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Bamako
2002 Conference
WORLD
SUMMIT ON THE INFORMATION SOCIETY
AFRICA
REGIONAL CONFERENCE
(Bamako
28-30 May 2002)
The Africa Regional
Meeting Preparatory to the World Summit on the Information Society was
held at the Palais des Congrès in Bamako, Republic of Mali from
28 to 30 May 2002. Participating in the Conference were representatives
of 51 African countries, delegates from many other countries and people
representing African and global organizations, the private sector and
civil society.
Opening statements
were made by His Excellency Mr Alpha Oumar Konare, President of the Republic
of Mali and by His Excellency Mr. Abdoulaye Wade, President of the Republic
of Senegal and current Chairman of ECOWAS.
A welcome statement
from Mr Kofi Annan, Secretary General of the United Nations was read on
his behalf by Ms. Karima Bounemra Ben Soltane of ECA.
Opening statements
were also made by
- Mr. Yoshio Utsumi,
Secretary General of ITU
- Mr. Boutros Boutros-Ghali,
Secretary General of the Agence internationale de la francophonie
- Mr. A W Khan, Deputy
Director General of UNESCO
- Mr. Carlos Trojan,
Ambassador of the European Commission in Geneva
- Mr. Gerard Dega,
CEO of Alcatel France
- Mr. Noah Samara,
CEO of WorldSpace and
- Mr. Amadou Top,
CEO of OSIRIS Anais Network, representing civil society organizations
Closing statement
were also made by:
- Mr. Walter Fust,
Director, Swiss Cooperation and Representative of GKP
- Mr. G.O. Segond,
Special Ambassador of the World Summit
- Mr. Ahmed Mahjoub,
State Secretary, Special Representative of Tunisia
The Conference elected
Mali as Chair, together with a bureau composed of five government officials
representing five African states (Senegal, Tunisia, Cameroon, South Africa
and Rwanda), three representatives of civil society, two representatives
of the private sector and a General Rapporteur (ECA).
Following the opening
ceremony, Head of delegations from African countries and regional institutions,
including the African Development Bank (ADB) made official statements.
The following 14 preconference
workshops and other activities were organised on 25, 26 and 27 May 2002:
· Local initiatives
· NICI strategies,
· African languages and internet
· Media and ICT forum
· Gender and ICTs
· Cultural diversity and knowledge ownership
· African NGO consultation
· Review and appraisal of ICT impact: Scan-ICT Project
· Private sector forum
· Free software: the stakes for Africa
· Law and the Web
· Local communities and ICTs
· Training of Least Developed Countries (LDCs) for their participation
in WSIS activities
· The National strategy of Mali
The Africa Regional
Conference organised 4 workshops and a round table, namely:
· What the
Information Society brings to Africa;
· What Africa brings to the Information Society;
· What Africa wants to preserve in the Information Society;
· How Africa can benefit from the Information Society: Round
Table on the digital divide;
· Round Table on Africa's image in the media.
The reports of these
preconference activities, the four workshops and Round Table are attached
and complement the present Declaration.
On the basis of the
outcome of the workshops and plenary discussions, the Africa Regional
Conference adopts the following Declaration:
We, participants in
the Africa Regional Conference, representing African Governments, the
private sector and civil society organizations meeting in Bamako, Republic
of Mali from 28 to 30 May 2002 in the presence of many invited government
representatives and observers from international, governmental and non
governmental organizations, do solemnly affirm that:
· The Global
Information Society should address the interests of all nations, most
particularly, the interests of the developing countries;
· The creation
of local content should be accorded high priority;
· Communication,
forming as it does the basis of individual and societal existence, should
be managed in a manner that secures the fair, balanced and harmonious
development of all the people of the world with particular attention
to the needs and aspirations of the most disadvantaged in society and
those of African people in particular;
· All partners,
public, private sector and civil society organizations, more specifically
small and medium size enterprises, have a stake in the development of
communications and should be fully involved in decision making at the
local, national, regional and international levels;
· As a matter
of vital necessity, global and regional available resources should be
pooled in order to extend the benefits of ICTs to all inhabitants of
the world.
In this connection,
the representatives of African governments, civil society and the private
sector, having noted the potential of ICTs to be harnessed for African
development, maintain that the following principles should guide all the
thinking, which goes into articulating a common vision of the information
society. These principles are of particular importance to the developing
countries, especially the African countries.
1. All citizens should
be provided with the means of using ICT networks as a public service;
2. Every citizen should
be guaranteed freedom of expression and protected access to information
in the worldwide public domain as part of their inalienable right to freely
accessing the information constituting the heritage of man kind which
is disseminated in all media including new multimedia systems;
3. Technology supply
should be diversified through:
· The removal of regulatory, political and financial obstacles
to the development of communication facilities and tools so as to meet
the specific needs of citizens in all circumstances;
· The implementation
of an operational plan of action geared to the cultural and linguistic
specificities of all countries, in particular those in Africa;
· The development
of data bases on experiences concerning the introduction of new technologies
that address the needs of rural areas and their capacity to pay;
· The promotion
of open source software packages that extend the life of investment
and user training. Because they are provided free of charge, implementation
of open source software programmes is done with minimum cost;
· The use
of voice and touch screen applications that enable a greater number
of people to participate in the information society.
4. Investment and
funding strategies should be pursued through assistance with content creation
and democratisation of access with particular emphasis to women and the
youth;
5. Multilingualism
should be promoted and cultural diversity maintained as the driving force
for the process of developing content for local and international use;
6. The full participation
of the civil society and the private sector should be elicited at all
levels of local, national, regional and international decision making
related to the information society. These should be pursued by:
· Forging
new forms of partnership based on complementarities among the various
categories of public, private sector and civil society stakeholders;
· Establishing
and/or strengthening at the local, national, regional and international
levels, institutions that will create greater coherence and achieve
better synergy in developing the information society.
7. Cooperation and
collaboration should be enhanced through:
· Networking
on best practices and experiences as a way of building the type of knowledge
needed for the harmonious development of new technologies;
· The development
of applications and content suited to local needs;
· The development
of training plans that familiarise people with new technologies, their
use and the legal framework of the information society;
· The strengthening
of decentralised cooperation as one way of leveraging the reduction
of the digital divide;
· The strengthening
of networks that can increase individual participation in local, national,
regional and international democracy.
8. Institutional,
human and administrative capacity should be strengthened at the local,
national, regional and international levels in order to achieve greater
complementarities among all initiatives being taken to build the information
society.
9. Democratic debate
should be instituted on the new institutional and regulatory arrangements
being made to define the social, cultural, economic, technical and ethical
challenges posed by the new information and communication technologies.
10. All these principles
and plans of action should be pursued within competent institutions so
that the building of information society can be managed with the full
participation of all the relevant stakeholders.
In this context, the
Africa Regional Conference reiterates its full support for those global
initiatives that have been adopted at the global as well as regional and
continental levels.
It particularly requests
the international community to give its full support to the African Information
Society Initiative (AISI), the recommendations of the African Development
Forum (ADF '99) and the ICT component of the New Partnership for Africa's
Development (NEPAD). In this connection, the ICT programme of NEPAD should
federate all the ICT initiatives of the continent and mobilize resources
for funding of the major African projects.
It further requests
that the various networks and foundations working to promote the use of
new information and communication technologies and to narrow the digital
divide, especially the Global Knowledge Partnership and the ANAIS network
be given the support and resources they need.
In view of the preparations
for the World Summit on the Information Society, the Africa Regional Conference
of Bamako has considered :
A. What the information
society could bring to Africa:
In that context, the
Africa Regional Conference requests that:
· Africa
should benefit, in the framework of NEPAD from the immediate, massive
and coordinated mobilisation of all the development partners to provide
such financing as would guarantee public service, universal access and
content creation that address the essential needs of the people of Africa;
· The establishment
before the second Prepcom meeting of the Geneva Summit of:
a) a training fund
that would familiarise participants with all the issues concerning the
development of the information society;
b) a "high level
scientific committee" that will make recommendations to the second
Prepcom meeting about the challenges facing the information society particularly
when it comes to developing countries, especially those in Africa;
c) an information
and advisory structure that would facilitate the participation of African
civil society organisations and SMEs in the preparation of the World Summit;
d) a solidarity fund
to secure the full and effective participation of African civil society
organisations and SMEs in the preparatory process.
· The study
and promotion of relevant solutions adapted to the environment for ICTs,
especially in the rural areas;
· The development
of solutions and the promotion of ICT initiatives to sustain local African
creativity;
· Establishment
of public access points and the creation of an African backbone using
innovative communication infrastructure;
· A set of
concrete proposals for ICT use in education and training in Africa should
be developed for submission to the second Prepcom meeting;
· The full
and effective involvement of civil society and local stakeholders in
developing new ICT applications should be secured;
· Pilot studies
should be promoted for replication at the local, national and regional
levels with the view to securing access to new ICTs at affordable cost,
particularly in the rural areas.
B. What Africa can
contribute to the information society
In this connection,
the Africa Regional Conference particularly requests that :
· The rich
cultural diversity of Africa should be showcased and widely disseminated
in cyberspace;
· Support
should be provided to the ICT activities of the African Language Academy;
· A special
fund should be set up for digitizing African archives and libraries
which form the cultural heritage of the continent and can be part of
Africa's contribution to the information society;
· Among other
things, African fora and seminars should be organised with the objective
of collecting and showcasing local experiences for the benefit of all
stakeholders;
· Systematically,
the specific features of Africa should be taken into account in international
decision making.
C. Narrowing the digital
divide
In this area, the
Africa Regional Conference :
· Is of the
opinion that narrowing the digital divide must go with the development
of telecommunication infrastructure suited to the need of African people
and citizens;
· Welcomes
the regional and global initiatives being taken to narrow the digital
divide particularly from ECA, ATU, ITU, the G8, the UN ICT Task Force,
UNDP, UNCTAD, the Francophony Agency, OECD, the World Bank, the Commonwealth
Telecommunication Organisation, bilateral and multilateral cooperation
agencies, NGOs and civil society organisations;
· Invites
the traditional partners of Africa to heighten the priority to narrowing
the digital divide in their development policy, particularly with the
European Union under the Cotonou Agreement;
· Invites
partners to study how best to optimize the cost of access to ICTs with
the view to identifying the rules for organising the international connectivity
market and the sharing of markets at the national level.
The Conference further
requests that:
a) African States
should:
- Contribute fully
to the preparations for both phases of WSIS, namely Geneva 2003 and
Tunis 2005;
- adopt policies
to stimulate the building of ICT infrastructure and providing universal
access particularly in rural and remote areas through innovative and
Africa-friendly solutions;
- fully involve
African civil society organisations in the formulation of the operational
strategy and implementation of the ICT component of NEPAD;
- remove duties
levied on ICT hardware and software until the second phase of WSIS takes
place in Tunis in 2005;
- formulate coherent
national and regional policies and strategies for ICTs development (taking
into account the multimedia convergence) which are likely to attract
private national and international investments;
- adopt the "African
charter" on radio broadcasting as a framework for the development
of policies and legislations regarding information technologies and
broadcasting in Africa;
- set up national
committees bringing together the three components of the information
society, namely the public sector, the private sector and civil society;
- actively involve
the youth in national and regional ICT activities;
- ensure better
gender balance in ICT use while instituting specific programmes that
address the need of women particularly those aimed at rural and disenfranchised
areas;
- recreate the "African
news exchange";
- establish a multilateral
African television network;
- invest in African
media content as well as new technologies;
- develop independent
production.
b) The World Summits
in Geneva and Tunis should, respectively:
- adopt in Geneva,
in December 2003 a plan of action for developing infrastructure suited
to the needs of people and citizens of developing countries, with particular
attention to African and other least developed countries (LDCs);
- adopt in Tunis,
in 2005 any other additional plan of action for narrowing the digital
gap that would address the needs of developing countries, particularly
those in Africa;
c) Bilateral and multilateral
funding agencies should:
- pay particular
attention to financing infrastructure facilities and content suited
to the needs of the people and citizens;
- pay particular
attention to the involvement of the representatives of the civil society
in all decisions relating to ICT development.
d) Development partners:
- pay particular
attention to human resources training and development, particularly
teachers and students so as to promote content and infrastructure development
with the view to facilitate the emergence of an African service industry
based on ICTs;
- contribute to
the forging of innovative and constructive partnerships among donors,
public authorities, the private sector and civil society in order to
develop ICTs and content and build the infrastructure.
e) Intergovernmental
and non-governmental organizations should:
- actively and effectively
promote and implement concrete projects in their respective areas of
competence so that African people and citizens can fully benefit from
ICTs;
- in particular:
· ECA should
continue to pursue the implementation of AISI in terms of the formulation
and implementation of National Information and Communication Infrastructure
(NICI) policies and strategies and the related sectoral plans;
· ITU should
pay particular attention to Africa in the implementation of Istanbul
declaration and plan of action on the digital divide by taking into
account those priority areas set out in the Yaounde Declaration;
· UNESCO
should mobilize all its national committees with the view to secure
the participation of all stakeholders, especially civil society organisations,
in the WSIS preparatory process by requesting them to submit proposals
that will help the preparatory process along;
· UNITAR
should mobilize its teams and partners to propose training plans in
consult with local stakeholders (within the context of the international
centre for training local stakeholders), associations, international
organizations and academic institutions in the member countries concerned;
· The Executive
Secretariat of WSIS should:
o take special care
to secure the participation of African civil society in the preparation
of the Summit by:
· keeping
all African NGOs permanently informed in their working languages of
progress made in the preparation of WSIS;
· securing the participation of civil society representative
in all the national, regional or global events leading up to World
Summit.
o make sure that
the bureau of the Africa Regional Conference is able to monitor all
the preparations leading to the Prepcom and the World Summit in close
collaboration with the bureau of the PrepCom.
D. Instituting new forms of cooperation
As a way of narrowing
the digital divide, participants in the Africa Regional Conference request
that the local initiatives and experiences of local authorities in the
more advanced countries should be shared with the local authorities of
African countries. For that to happen, the Africa Regional Conference
requests the competent bodies of local authority, particularly the World
Federation of Local Authorities and the International Union of Local Authorities
to commit all their members to developing decentralised forms of cooperation
that will narrow the digital divide.
In this regard, the
Africa Regional Conference welcomes the initiatives taken by the cities
of Lyon, Geneva, Bamako and Tunis to promote e-governance locally and
commends the Lyon initiative to organise the World Summit of Local Authorities
on the Information Society to be held before the Geneva Summit in 2003.
The Conference urges all bilateral and multilateral funding agencies and
private corporations to give this initiative their full support.
Noting the personal commitment of H.E. Mr. Alpha Oumar Konare, in promoting
the harnessing of ICTs for development, the Africa Regional Conference
requests President Konare to be so kind as to accept to preside over,
as Africa's candidate, under the aegis of NEPAD, the preparatory activities
leading to the Geneva Summit of 10-12 December 2003 and the Tunis Summit
of the year 2005.
The Africa Regional Conference expresses its appreciation for the support
extended by the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) and The Fondation
du Devenir to make this Regional Conference a success. It would like to
single out the Swiss authorities and the European Union Commission for
their financial contribution which proved crucial for the organisation
of this first Regional Conference in the WSIS preparatory process. Its
appreciation goes to the Telecommunication Development Bureau of ITU,
UNESCO, UNDP, UNITAR, the Agence internationale de la francophonie, the
World Bank, the GKP, USAID, France, Sweden and the Republic and Canton
of Geneva for their contribution.
Last but not least, the participants would like to express their appreciation
to the Malian Authorities for convening this Regional Conference and the
Secretariat of Bamako 2002 for organizing this event which has enabled
all African States, civil society organisations and businesses to plug
fully into the WSIS preparatory process (Geneva 2003, Tunis 2005).
Bamako,
30 May 2002
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