CRI听力: Fourteenth AU Summit to Discuss ICT Development in Africa

Heads of state or government from 53 member countries of the African Union will meet in Addis Ababa, capital of Ethiopia, on Sunday for a three-day summit to discuss the challenges and prospects of developing information and communication technologies, ICT, in Africa.



The African leaders at the 14th African Union Summit will map out a plan for improving the investment environment to attract more investors from around the world to invest in the ICT sector.

CRI correspondent Wei Tong reports from Addis Ababa.


A report issued by the African Union indicates the fast development of ICT within Africa. It says the number of mobile phone users in Africa has increased from zero to 400 million in the past 10 years. (www.hxen.net)

Aboubakari Baba-Moussa, Director of Infrastructure and Energy at the AU Commission, says ICT development has sped up Africa's modernization process.

"ICT is our high priority, which will speed up our modernization and the development of the crossover sector, education, health, social and economic development. If we do not have ICT infrastructure, (we) cannot communicate. It is why in terms of communication, in terms of health, in terms of education, you cannot do anything if you do not have a very efficient ICT infrastructure. Now we want Africa to jump into ICT development to allow us to speed up our development."

Philippe Dongier, Sector Manager of Global Information Technologies at the World Bank, warns the biggest obstacle for ICT development in Africa is the lack of funds.

Now the World Bank is offering a great amount of financial support for Africa to improve its ICT system.

"Two years ago, the Board of the World Bank approved a loan of 400 million dollars for the development of infrastructure—high-speed internet backbone infrastructure across the countries of eastern and southern Africa. We have a similar program of 200 million dollars in central Africa, and we are preparing one in western African as well. So the World Bank is working with governments to invest in the backbone infrastructure together with the private sector. It is very important that it can be done together with the private sector, because a lot of the telecom networks here have been put in place by the private sector."

Aboubakari Baba-Moussa, Director of Infrastructure and Energy at the AU Commission, says the number of netizens in Africa still accounts for a small percentage of the entire population.

Internet access and data transmission are slower here on average than in other parts of the world. Only one in a thousand Africans uses broadband—the same as in Europe in 2000.

Moussa says he hopes China, which has seen rapid growth in ICT, can contribute more to ICT development in Africa.

"Since the issue of ICT needs a lot of technical and financial resources, we want to bring in China through its kind assistance in terms of bringing in the China Investment Bank, for example, into the development of ICT infrastructure in Africa. The second (area) is capacity building (and) training experts. We need to have resources to know how the Chinese work. We African countries also want to know how to work."

Wei Tong, CRI News, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.