IfG.CC - The Potsdam eGovernment Competence Center

A blueprint for digital economies and MOUs signed with Inmarsat and French consultancy Tactis – some of the outcomes of the Transform Africa Summit 2019. The fifth iteration of the summit, arranged by Smart Africa – a coalition of African member states committing to harnessing ICT for socio-economic development – was held this week in Kigali, Rwanda, under the theme ‘Boosting Africa’s Digital Economy’.

The directors of influential technology companies in Africa – GVG and Accenture (now Verrakis in Nigeria) – also spoke this week on their views for Africa’s digitization.

City life in Africa is a unique case study. It’s one of those areas where we often see sky-high optimism among its observers in the face of outright chaos. You’d be curious how a researcher studies Africa and concludes that it will have the world’s largest cities by 2100. But there might be arguments to support that.

A paper claims the urban growth rate in Africa is the fastest globally. Others even project that Africa will be the only continent experiencing population growth by the end of this century, and 13 of the 20 largest urban areas will be in Africa. All these savoury forecasts are coming while the continent has only two cities on that list. And it’s okay to either believe them or not. But an interesting emerging pattern is that people are beginning to build new cities in Africa. Well, not just cities – ‘smart’ cities.

The communique is one of the outcomes of the ministerial round table held at the African Union Conference Centre in Addis Ababa during December’s 2013 African ICT Week.

With the dotAfrica initiative set to be launch in three months, the statement outlined certain issues, which include the need for the promotion of the dotAfrica gTLD at the national level to be undertaken by information-sharing, education and communication activities.

Despite she was not able to attend the African Union premises where the ITU event was hosted, she has sent the below message to the young girls and women of the audience.

Each partner state is investing heavily in fibre optic network to cover the capital city, key border posts with neighbours, provinces and districts. Rwanda, Uganda, Burundi and Tanzania cables cover more than 15,600 kilometres (km), according to official data from telecom regulators.

Rwanda has just completed a 2300km cable costing more than $60 million, which was collected from the sale of a mobile license. Korea Telecom (KT) was hired to layout the cable, according to the government.

This fiber system, which will cover more than 15,600 kilometers, will link Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi and will create the largest interconnected region on the continent. The network will stretch from South Sudan in the north to Tanzania's border with Zambia and Malawi in the south and the Democratic Republic of Congo in the west.

The terrestrial network, dubbed the East Africa Backhaul System, will connect to the submarine fiber-optic cables on the East Africa coast.

President Kikwete presented a vision of e-government, e-health and “e-everything” coming to East Africa.

Speaking during the just concluded Africa Growth Opportunity Act Forum in Kenya, the East African Business Council Executive Director, Mr Charles Mbogori, said e-government builds accountability by eliminating gate keepers and standardising service delivery.

Tendering is basically the process where a buying institution publishes its intention to purchase some goods from or engage the services of a suitable vendor, passes on the details of what it needs in terms of goods or services and invites sealed bids / offers in order to select the most competent and competitive bids.

Speaking at the just concluded AGOA forum in Nairobi, Kenya, (EABC) Executive Director, Charles Mbogori, cited e-government which he said builds accountability by standardizing service delivery.

The discussions were centred around minutes of an earlier meeting in Tanzania last year.

The Tanzania meeting identified customs and immigration control, e-parliament, e-health, e-banking and procurement as strategic areas to be tackled in the push for an economic community based on information knowledge.

The meeting, to be held in Kigali, Rwanda, will discuss the next phase of cyberlaw implementation in EAC partner States. Special attention will be given to issues of intellectual property rights, competition, e-taxation, and information security.

A privately-funded consortium, Seacom, commissioned its Sh59 billion ($760m) undersea cable in Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique, Uganda and South Africa with Rwanda set to be linked up in the next two weeks.

"This partnership holds the potential to produce significant and influential outcomes in tackling digital challenges and narrowing the digital divide across the African continent," Mr. Gatete remarked.

The United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) and Google LLC (Google) have signed a landmark Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to foster and accelerate digital transformation in Africa on the margins of the 2024 edition of the Africa Business Forum.

The brain drain of doctors and nurses moving North where health personnel is in short supply as well is aggravated by the many deaths of skilled personnel from communicable diseases. To make matters even worse, people live so remotely that even the most modern means of telecommunications are out of reach. This combination of diseases, health service shortages and poverty provides a hefty challenge for any kind of possible solution. But be it as it may, there is an urgent demand to train health workers, there is an urgent need for high-quality clinical services, and there is an urgent need for the collection and management of health information.

Mit einem neuen Untersee-Glasfaserkabel sind Ost- und Südafrika ab sofort mit höherer Bandbreite an globale Netzwerke angebunden. Über eine Länge von 17.000 Kilometern werden die Daten mit 1,28 Terabyte/s übertragen.

The eLearning Africa Report is an attempt to provide a 'snapshot' of how ICT and better connectivity are believed to be changing the face of education in Africa. It is based on a detailed survey of the experience of nearly 500 education professionals across Africa and will confirm that ICT-enhanced learning has been widely embraced throughout Africa.

Die Europäische Kommission will innerhalb eines Strukturförderprogramms für Afrika im Umfang von insgesamt 230 Mio. Euro auch den Zugang zum Internet in Ost- und Südafrika vorantreiben. Die Förderung in diesem Bereich beträgt 21 Mio. Euro. Regionale Informations- und Kommunikationsprogramme sollen zu einem breiteren Zugang zum Internet und zu höheren Einwahlgeschwindigkeiten führen, heißt es in einer Aussendung von heute, Donnerstag. Außerdem würden die nationalen Behörden bei der Erarbeitung von Strategien für die Informationstechnologien unterstützt.

Die Europäische Kommission will innerhalb eines Strukturförderprogramms für Afrika im Umfang von insgesamt 230 Mio. Euro auch den Zugang zum Internet in Ost- und Südafrika vorantreiben.