Date: 18/11/2003
Source: Ministry of Communications
Title: Matsepe-Casaburri: Universal Access & Service National Conference
OPENING ADDRESS BY THE MINISTER OF COMMUNICATIONS, DR IVY MATSEPE-CASABURRI, AT THE UNIVERSAL ACCESS AND SERVICE NATIONAL CONFERENCE, Johannesburg, 18 November 2003
Programme Director, Mr Vusi Ndlovu
Dr Sam Gulube, CEO of the Universal Service Agency
Acting Chair of the Universal Service Agency
Chairperson of Icasa
Mr Magashule MP
Members of the ICT industry
Distinguished Delegates
Ladies and Gentlemen:
It gives me great pleasure to welcome you to this important National Conference for Universal Access and Services in South Africa. We congratulate the Universal Service Agency (USA) for convening this gathering to generate public awareness about the mandate, the activities and programmes of the USA, as well as to engage the industry in a consultative process regarding the role of the USA and the needs of the information and communication technology (ICT) industry and of beneficiaries.
By bringing together policy makers, government information and communication technology managers, technology professionals, educators, entrepreneurs, ICT industry leaders, holders of telecommunication licences as well as community-based managers and operators of the telecentres in the under-serviced areas of South Africa, this conference should provide a unique opportunity for all these stakeholders to develop a better understanding of the transformation that results from rolling-out information and community technologies in the under-serviced areas and the ways in which this change needs to take place.
This conference is taking place at a very important time in the history of our country. It is taking place on the eve of the 10th anniversary of our democracy as we take stock of what we have accomplished over the last decade and of what we still need to do to create a better quality of life for all our people.
When I spoke at the recent African ICT Achievers Awards ten days ago, I reminded all present that at the meeting of the National Telecom Forum in 1993 hosted by the Centre for the Development of Information and Communications Technology, the issue of universal service and access was a subject of intense discussion because many argued that it ought to be an integral part of any new policy for South Africa. Today, as we generate awareness about the work of the USA, we are discussing the fruits of a process that began nearly ten years ago, recognising the enormous challenges that lie ahead.
We are also meeting at a time when technological advances are rapidly changing the way the world works and the pace at which it works. There are new platforms and broadband services; there is a multiplicity of applications that have resulted from the convergence of technologies - voice and data are no longer separate entities, but interconnected. This convergence is driving new services and products in the ICT arena and offers new possibilities for development. Nothing is constant but change itself.
Paradigm shifts are occurring, systems are becoming more interoperable, integration is no longer a swear word. But different paradigms for different challenges are imperative. Our task is to ensure that the benefits of convergence are brought to our people wherever they are - at home, at school or community facilities - so that more people have access to a variety of ICT services to improve their lives and build their capacity to use these services to their advantage. It is also about consolidating access to ICT facilities, finding appropriate solutions that enable our people to be part of the existing economy and making them economically and socially active.
This conference is also taking place at a time when world leaders are preparing to come together for the first time in a world summit specifically dedicated to the development of an information society. This historic meeting will take place next month in Geneva under the auspices of the United Nations and offers us an opportunity to put forward as part of our agenda - universal access of the world's people especially those in developing countries to ICT services. This includes affordability (funding), language, culture and infrastructure.
I have also just returned from a meeting of the Presidential International Advisory Council (PIAC) on Information Society and Development where a number of important issues were discussed that could impact on the information and communications sector as a whole. The application of ICTs in support of education and SMEs was under discussion as was the importance of placing communications infrastructure in hospitals and clinics so that ICT tools could be used more effectively in health delivery as well as the issues of availability to electricity infrastructure and shared services.
The government is of the view that the USA has a major role to play in the establishment and development of an information society in the under-served areas. Clearly, this involves not only the dissemination of information and knowledge to the under-serviced areas, but also building capacity for the utilisation of the information and communication technology by the under-serviced areas, enabling new ideas, developing skills and creating a new culture and proliferation of all these.
To bridge the digital and knowledge divide in the information society development in South Africa, we all need to strengthen our efforts in assisting the USA not only to build ICT capacity in the under-serviced areas but also to deal with the culture, as technology is only one piece of the puzzle. The agency should be part of the entities facilitating the integrated development programmes of our local government.
But we know ICT in South Africa can only become a powerful tool for social economic development in the under serviced areas if access is universal and affordable. This is why the theme of this conference "Development through universal digital access for all" is so important.
My ministry believes that USA is an essential asset to the government of South Africa as we seek to close the gap between the advanced and underdeveloped sectors of our economy - between the limitation of skills, poverty, understanding of our institutions, the markets and access to funds and services and opening opportunities. Our efforts in this sector are also about building the bridge between the two economies that both President Mbeki and Minister Trevor Manuel have spoken about recently. ICT access can assist us in our efforts to deracialise the economy and to build a new modern information economy through single access points and sharing of services to achieve massification.
The challenge that we face, as we put our heads together at this conference, is how to ensure that we do what do better than what we are doing now. The challenge is to develop strategies to improve the services delivered by community telecentres, the e-schools cyber labs and the effective utilisation of these telecentres for the delivery of multi-media services such as e-education, e-health, e-business development of SMMEs as well as co-operatives, e-government services and other socio economic development programmes. In other words, the way we think about ICTs and visualise what the future should look like, should take into cognisance the fact that through our interventions we ought to create the conditions for overall sustainable social and economic development.
In other words, universal access should also be understood as meeting a range of needs of a variety of professions and functions making up an integrated and well community and thus should not be a one-tracked approach.
But for the work of the agency to be assisted, it is going to be important for the conference to come up with strategies for human resources development and ICT capacity building in the under-serviced areas.
We would also welcome the contributions of delegates in what should be done to strengthen the existing regulatory framework including the Telecommunications Act to ensure that the mandate of the Universal Service Fund for ICT capacity building in the under-serviced areas as well as research and development of appropriate technologies for these areas is improved.
By focusing on the deployment of information and communication technology in the under-serviced areas, the USA is also playing an important role in making South Africa globally competitive in that these efforts create socio economic and professional opportunities for new markets and foreign investment.
We are encouraged by the efforts of the USA to subsidise the under-serviced area licensees for their acquisition and construction of communications infrastructure in the under-serviced areas. However, more work needs to be done in the broadband development for the under-serviced areas in South Africa so that the gap between the better-serviced areas and the under-serviced areas is closed.
Over the past two years the USA has spent most of its time on the restructuring of the Universal Service Fund and the agency to be consistent with the new extended mandate of the fund.
The evaluation of the various USA telecentres has demonstrated that there are success stories, but that there are also some weaknesses in improving universal access and universal service to ICT in the under-serviced areas. This evaluation has assisted the agency in developing a new strategy plan to meet the challenge of rolling-out ICT services in the under-serviced areas of South Africa.
The major problems facing the community telecentres deployed by the USA in the under-serviced areas are associated with the following factors:
* A number of telecentres are experiencing financial problems in rendering ICT services to clients in the under-serviced areas, who cannot afford to pay high costs of ICT services
* There is limited capacity to operate affordable and sustainable ICT facilities
* There is low utilisation of ICT services due to limited ICT training and skills.
Conference participants should help the agency in its effort to develop plans for making the telecentres in the under-serviced areas more affordable, accessible and sustainable. We appeal to all stakeholders to join the USA in forming collaboration and partnership projects for promotion of universal access and universal service to ICT.
These collaborative efforts should correlate with various government priorities such as the Integrated Sustainable Rural Development Programmes and fit into the various integrated development plans of the local governments.
I am reminded of the words of President Thabo Mbeki in his State of the Nation Address a few years ago when he said that:
"The rural areas of our country represent the worst concentrations of poverty. No progress can be made towards a life of human dignity for our people as a whole unless we ensure the development of these areas.
"The government is now in a position to implement a rural development programme for the integrated development of the rural areas.... The integration we seek must, for instance, ensure that when a clinic is built, there must be a road to access it. It must be electrified and supplied with water. It must have the requisite personnel, qualified to meet the health needs of the particular community. The safety and security of the personnel and material resources, which are part of the clinic, must be guaranteed.
"We must also establish the conditions, which give the possibility to any centre access ... point to radiate outwards as a point of reference with regard to the larger project of our self-definition as a people at work, building a better life for ourselves."
A great deal was done by government departments and agencies but in a fragmented way. We now need to add that the integration we seek as we develop our rural areas can also be enhanced through the use of ICTs. The same cables that are being laid to bring electricity to our rural areas should have the capacity to be used for ICT services. Furthermore, the clinic and the school and the local municipality offices, the traditional leaders' offices, the arts centre, the business incubators should all be linked through networks and computer access so that we have a truly integrated communications infrastructure and environment for the people of that community and to give them easier access to the rest of their province, the nation and the world.
With mobile phones to be combined with fixed lines, we should also envisage a situation whereby communities would be able to access the information they require through their telephones or even their television sets as the benefits of convergence are brought to ordinary people. What we need is better co-ordination and less fragmentation, more information giving and sharing.
Various government departments are already making progress in using ICTs for developmental purposes and establishing linkages - we have the telecentres of the Department of Communications and the USA, the multi-purpose community centres of the Government Communication and Information System, the e-government initiative of the Department of Public Service and Administration, the telemedicine initiative of the Department of Health and the e-schools initiative of the Department of Education - all of these can be brought together at local government level into an integrated delivery of systems.
With this in mind, I would like to urge you to come up with creative solutions so as to strengthen our efforts in reaching universal access. I wish you well with your deliberations and I look forward to seeing the results of these discussions.
I thank you.
Issued by: Ministry of Communications
18 November 2003
Source: Ministry of Communications
Title: Matsepe-Casaburri: Universal Access & Service National Conference
OPENING ADDRESS BY THE MINISTER OF COMMUNICATIONS, DR IVY MATSEPE-CASABURRI, AT THE UNIVERSAL ACCESS AND SERVICE NATIONAL CONFERENCE, Johannesburg, 18 November 2003
Programme Director, Mr Vusi Ndlovu
Dr Sam Gulube, CEO of the Universal Service Agency
Acting Chair of the Universal Service Agency
Chairperson of Icasa
Mr Magashule MP
Members of the ICT industry
Distinguished Delegates
Ladies and Gentlemen:
It gives me great pleasure to welcome you to this important National Conference for Universal Access and Services in South Africa. We congratulate the Universal Service Agency (USA) for convening this gathering to generate public awareness about the mandate, the activities and programmes of the USA, as well as to engage the industry in a consultative process regarding the role of the USA and the needs of the information and communication technology (ICT) industry and of beneficiaries.
By bringing together policy makers, government information and communication technology managers, technology professionals, educators, entrepreneurs, ICT industry leaders, holders of telecommunication licences as well as community-based managers and operators of the telecentres in the under-serviced areas of South Africa, this conference should provide a unique opportunity for all these stakeholders to develop a better understanding of the transformation that results from rolling-out information and community technologies in the under-serviced areas and the ways in which this change needs to take place.
This conference is taking place at a very important time in the history of our country. It is taking place on the eve of the 10th anniversary of our democracy as we take stock of what we have accomplished over the last decade and of what we still need to do to create a better quality of life for all our people.
When I spoke at the recent African ICT Achievers Awards ten days ago, I reminded all present that at the meeting of the National Telecom Forum in 1993 hosted by the Centre for the Development of Information and Communications Technology, the issue of universal service and access was a subject of intense discussion because many argued that it ought to be an integral part of any new policy for South Africa. Today, as we generate awareness about the work of the USA, we are discussing the fruits of a process that began nearly ten years ago, recognising the enormous challenges that lie ahead.
We are also meeting at a time when technological advances are rapidly changing the way the world works and the pace at which it works. There are new platforms and broadband services; there is a multiplicity of applications that have resulted from the convergence of technologies - voice and data are no longer separate entities, but interconnected. This convergence is driving new services and products in the ICT arena and offers new possibilities for development. Nothing is constant but change itself.
Paradigm shifts are occurring, systems are becoming more interoperable, integration is no longer a swear word. But different paradigms for different challenges are imperative. Our task is to ensure that the benefits of convergence are brought to our people wherever they are - at home, at school or community facilities - so that more people have access to a variety of ICT services to improve their lives and build their capacity to use these services to their advantage. It is also about consolidating access to ICT facilities, finding appropriate solutions that enable our people to be part of the existing economy and making them economically and socially active.
This conference is also taking place at a time when world leaders are preparing to come together for the first time in a world summit specifically dedicated to the development of an information society. This historic meeting will take place next month in Geneva under the auspices of the United Nations and offers us an opportunity to put forward as part of our agenda - universal access of the world's people especially those in developing countries to ICT services. This includes affordability (funding), language, culture and infrastructure.
I have also just returned from a meeting of the Presidential International Advisory Council (PIAC) on Information Society and Development where a number of important issues were discussed that could impact on the information and communications sector as a whole. The application of ICTs in support of education and SMEs was under discussion as was the importance of placing communications infrastructure in hospitals and clinics so that ICT tools could be used more effectively in health delivery as well as the issues of availability to electricity infrastructure and shared services.
The government is of the view that the USA has a major role to play in the establishment and development of an information society in the under-served areas. Clearly, this involves not only the dissemination of information and knowledge to the under-serviced areas, but also building capacity for the utilisation of the information and communication technology by the under-serviced areas, enabling new ideas, developing skills and creating a new culture and proliferation of all these.
To bridge the digital and knowledge divide in the information society development in South Africa, we all need to strengthen our efforts in assisting the USA not only to build ICT capacity in the under-serviced areas but also to deal with the culture, as technology is only one piece of the puzzle. The agency should be part of the entities facilitating the integrated development programmes of our local government.
But we know ICT in South Africa can only become a powerful tool for social economic development in the under serviced areas if access is universal and affordable. This is why the theme of this conference "Development through universal digital access for all" is so important.
My ministry believes that USA is an essential asset to the government of South Africa as we seek to close the gap between the advanced and underdeveloped sectors of our economy - between the limitation of skills, poverty, understanding of our institutions, the markets and access to funds and services and opening opportunities. Our efforts in this sector are also about building the bridge between the two economies that both President Mbeki and Minister Trevor Manuel have spoken about recently. ICT access can assist us in our efforts to deracialise the economy and to build a new modern information economy through single access points and sharing of services to achieve massification.
The challenge that we face, as we put our heads together at this conference, is how to ensure that we do what do better than what we are doing now. The challenge is to develop strategies to improve the services delivered by community telecentres, the e-schools cyber labs and the effective utilisation of these telecentres for the delivery of multi-media services such as e-education, e-health, e-business development of SMMEs as well as co-operatives, e-government services and other socio economic development programmes. In other words, the way we think about ICTs and visualise what the future should look like, should take into cognisance the fact that through our interventions we ought to create the conditions for overall sustainable social and economic development.
In other words, universal access should also be understood as meeting a range of needs of a variety of professions and functions making up an integrated and well community and thus should not be a one-tracked approach.
But for the work of the agency to be assisted, it is going to be important for the conference to come up with strategies for human resources development and ICT capacity building in the under-serviced areas.
We would also welcome the contributions of delegates in what should be done to strengthen the existing regulatory framework including the Telecommunications Act to ensure that the mandate of the Universal Service Fund for ICT capacity building in the under-serviced areas as well as research and development of appropriate technologies for these areas is improved.
By focusing on the deployment of information and communication technology in the under-serviced areas, the USA is also playing an important role in making South Africa globally competitive in that these efforts create socio economic and professional opportunities for new markets and foreign investment.
We are encouraged by the efforts of the USA to subsidise the under-serviced area licensees for their acquisition and construction of communications infrastructure in the under-serviced areas. However, more work needs to be done in the broadband development for the under-serviced areas in South Africa so that the gap between the better-serviced areas and the under-serviced areas is closed.
Over the past two years the USA has spent most of its time on the restructuring of the Universal Service Fund and the agency to be consistent with the new extended mandate of the fund.
The evaluation of the various USA telecentres has demonstrated that there are success stories, but that there are also some weaknesses in improving universal access and universal service to ICT in the under-serviced areas. This evaluation has assisted the agency in developing a new strategy plan to meet the challenge of rolling-out ICT services in the under-serviced areas of South Africa.
The major problems facing the community telecentres deployed by the USA in the under-serviced areas are associated with the following factors:
* A number of telecentres are experiencing financial problems in rendering ICT services to clients in the under-serviced areas, who cannot afford to pay high costs of ICT services
* There is limited capacity to operate affordable and sustainable ICT facilities
* There is low utilisation of ICT services due to limited ICT training and skills.
Conference participants should help the agency in its effort to develop plans for making the telecentres in the under-serviced areas more affordable, accessible and sustainable. We appeal to all stakeholders to join the USA in forming collaboration and partnership projects for promotion of universal access and universal service to ICT.
These collaborative efforts should correlate with various government priorities such as the Integrated Sustainable Rural Development Programmes and fit into the various integrated development plans of the local governments.
I am reminded of the words of President Thabo Mbeki in his State of the Nation Address a few years ago when he said that:
"The rural areas of our country represent the worst concentrations of poverty. No progress can be made towards a life of human dignity for our people as a whole unless we ensure the development of these areas.
"The government is now in a position to implement a rural development programme for the integrated development of the rural areas.... The integration we seek must, for instance, ensure that when a clinic is built, there must be a road to access it. It must be electrified and supplied with water. It must have the requisite personnel, qualified to meet the health needs of the particular community. The safety and security of the personnel and material resources, which are part of the clinic, must be guaranteed.
"We must also establish the conditions, which give the possibility to any centre access ... point to radiate outwards as a point of reference with regard to the larger project of our self-definition as a people at work, building a better life for ourselves."
A great deal was done by government departments and agencies but in a fragmented way. We now need to add that the integration we seek as we develop our rural areas can also be enhanced through the use of ICTs. The same cables that are being laid to bring electricity to our rural areas should have the capacity to be used for ICT services. Furthermore, the clinic and the school and the local municipality offices, the traditional leaders' offices, the arts centre, the business incubators should all be linked through networks and computer access so that we have a truly integrated communications infrastructure and environment for the people of that community and to give them easier access to the rest of their province, the nation and the world.
With mobile phones to be combined with fixed lines, we should also envisage a situation whereby communities would be able to access the information they require through their telephones or even their television sets as the benefits of convergence are brought to ordinary people. What we need is better co-ordination and less fragmentation, more information giving and sharing.
Various government departments are already making progress in using ICTs for developmental purposes and establishing linkages - we have the telecentres of the Department of Communications and the USA, the multi-purpose community centres of the Government Communication and Information System, the e-government initiative of the Department of Public Service and Administration, the telemedicine initiative of the Department of Health and the e-schools initiative of the Department of Education - all of these can be brought together at local government level into an integrated delivery of systems.
With this in mind, I would like to urge you to come up with creative solutions so as to strengthen our efforts in reaching universal access. I wish you well with your deliberations and I look forward to seeing the results of these discussions.
I thank you.
Issued by: Ministry of Communications
18 November 2003
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