I. Introduction

Three major development goals that have been articulated by African leaders in recent times include:

1. improvement of the quality of life for every African;
2. economic integration of the region;
3. improved trade and other linkages with the global community.

Utilization of information technology can help Africa reach all these goals.

 The emerging global information infrastructure (GII), the process of making connectivity available to everyone on the planet, is making the following possible:

1. students study and research using computers, multimedia and networks;
2. doctors diagnose, aided by information accessed through global networks;
3. decision support systems for debt management help cut external debt by up to 50 percent; drought and famine warnings arrive in time to change planting times;
4. businesses compete more effectively with timely and accurate market information;
5. transport costs are reduced, also resulting in less pollution;
6. cultural heritage is captured electronically, documented and globally disseminated.

 The global movement to an information age and the world-wide technological innovations of recent years, along with other structural and economic developments, have led to rapidly falling costs for information and communication technologies. These have combined with changes facing global and national telecommunications regimes to present a clear window of opportunity for appropriate 'leapfrog' strategies to accelerate the development of the continent. The creation of African Information Infrastructure (AII) is both a necessity and an opportunity to accelerate development in all spheres of African economic and social activity.

The development of the AISI will enable African leaders, decision makers and planners to position Africa in the world's rapidly expanding global economic system and accelerate the pursuit of Africa's development goals. The new technologies offer the potential to create jobs at much lower levels of capital investment and exploit Africa's information resources without the need for corresponding financial wealth. The cost of entry into global markets is becoming virtually insignificant and exploiting the information economy consumes minimal resources other than the effort and ingenuity of its members.

Africa has great potential to 'leapfrog' development stages. The current investment in older communications equipment in Africa is relatively small, and the vested interests in existing infrastructure in the information area much lower than in the developed world. With the will and the vision to build upon the accumulated lessons both inside and outside Africa, there is an excellent opportunity for a real jump-start. A high level commitment from leaders of African nations is a starting point. A strategy to share this vision by the people of Africa, including its politicians, engineers, business community and youth, is essential to bring about the desired change. Africa's young population is an asset in adapting to new ideas and ways of working with new information and communication tools.

The development of the African information infrastructure will provide the seedbed for numerous benefits. Aside from the clearly apparent advantages for economic integration, and for all forms of commerce and education, global information infrastructure will provide African countries with many new low cost opportunities to disseminate alternative cultural, news and entertainment programming and help counter the flood of information from the industrialized countries. With minimal communications costs, there is also the opportunity to develop information technology products for markets in the developed countries.

 Information and communication technologies also offers the potential to reduce the need for migration to the cities. The information age can break the link between jobs and urbanization - some 70-80% of the African population live in rural areas. The challenge is to create the conditions that enable them to make a living where they are.

 Information and communication technologies can no longer be seen as a luxury for the elite but as an absolute necessity for the masses. Even although non-literate and rural populations may not be able to make direct use of the African information infrastructure in the near future, the positive spin-offs to the country as a whole will still result in benefits for all sectors of society. And while the immediate returns of investment in information and communication technologies may not be readily apparent to hard pressed administrations concerned with squeezing the most from limited resources, the long-term positive impacts of a proactive strategy cannot be ignored.

While the press has recently highlighted some of the potential negative impacts of the Internet through, for example, its capacity to distribute pornography and undermine data security, these problems are generally recognized as transitory. Addressing these issues requires society to develop a better understanding of the new means of interaction offered by the global information infrastructure. Nevertheless, the disadvantages are far outweighed by the potential benefits of a pervasive information infrastructure. While effective controls must of course be put in place, some have likened these concerns to those over the ability of high speed transport systems to carry criminals quickly away from the scene of a crime.

12. Success in all these areas depends on decision makers taking quick action to eliminate the barriers and create the enabling environment which will allow the development of Africa's information society - a term used to refer to the pervasive benefits to all Africans of proactive policies on information and communication technologies.

13. This document outlines a vision and an action plan for an African Information Society Initiative (AISI) which proposes a framework for societal transformation to be used by decision makers in African governments responsible for socio-economic planning. It is also complementary to the telecommunications policy guidelines developed for the African ministers of transport and communications, known as the "African Green Paper".

A. Vision

14. The African Information Society Initiative aims at supporting and accelerating socioeconomic development across the region. Driven by critical development imperatives, it focuses on priority strategies, programmes and projects which can assist in the sustainable build up of an Information Society in African countries in accordance with the regional integration goals of the Treaty establishing the African Economic Community which foresaw the necessity of information networks and of regional data bases, information sources and skills capacities.

15. By the year 2010, the Initiative is intended to realize a sustainable information society in Africa where:

1. Information and decision support systems are used to support decision making in all the major sectors of the economy in line with each country's national development priorities;
2. Every man and woman, school child, village, government office and business can access information and knowledge resources through computers and telecommunications;
3. Access is available to international, regional and national "information highways", providing "off-ramps" in the villages and in the information area catering specifically to grassroots society;
4. A vibrant business sector exhibits strong leadership capable of forging the build up of the Information Society;
5. African information resources are available which reflect the needs of government, business, culture, education, tourism, energy, health, transport and natural resource management;
6. Information and knowledge are disseminated and used by business, the public at large and disenfranchised groups such as women and the poor, in particular, to make rational choices in the economy (free markets) and for all groups to exercise democratic and human rights, (freedom of speech, and freedom of cultural and religious expression).

B. Strategic objectives

16. To achieve the vision outlined above, African member States will need to:

1. Ensure the continuous flow of information within the society by supporting initiatives to improve and create new information and communication services in different sectors of the society - education, health, employment, culture, environment, trade, finance, tourism, transport and commerce;
2. Create a continent-wide information and telecommunication network that allows low cost and reliable communication with other users in Africa and across the globe;
3. Achieve maximum benefits from available information by encouraging the development of systems that allow wide dissemination to individuals, business communities, NGOs and the public sector;
4. Foster a new generation of men and women in Africa that uses information and communication technologies to leverage the development of their nations;
5. Link Africa with the rest of the world by improving the flow of new technologies in both directions and exporting intellectual products and services to the rest of the world.

 C. Related Goals

17. To achieve the strategic objectives of the African Information Society Initiative, each member State will need to consider ways of making the following actions an integral part of national plans and programmes:

1. Develop a master plan for building national information and telecommunication infrastructures and a 2-5 year plan for the implementation of the basic infrastructure;
2. Establish a strong regulatory body, independent from telecommunications operators and their ministries, to stimulate and regulate public/private sector partnerships, with a view to safeguarding the goal of "universal service" and to review fiscal policies (such as tariffs, duties and license fees);
3. Eliminate or drastically reduce import tariffs, taxes and other legal barriers to the use of information and communication technologies;
4. Establish an enabling environment to foster the development of information and communication in society, including measures which energise the private sector to play a leading market role in the provision of services, and in the human resource development needed to effectively use them;
5. Implement a policy for using information and communication technology in government services and develop national databases in all key sectors of the economy and national administration;
6. Conduct needs' analysis to determine requirements and set up information and communication services in key sectors of national priority, especially education, health, employment, culture, environment, trade, finance, tourism and transport;
7. Identify and develop information technology applications in areas with highest impact on socio-economic development at the national level;
8. Take immediate steps to facilitate the establishment of locally-based, low-cost and widely accessible Internet services and indigenous African information content;
9. Prepare and adopt plans to develop human resources in information and communication technologies;
10. Adopt policies and strategies to increase access to information and communications facilities, with priorities in serving the rural areas, grassroots society and other disenfranchised groups, in particular, women and youth;
11. Make special efforts to create awareness among those unfamiliar with the potential benefits of the African information infrastructure with particular attention to gender equity.

18. Together, member States will need to develop a coordinating mechanism to ensure successful implementation of the African Initiative to maximize complementarity, share lessons learned and reduce duplication of activities.