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FREE US TO TALK!
Telecom liberalisation tops list of
priorities at Southern African Internet Forum
By Matthew White
Acacia Staff Writer
The
Southern African Internet Forum (SAIF) has identified telecom
liberalisation as the starting point for improving internet access in Africa.
The forum at Kwa Maritane, Pilanesberg, came the day
before the IDRC Acacia
Conference, which gets under
way today.
The forum aimed to establish groups to lobby African governments
to free up telecoms for the people.
Forum
co-organiser Russell Southwood of the UK-based Balancing Act said liberalisation
“received more than a quarter of the total vote”. Southwood, who also chaired
the forum, said more than 60 delegates from 16 countries took part in the
debate, at the end of which they were invited to cast their votes on the most
pressing issues.
He said that
apart from throwing open telecom markets,
two other items on the menu included setting up user-interest bodies, and
building research networks, capacity and data resources, particularly on ICT-related
matters.
"Our purpose
is to reinforce the efforts of AfrISPA (the pan-African umbrella body for
national internet service provider associations) to work together to establish
effective lobbying groups to achieve common objectives throughout Southern
Africa," said
the other SAIF
co-organiser Sean Moroney of AITEC Africa.
"With the
exception of South Africa and Kenya, professional organisations in Southern
Africa have not been effective in lobbying their governments," he said, pointing
out that 13 more issues were also raised at the three-day forum, which took the
form of an open debate.
The
organiser said revenue-sharing between telecoms and ISPs, affordable broadband,
efficient interconnection within regions and between countries and raising
awareness of users were just a few topics that were trashed out.
AfrISPA has
only nine members: Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Ghana, Kenya,
Mauritius, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda.
Many of the 53
African countries have no such associations, said AfrISPA’s Kenyan
representative Brian Longwe.
Longwe noted
that insufficient participation in internet initiatives was still rampant in
Southern Africa.
Moroney said
the key objective of the forum was to help create a shared strategic agenda
between private enterprise, regulators and civil society to tackle current
obstacles to internet growth in Africa.
He told
Acacia WebTimes that feedback from delegates to SAIF had been positive and a
decision had already been taken to repeat the event next year.
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EXHIBITOR'S CORNER
MOBILE SIMPUTER TO BRIDGE THE DIGITAL DIVIDE
Dhiren Dedhia (left), regional manager for Africa
Digital Bridges, explains how a hand-held mobile low-cost computer, developed in
India, bridges the digital divide between Western countries and the rest of the
world. The Simputer, a relatively low-cost device, can be applied in health
care, education, e-governance and business. A smart is used for identification
in rural and micro-banking. The device runs off a USB port with internet and
audio connections. It has a local language text-to-speech feature and runs on
the open source Linux operating system.
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