This came out of the ongoing Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Africa conference in Harare this week.
African countries have seen decades of imposed structural adjustment policies that have failed to raise industrialisation levels on the continent.
In view of the 2007 global financial crunch, whose effects are still being felt today.
There is widespread dissatisfaction with the outcomes of extensively liberalised markets.
Zimbabwe Open University Pro Vice Chancellor Professor Gabriel Kabanda noted a disparity between foreign-initiated development schemes and the requirements of the emerging markets, and instead proposed local initiatives based on appropriate technologies.
'Many donor-driven initiatives that excluded both policy-formulation frameworks and sustainable capacity building have not brought meaningful development in these African countries.
The Government policies, donor interest and community development needs are totally divergent with respect to priority areas for development. 'Africa needs to break the under-development, poverty and illiterate cycles in the long term and exploit the vast resources available to create wealth.
Extensive investment in technology and human capital development as a vehicle to exploit the vast mineral and natural resources has not been given sufficient attention.
'ICTs provide increased access to market information and reduce transaction costs for poor farmers and traders; generally they function to create employment and increase wealth,' he said.
The effects of failed structural adjustment programmes in the region have been worsened by market liberalisation and privatisation in respect of the wider commodity sector, which have not resulted in the stabilisation of international commodity prices.
To this extent, commodity-dependent economies such as most countries in the Sub Saharan African region have been continually exposed to external shocks resulting from price shifts in the global commodity markets.
This is well exemplified by the food price rise-induced riots that were witnessed in Mozambique recently.
In Zimbabwe, the bakery industry responded to the increase in international wheat prices, by increasing the cost of bread by 10 percent.
Alternatively ICT-driven macro-economic policies can be more effective as ICTs are essential contemporary development tools insofar as they facilitate the horizontal coordination of activities, knowledge building and the enhancement of institutional capacities.
However, most African Governments have lagged behind in the utilisation and promotion of ICTs. For instance, Zimbabwe is only beginning to play a greater role in technology utilisation. The country's Ministry of Information and Communication Technology is currently in the process of implementing its four-year ICT strategic plan aimed at developing an e-governance platform, communication portals, digital archives and community ICT centers among other drives, aimed at enhancing its ICT standing.
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Quelle/Source: The Southern Times, 17.09.2010
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