PICTA 2004

1
PICTA 2004 Annual meeting report
Eskedar Nega DISD/ECA
GKP Africa Day MSP Forum WSIS Accra Regional
Conference January 2005 Accra, Ghana
2
Partners for Information and Communication
Technologies in Africa (PICTA)

• An informal group of donors and executing
  agencies committed to improving informing
  exchange and collaboration around ICT activities
  in Africa
• PICTA is an instrumental mechanism to implement
  AISI objectives and programmes in African
  countries
• 2004 annual meeting of PICTA was held 10-11
  September 2004, Port Louis, Mauritius

3
Overview of Tunis Action Plan and progress made

• The Tunis Action Plan came out of an Open Space
  format meeting held in Tunis between 16-17
  October 2003.
• The main elements of the Tunis Action Plan
  focused on six priority areas
•  
• Scoping ICT needs and priorities in Africa
• Better Co-ordination within PICTA
• Supporting Knowledge Sharing Communities
• Local Gvt Capacity Building for ICT use
• Creating Awareness of ICT in Africa
• Bandwidth for Higher Education in Africa

4
Supporting Knowledge sharing communities

• Bellanet reported on a project aiming at
  developing a PICTA Collaborative Knowledge
  Sharing Consortium.
• The aims of the initiative include
• Building collaborative process expertise
• Strengthening existing networks and
  collaborations in Africa (including capacity
  building)
• Increasing awareness and understanding of the
  value and use of collaborative approaches.
• Project will seek to build synergy with other
  similar initiatives, such as the Open Knowledge
  Network (OKN).

5
Local Gvt Capacity Building for ICT use

• IDRC reported on its activities related to the
  Local Government capacity building
• Finalization of a report prepared by the African
  Training and Research Centre in Administration
  for Development (CAFRAD)

6
Bandwidth of Higher Education in Africa

• An IDRCs Acacia-North Africa project on
  facilitating the development of a Pan African
  Research and Education Network (PAREN).
• Main objective of the project is to provide an
  important base of information to facilitate
  decision-making in the establishment of a Pan
  African Research and Education Network.

7
Bandwidth of Higher Education in Africa

• 2 studies are being undertaken
• better understand who are the current key actors
  that are engaged in research and education
  networking within and with Africa
• draw on the lessons that can be learned from
  research and education networks elsewhere in the
  developing world and,
• to assess the resources required and propose a
  number of detailed scenarios in which a PAREN
  might emerge

8
Bandwidth of Higher Education in Africa

• Second study aims at carrying out a technical
  study for establishing a bandwidth purchasing
  consortium for African research and education
  institutions.
• The aim is to determine the availability and
  costs of the required bandwidth on the continent,
  and the cost savings that can be achieved through
  bulk purchasing and negotiating for discounted
  bandwidth on behalf of the education and research
  sector.
• Takes into account cases like the Makerere
  University which pays as much as US10,000 per
  month for connectivity.

9
Strengthening PICTA

• Based on the outcomes of PICTA 2003 e-discussion
• PICTA as a catalyst enabling different networks
  to increase their support in ICT4D in Africa
• PICTA as a collaboration mode between key
  partners of the network
• Valuable activities were made possible because of
  partnership commitments made through PICTA
• PICTA set a model for cooperation between
  development agencies and was the forerunner to
  the GKP
• PICTA has been a global sustainable mechanism for
  sharing development activity information

10
Additional assessment made in Mauritius

• PICTA is becoming a node for a number of
  ICT-related consultations, common planning,
  partnership building currently taking place
  through separate mechanisms
• More PICTA labeled joint activities where each
  partners can add value to a common programme /
  activity
• PICTA working on products such as a roster of
  consultants, an ICT Job fair and bridging with
  other African regional groups working in ICT4D
• Tackling thematic areas and initiate evaluation
  processes from external analysts

11
Additional assessment

• PICTA is more and more focusing on CONCRETE
  projects / key people in the network meet at
  least once physically
• PICTA is offering support to a number of
  countries to implement their ICT vision
• PICTA is continuously interacting with regional
  and government decision-makers who could
  influence policies in their respective countries
  and regions
• PICTA becoming a venue where ICT donors in Africa
  seek advice and input into their programs from
  different stakeholders on a regular basis

12
PICTA Membership

• Current PICTA Membership criteria
• strong interests in improving the use of ICTs as
  tools to enhance economic and social development
  ( past and ongoing expenditures/ project
  execution, commitments made)
• exercise appropriate transparency in
  programming, management and reporting about the
  activities
• interests in collaborative/co-operative
  arrangements /complementing and strengthening the
  initiatives of the group's partners
• be committed physically or electronically to
  attend meetings of the group

13
Outcomes of subsequent discussions include

• Informality of PICTA needs to be preserved
• A quasi-Charter will be produced on what PICTA is
  about
• A PICTA Outreach group will be established and
  will develop an outreach strategy
• A PICTA Co-ordination Committee including ECA
  as the secretariat to be set-up
• PICTA will continue to organize open space forums
  for thematic discussions leading to
  collaborations among partners

14
PICTA members current activities

• Catalysing Access to ICT in Africa (CATIA)
  Programme
• A three-year programme of DFID and other donors
  aiming at enabling African countries to gain
  maximum benefit from the opportunities offered by
  ICTs and to act as a strong catalyst for reform.
• CATIA is being managed by ATOS KPMG Consulting
  (AKC) and delivered by a strong, predominantly
  African consortium
• CATIA is working in close coordination with the
  Canadian governments Connectivity Africa
  initiative
• CATIA has an independent assessor and an
  implementation methodology which builds in
  measurable impact from the start

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CATIA

• Focus on
• Low-cost satellite Internet access widely
  available across Africa
•  Robust African Internet backbone with exchange
  points at the core and strong African ISP
  Associations
• Well-informed, lively and inclusive policy
  debates across Africa, shaping the local policy
  environment
• An African-led network of institutions, actively
  strengthening the African expertise involved in
  setting ICT related policy
• Increased capacity for African developing
  countries to participate in international ICT
  decision making

16
IDRC

• Gender and ICT
• PDA in Health and Information system
• AVOIR (African Virtual Open Initiative Resource)-
  an open source university programme for content
  management.
• Localization help to develop tools for content
  management
• GSM roaming in West Africa
• Mobile applications for development

17
ECA

• Progress made in the area of e-strategy, such as
  National Information and Communication
  Infrastructure (NICI)
• Development of Regional Information and
  Communication Infrastructure (RICI) plans,
  Sectoral Information and Communication
  Infrastructure (SICI) plans and Village
  Information and Communication Infrastructure
  (VICI) plans.
• ePolNet-Africa (http//www.epolafrica.org/) as a
  web resource on e-Strategies
• Monitoring evaluation
• AISI Outreach and support to the media community

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BELLANET

• Development of a database called ICT4D Africa
  Scan A Snapshot of Institutions, Programs and
  Partners. Objective is to
• create an inventory of the key organizations
  involved in ICT4D in Africa
• map the major ICT4D programs and initiatives at
  the country, sub-regional and regional levels
• explore possibilities for the incorporation of
  additional value-added information.
•  
• The initial database is available at
  http//open.bellanet.org/afscan and it contains
  representative activities of development
  institutions, including PICTA members, broken
  down by theme, region, country, Institution.

19
ePol-Net

• The network is sponsored by the Government of
  Canada(through Industry Canada, CIDA and IDRC)
  and a number of other partners national
  governments, international organizations, the
  private sector and civil society, all interested
  in sharing the common goal to further the
  development, implementation and maintenance of
  national e-strategies and policies.

20
OSIWA

• OSIWAs prgramme areas include
• support for ICT policy, access and connectivity
• enhancing localized capacities and ICT toolsets
• support to community radio (CR) and community
  multimedia centre (CMC) initiatives,
• electronic information for Libraries,
• ICTs and Local Government etc.

21
UNESCO

• ICT Policy (Kenya Policy),
• Training/Capacity building (Greenstone
  Digitization workshop),
• CMC pilots (CMC networking in Uganda, Benin, etc)
  and Information access (networking of public
  libraries in Swaziland).
• CMC upscale project to be implemented in Mali,
  Mozambique and Senegal
• African e-Campus initiative together with related
  activities on Virtual Multimedia Academies and
  Free and Open Source Software (FOSS)
• Online Course on Electronic Local Governance.
  UNESCO

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Proposals for WSIS Accra Conference

• PICTA recommended that focus should be given to
  the following issues
• Regulatory issues
• Position on open source/proprietary software
• Emphasis on e-government, e-learning and
  e-commerce
• Importance of African content development
• Internet governance
• ICTs for disabled persons
• Use of ICTs in HIV education and prevention

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• http//www.uneca.org/aisi/picta

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• Thank you