SUMMIT

Now, how do we bridge the gap? World leaders had pledged, as you know, at the World
Summit on Informaon Society (WSIS) in Tunis in 2005 to acvate a plan that would bridge
the digital divide between countries in Africa and Asia versus the rest of the developed
world. While many countries have undeniably begun to make progress on their own
towards closing the digital divide, few developing countries are in a posion to do so.
Connect Africa Iniave, officially launched in Rwanda in 2007, brings together interna-
onal bodies and the African Unions to help implement a number of the UN’s Interna-
onal Communicaon Technology projects that aimed to impact on the development
technology infrastructure in Africa. In doing so, partners build on the progress of countries
which have established an ICT policy and regulatory environment to accommodate the
private sector investment required for sustainable network build-out. These projects will
in turn trigger a cycle of further investment and development.
The World Bank sponsored a programme at the African Virtual University that has broadcasted
over two thousand hours of instrucons to over nine thousand students in all
regions of the sub-Sahara in Africa. The iniave has allowed the students to take courses
given by professors from world-renowned educaonal instuons in Africa, North
America and Europe.
In June 2005, the UN’s Internaonal Telecommunicaons Union launched a project which
favoured the whole globalisaon iniave. The iniave called, Connect the World, is a
global mul-stakeholder effort established within the context of the WFIS to encourage
partnerships to bridge the digital divide. The objecve is to bring access and internaonal
telecommunicaons technology to people worldwide for whom making a simple
telephone call remains out of reach. Keeping in mind that at present, ITU esmates that
around eight hundred thousand villages or 30% of all villages worldwide are sll without
any kind of connecon.
In conclusion, WSIS in 2002 was touted as a “unique opportunity” to bridge the digital
divide between the developed and the developing countries. Six years on, what and how
much has changed? That queson lingers on. Through long and heated negoaons and
thanks to the diplomac acvism of developing countries (mainly Ghana, South Africa,
Botswana, Bangladesh, India and Senegal), stressing the need to combine private and
public financing to bridge the digital divide, there appears to be a slight move towards
efforts to improve the level of digital technology in developing countries.
Experts say African countries need an addional infrastructure investment, exceeding 100
billion US in the next five years alone to close the gap. Another key point emphasizes the
importance of public policies, poinng to the need to integrate the development the
development dimension in all naonal strategies addressing the informaon society. For
the first me in history, the link between informaon and communicaon technology and
poverty reducon is made by developing countries at a polical level.
Phil Molefe, General Manager, Internaonal Affairs, South African Broadcasng Corporaon
Limited (SABC), South Africa
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