Bridging the Digital Divide: Investing in Information and Communication Technologies

Information and communication technologies (ICTs), driven by the convergence of computers, telecommunications and traditional media, are crucial for the knowledge-based economy of the future. Rapid advances in technology and the diminishing cost of acquiring the new ICT tools have opened new windows of opportunity for African countries to accelerate their economic growth and development.

The goals of achieving a Common Market and an African Union can benefit immensely from the revolution in information technology. In addition to fostering intra-regional trade, the use of ICTs could also accelerate Africa’s integration into the global economy.

• It can give impetus to the democratisation process and good governance;
• It can facilitate the integration of Africa into the new information society, using its cultural diversity as a leverage;
• ICTs can be helpful tools in a wide range of applications, such as remote sensing and environmental, agricultural and infrastructural planning;
• The existing complementarities can be better utilised to provide training that would allow for the production of a critical mass of professionals in the use of ICTs;
• In the research sector, we can establish African programmes as well as technological exchange programmes capable of meeting the continent’s specific needs, with particular regard to the fight against illiteracy;
• ICTs can be used to identify and exploit opportunities for trade, investment and finance;
• They can be used to establish regional distance learning and health education programmes to improve the situation in the health and education sectors;
• In conflict management and the control of pandemic diseases, ICTs will help towards the
  organisation of an efficient early warning mechanism by providing the tools for constant
  

Bridging the Infrastructure Gap: Energy

Objectives

• Energy plays a critical role in the development process, first as a domestic necessity but also as a factor of production whose cost directly affects prices of other goods and services, and the competitiveness of enterprises. Given the uneven distribution of these resources on the African continent, it is recommended that the search for abundant and cheap energy should focus on rationalising the territorial distribution of existing but unevenly allocated energy resources. Furthermore, Africa should strive to develop its abundant solar energy resources;
• To increase Africans’ access to reliable and affordable commercial energy supply from 10 to 35 per cent or more within 20 years
• To improve the reliability and lower the cost of energy supply to productive activities in order to enable economic growth of 6 per cent per annum;
• To reverse environmental degradation that is associated with the use of traditional fuels in rural areas;
• To exploit and develop the hydropower potential of the river basins of Africa;
• To integrate transmission grids and gas pipelines so as to facilitate cross-border energy flows;
• To reform and harmonise petroleum regulations and legislation on the continent.
  

Actions

• Establish an African Forum for Utility Regulation and establish regional regulatory associations;
• Establish a task force to recommend priorities and implementation strategies for regional projects, including hydropower generation, transmission grids and gas pipelines;

Bridging the infrastructure Gap: Water And Sanitation

Objectives

• To ensure sustainable access to safe and adequate clean water supply and sanitation, especially for the poor;
• To plan and manage water resources to become a basis for national and regional cooperation and development;
• To systematically address and sustain ecosystems, biodiversity and wildlife;
• To cooperate on shared rivers among member states;
• To effectively address the threat of climate change;
• To ensure enhanced irrigation and rainfed agriculture to improve agricultural production and food security.

Actions

• Accelerate work on multipurpose water resource projects, e.g. the SADC Water Secretariat’s investigation of the utilisation of the Congo River, and the Nile Basin Initiative;
• Establish a task team to make plans for mitigating the negative impact of climate change in Africa;
• Collaborate with the Global Environmental Sanitation Initiative (GESI) in promoting sanitary waste disposal methods and projects;
• Support the UN Habitat programme on water conservation in African cities