IfG.CC - The Institute for eGovernment

Data protection law has been gaining ground in Africa over the past 20 years. Today, out of 54 countries, 25 have passed data protection laws, the latest countries being Uganda, Nigeria and Egypt. Other countries have introduced data protection bills which are under discussion or waiting to be on the legislative agenda.

This is according to ICT ministers and policy makers from the continent who met recently at the 2nd AfICTA (Africa Information & Communication Technologies Alliance) Summit in Egypt.

The event was a joint initiative by AfICTA and local host association member EITESAL or Egypt Information Telecommunications, Electronics, and Software Alliance.

With the exception of South Africa and Botswana, governments willing to commit significant resources to ICT is a relatively recent trend in sub-Saharan Africa. In 2010 Kenya completed the East African Marine System (TEAMS) undersea fibre optic cable project which increased East African broadband and led to the establishment of Kenya's Information and Communication Technology Authority.

Throughout Africa's shift away from economic disconnection to technological advancement and integration with the global economy Rwanda has come a long way since the 1990s. The Rwandan government has placed becoming a technology hub at the centre of the country's national priorities.

Information and communication technology is driving the new “knowledge-based” economy in the developed and developing world. However, internet access remains comparatively low in Africa, with internet penetration at 20% for the continent.

There’s free Facebook, mobile banking, and the promise of cashless societies and digitised land records. And from Accra in the west to Kigali in the east, a spray of “tech hubs” talk about “leapfrogging” technology and incubating start-ups.

The second half of the fourth annual African Smart Cities Summit was met with much enthusiasm. Attendees seemed to be enjoying the virtual nature of the summit, this being the first time that it has been run fully digitally. The first half of the day proved to be full of interesting insights, initiatives, and hopeful discussions about Africa’s slow but inexorable march towards digital transformation and smart cities.

The third session on smart mobility for sustainability started with the chairman, Founder of the Mobility Centre for Africa and Mzansi Aerospace Technologies, Victor Radebe, warmly introducing the first speaker, Sasheen Rajkumar the Project Engineer at The South African National Roads Agency (SANRAL). He would be talking about road development for smarter infrastructure. This discussion would include the challenges and opportunities associated with transport systems and operations, infrastructure, and logistics management in support of industrial and sustainable development.

Senegal is set to become the first African country to replicate the Chinese model of implementing local domestic servers and data centres, a move aimed at strengthening the country’s digital sovereignty.

In late June Senegal announced plans to move all of its government data and digital platforms to a new national data centre. The restructuring of the centre will cost €70m and will be funded by a loan from the Chinese government. Chinese technology company Huawei will be providing material support.

Ekeh told THISDAY that there was an urgent need to arrest the restiveness of unemployed youths in Africa, but that such empowerment must begin with the provision of ICT tools in order to be sustainable.

He urged the Heads of State of the African Union meeting in Malabo Equatorial Guinea to look beyond fiscal credit as means of empowerment and set in place policies designed to achieve the ownership of ICT products like PCs, printers, and internet access for the majority of African youths.

Today, the question isn't whether or not to migrate to the cloud – it is more a case of how economies should be managed to leverage the maturity of this resource and truly benefit from efficiency.

This is according to Antònio Nunes, CEO of Angolan multinational telecommunications services provider Angola Cables.

Q: Tell us more about Cisco's "Internet of things, internet of everything," in the context of infrastructural challenges in the emerging markets you operate in?

What in the world is “meHealth”?

It’s the combination of mHealth and e-health technologies and services to give personalized health support to anyone in the health system, whether patients, nurses, doctors, community health workers, administrations, or anywhere in between. In the simplest terms, meHealth is about communicating information within a health care system to improve desirable health outcomes.

A WHO statement on the research, made available to PANA in Lagos, Nigeria, Friday, said scientists carrying out research in Zambia found that the turnaround times for delivering a diagnosis via SMS (Short Message Service) were almost twice as fast compared to traditional postal methods.

The study found that average time for a result notification from a testing lab to a health facility fell from 44.2 days to 26.7 days.

Rwanda’s Minister of Agriculture and Animal Resources, Dr. Agnes Matilda Kalibata, told the conference, which was organised by the Centre for Technical Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA) together with her ministry, that ICTs are “low-hanging fruit for poverty reduction.” And CTA Director Michael Hailu described the benefits that are beginning to flow from the increased use of ICTs for agriculture as “one of the great opportunities of our times”.

President Paul Kagame of Rwanda set the tone at the outset, saying, "Investment and trade -- as opposed to aid and charity -- must drive the transformation of our economies." He called for a dynamic ICT sector to connect Africa to the global information superhighway. "In order to realize this much-needed economic revolution, we have to forge productive relationships between government and business," said Kagam

Giving the closing remarks in Cape Town yesterday, SA communications minister Dina Pule said work was done to ensure the conference crafted a framework that will position Africa on a trajectory to sustainable development through technology.

The focus was also on the creation of a solid foundation for a truly connected future for Africa. “In this connected future, all of Africa's major cities, towns and villages will be connected to affordable Internet, thereby facilitating the continent's mass entry into the knowledge and information economy,” said Pule.

Making an international phone call or connecting to high-speed internet is beyond the reach of the average citizen of East and Southern African countries in part because the region is not connected to the global optical fiber broadband infrastructure. The ‘missing link’ explains why the region accounts for less than one percent of the world’s international bandwidth capacity.

The French Development Agency (AFD) is financing the creation of a network of cities in Africa around the challenges of "smart city". It has entrusted the National Agency for Urban Renewal (dubbed ANRU in French) with the implementation of this project, which will benefit 12 African cities across the continent. A referent expert is being recruited.

What can be done to advance thinking on smart city in Africa? The French Development Agency (AFD), mobilised on the issue of digital transition for urban development, has decided to finance the creation of a network of African cities around the challenges of smart cities, called ASToN (African Smart Towns Network). The bank has called on the National Agency for Urban Renewal (ANRU) to implement this project. This French establishment, located in Paris, is also responsible for managing the European URBACT programme in Europe, whose method it will use here.

Global research firm Informa Telecoms & Media said last week a fifth of internet traffic in Africa would be carried by cellular networks by 2015, compared with a global equivalent of just 3%.

Infrastructure investment in high speed third-generation networks has soared in recent years, making mobile operators the main providers of internet services in Africa.

Gordon Greylish, VP, Sales and Marketing Group General Manager, Governments and World Ahead Division, Intel, discusses how embracing the 3rd industrial revolution will assist in addressing issues like diversifying economies and improving efficiency.

One interesting theme took centre stage during panel discussions at the recently concluded World Economic Forum on Africa in Rwanda; that what the continent needs as much as roads, dams, power plants (although there is still more development required) is a way to embrace technology and infuse digital transformation in all sectors.

The Vice President said Ghana has initiated a number of policies and programmes to meet the achievement of this goal. He outlined the ICT for accelerated development policy, ICT education, strategic document and the establishment of Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence. He said the developing World should brace themselves to challenge the brain drain.