for preventing computer use for malice

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Ghana Policy- 2000 Government Shall contd.

• Legal regimes to support ICT eg. Crimes
• Flagship projects
• Education
• Health
• Agriculture
• Investment and Tourism
• Women and Development
• The Child, The aged and Challenged

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Ghana Policy-2001

• Distributed Policy
• Separated Information and Communications
• ministry of transport and comm
• ministry of information
• Independent regulator- chairman minister
• independent regulator by act of parliament
• media commission by constitution
• no license fee for private newspapers

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Ghana Policy 2001

• Roundtable Conference
• Listserve (nita-discuss_at_lists.gh)
• document at www.ghana.gov.gh
• Policy document not concluded yet
• Exclusivity for telcos end
• Contract with telecom malaysia ends
• New entrants being encouraged.
• Deliver 400,000 new fixed lines in 2 years

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National ICT Strategies

• Liberalization in the sector maybe too fast since
  with, Globalization our market is becoming
  captured.
• It is difficult for natives to keep up
• Conflict in affordability and cost of
  service.
• Focus on National Capacity/Domestic Market
  Support for Development Goals
• Look for Poverty Alleviation and Wealth Creation
  Opportunities

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Main Areas of Concern

• Human Capacity
• Infrastructure
• Policy
• Enterprise
• Content (applications)

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Human Capacity Skill set Challenge

• Limited availability of Skill set is an important
  impediment in growth (cant produce fast enough
  and cant attract nationals overseas to return -
  cant pay) The Universities never had opportunity
  to lead industry and should be given opportunity
  to get it right this time
• Brings Intellectual order, too few graduates

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Human Capacity Strategy

• A goal of X10 Graduates produced p.a in number of
  years (5 yrs.), consistent quality
• Strengthen the EE and CS departments at the
  government Universities
• Follow this Development Model Concentrate on
  training creators of money, managers, spenders in
  sequence.

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Infrastructure

• Ghana is ahead of several west african countries
  including Nigeria telephone penetration higher,
  Internet bandwidth (e.g. NCS BW is bigger than
  many West African Telcos 10mb)
• Telecommunications assets of GT, GBC and VRA
  maybe strategic to development
• Private sector is becoming foreign owned
• e.g South Africa 30 empowerment, 49 foreign max
  investment in Policy Framework, force alignment

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Policy

• ICT Policy development is inter-sectoral and must
  be coordinated
• Clear Separation of operators, regulators, policy
  development eases the Industry
• Standardization and technical policy is global
  (participation can be difficult)
• Encourage stakeholder networking (avoid capture)
• South- South Cooperation necessary

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Programs in Support of Policy

• Silicon Valley - leverage university csir
  areas
• Basic Information Systems
• all individuals,companies,laws,.,knowledge
• civil service operationsrelatedprivate
  sectorcommunity
• Universal Access solutions, for Government
  Communications is important

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Enterprise

• Local Enterprises and operators should be
  challenged with projects to develop skills,
  infrastructure and services ( large projects are
  routinely awarded to large more experienced
  multinationals)
• gives post project completion blues
  .sustainability, many reasons including bank
  guarantee requirements.
• (native empowerment, silent protectionism,
  development goals)
• Target Groups Youth, Female

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Content (Applications)

• Store and preserve our material for access
  (biggest complaint about Africa is no content)
• Preserve history digitally, folklore, language,
  art.
• Meanwhile foreign companies take/put our
  information freely on their information services
  (usurping our wealth identity while feeling
  proud they helped a poor African)

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IT Related Laws

• Privacy Act
• Intellectual Property, Marks - Robert Burch,
  Quebec vs NCS, Ghana
• secure transactions (authentication and secrecy
  in Commerce)
• build certification authorities, key escrows
• Anonymous Online speech and protections
• Anti-Intrusion laws (against Spam, viruses,
  worms)
• IT security alert centers
• Crime and Fraud laws

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Some IT Industry Categories(Opportunity Areas)

• Information Processing
• Manufacturing
• Infrastructure
• Services
• Applications

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SAT-3

• Landing countries South Africa, Portugal,
  Angola, Gabon, Cameroon, Nigeria, Benin, Ghana,
  Ivory Coast, Senegal, Canary Islands,
• Spain Purchasers Marconi, Sonatel, Cote
  d'Ivoire Telecom, Ghana Telecom, OPT Benin,
  Nigerian Telecommunications Ltd, Camtel, OPT
  Gabon, Angola Telecom, Telkom SA Ltd, BT, Cable
  and Wireless, Teleglobe (USA), ATT, Telefonica

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Internet Technical Policy

• Standardization and technical policy is global
  (participation can be difficult)
• IETF, ICANN
• Stakeholder networking with Public sector
  essential

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The Changing Global Policy Horizon

• Local gt more global
• affects technical policy, standards
• Regulated gt self-regulation
• more players, more private sector
• ensured participation gt if able to participate
• Traditional Institutions forced to change

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Need for New Relations

• Traditional Regulator, Standards Bodies change to
  become global participation of individuals and
  operators
• More participatory and self-organized
• Must coordinate, Fund organize positions
• Public-Private Partnerships required

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Info-Structures (1)

• ccTLDs
• most Tech POC outside country
• gTLDs (7 new )
• none in Africa, attempt to claim .africa
• Registrars (gt 150)
• none in Africa
• UDRP Resolution Providers(5 accredited)
• 5 approved (1-Asia, 0-Africa)

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Info-Structures (2)

• Regional Address Registries (RIR)
• one per region
• ARIN, RIPE, APNIC, LACNIC (provisional)
• AfriNIC in formation
• Root Servers
• very difficult

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Conclusion

• We are a poor nation
• UN Millenium goal to halve poverty
• Poor people have needs
• Education
• Agriculture
• Health
• Shelter

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Conclusion

• We have to scale our ability to provide needs
• We have to scale the capacity of the resources we
  have
• We have to be able to use ICT to alleviate
  poverty by scaling the resources we have
• We need to be able to use ICT tools in such a way
  that they are able to serve people and serve them
  better