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Research ICT Africa!
Africa has
long needed a comprehensive, continent-wide knowledge bank to help African
governments and others make informed decisions about information society
policies. Research ICT Africa! seeks to fill a strategic gap in the
development of a sustainable information society and knowledge economy on
the African continent. Through a network of African researchers, it will
generate the information and analysis needed to inform appropriate but
visionary policy formulation and effective regulation of information and
communication technologies (ICTs) across Africa.
Despite
the dramatic developments that have taken place in ICT across the continent
over the past decade – including the exponential growth of mobile telephony
and entry of Internet into every African country – there is little
understanding of what has been successful and why. Many of the developments
have happened despite policy decisions and regulatory frameworks rather than
because of them, rendering the gains vulnerable and not always replicable.
Quality research plays a critical role in strengthening the political
processes that lead to effective policy-making in the public interest.
All
research conducted will be in the public domain, incrementally creating a
repository of information for African policy makers, regulators, researchers
and the media, stimulating debate and innovative solutions. At present
research in this field is limited, fragmented and typically undertaken as
isolated and disconnected projects.
Research
ICT Africa! will be housed at the LINK Centre at the Graduate School of
Public and Development Management, Witwatersrand University in Johannesburg.
Launched in 2003 with funding from the
International
Development Research Centre (IDRC), the Africa wide initiative builds on the
multiple funded national research programme run from the Centre.
Specifically, the project will:
·
Set up a network
web site with a range of online tools and features to support research,
providing access to research materials, promoting communication exchanges
among the various centres in support of the research, and facilitating
dissemination of research results;
·
hold periodic
seminars, workshops and conferences, both face-to-face and electronic, and
ensure both e- and print publication of results;
·
improve
interaction between African centres and a range of leading research centres
and networks in other continents, specifically through the inclusion of LINK
into the international network of universities doing research for thee
infoDev initiated and ITU supported World Dialogue on Regulation for
Network Economies project; and
·
allow for the
development of Africa’s first Masters and PhD programmes in this field at
LINK Centre, as a foundation for similar developments at other universities.
Research
ICT Africa! builds on the gains made by the IDRC sponsored African Research
for Information Society Emergence (ARISE) project. The resulting research
agenda is broadly concerned with what human capital is needed to stimulate
the flow of financial capital in developing markets, especially what is
required for network expansion and specifically to create social capital for
development. |
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