"CHALLENGES OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY"
ADDRESS BY JAY NAIDOO MINISTER FOR POSTS, TELECOMMUNICATIONS AND BROADCASTING, REPUBLIC OF SOUTH AFRICA
Lusaka, Zambia
February 12 1999
Listening to the eloquent rendition of the futuristic poem by M/s Mwanisa Mwanakaoma this morning I was reminded of the dream of one of Africa's earlier colonizers. His dream was to construct a road from Cape to Cairo to bring our continent under the heel of colonialism, divide our people and enslave them to the meniality of service to the more affluent and developed parts of the world.
Mwanisa spoke of a different dream. One encapsulating the dreams of millions in our continent who yearn for a continent freed from the bondage, poverty and underdevelopment of our history. A continent liberated, a people empowered, and a society where the right to information and democracy is guaranteed. It is my submission that technology as a tool is a great leveler of society. We need a vision and a dream to bridge the gap between the information rich and the information, between the urban and the rural and between men and women.We need a dream to build a highway in the sky from Bizerut in Tunisia to Cape Agulhas in the South Africa, connecting every city and town, every village, school, and clinic.
African Telecommunications Ministers met in this very room in August last year to find African solutions to African problems of communications. We vowed to ensure that we build a modern communications infrastructure to catapult Africa into the 21st century. Africa with a population of over 700 million is a huge untapped market for potential investors. Taken together with the regional initiatives in SADC, and building the foundations of the AISI initiative led by the UNECA and work done by the ITU and World Bank I am convinced that we can make a business case for investment in Africa.
It is interesting to note that the 20th century was an era of the industrial revolution. Today the world is in the throes of an information revolution. As we stand on the dawn of a new Millennium the core of the world economy is becoming the creation of information, its packaging into services and the distribution of these services to the consumers.
The concept of a global village in which physical boundaries are disappearing is very much part of our everyday reality. The recent financial markets crisis of South East Asia, Brazil, Russia and indeed Southern Africa does bring the recognition that the power of information is overwhelming. Events in one part of the world can be transmitted instantaneously to every corner of the globe. It is information that shapes the perceptions of the international investor community and that has either positive or devastatingly negative consequences for any country.
How is this possible?
The last decade has seen enormous technological advances that have resulted in the following:
The challenge for Southern Africa Development Community is to develop public policy that harness the tremendous dynamism of information technologies to modernize the regional economy.
The global exchange of knowledge and information that is driving the information revolution is rapidly becoming the foundation of business and society. This revolution permeates all facets of life. The rapid rise of global information economy has in turn transformed human life. This revolution is challenging traditional methods of work, trade, services, including the organization of life and the family itself.
The ability to transfer and process information quickly, conveniently, and inexpensively has become a prerequisite to economic growth. Evolving technologies are driving the emergence of new digital communications networks, particularly the global Internet.
The Internet is the most powerful technological innovation since Alexander Bell's telephone, connecting millions of computers worldwide. It is rapidly becoming the most important source of information for business, academic, public and individual users. This Internet revolution is changing the way we live, work, play and organize our lives.
These developments are fueling applications such as telemedicine, electronic commerce, distance education, interactive multimedia. The challenge we face, is how do we in SADC, as the developing world harness these modern technological advances to improve the quality of life of our people and leapfrog our regional economy into the 21st century.
The emergence of knowledge based economies are shaping the way in which we strive to achieve global competitiveness. A key policy requirement is the achievement of a national communications infrastructure, essential for social and economic activity. This is important in a world where reliable and speedy communication is vital to the success of a rapidly globalising trade in goods and services. The emergence of electronic commerce is transforming trading patterns. Trade in electronic commerce is set to exceed $1 trillion (USD) by 2002.
This trend towards conducting business online is much more than technology. This is about new conceptual models of business. It is becoming the catalyst to drive significant cost savings and competitive advantage for those who aggressively implement its systems. The exponential growth of the Internet ensures that these new ways of doing business will grow. But, we are also able to achieve our development goals by harnessing this technology for tele-medicine and distance education. This will enable us to connect rural clinics and schools to urban centres of excellence allowing to diagnose and prescribe treatment for patients and teacher skills upgrading over large distances.
Our starting point as Southern Africa Development Community is that we need a new vision based on the recognition that the full benefits of the information revolution will only be achieved on the basis of respect for certain fundamental principles. The most important of these is the right of people's access to information. This is the basic stepping stone for building a truly global information society. The theme document "SADC IN THE NEXT MILLENNIUM: OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY" is a good starting point and I commend all those who expended their efforts in its drafting.
The conrerstone of national policy for information technology is for governments to ensure the provision of a universal access. It has to be at an affordable price and at acceptable quality and level of service for all citizens. Trends demonstrate that well developed information technology infrastructure is a critical pre-requisite for socio-economic development. Clear evidence lies in the demonstrable social benefits in the short-term such as extension and improvement of the quality of service to those who previously had none or minimal service.
Investment in human resources is necessary to prepare developing countries for the Information Society. Education, training for specialists, students and business people are key elements in this new society.
Restructuring of the sector must now be a critical factor to meet the challenges of the next millennium, in order to maximize the utilization of scarce resources. We have to mobilize our collective wisdom to attract greater investment in the expansion of information technology networks and for human resource development to meet African technical, professional and business requirements.
Chairperson, one of the most pressing challenge facing Southern Africa is the constraint on finances to invest in infrastructure, mainly because of the competing demands on the fiscus, in the light of limited resources. The demand for Internet connectivity in emerging markets presents huge opportunities for investors. As the theme document demonstrates Southern Africa remains a huge untapped market for information communication technologies.
A necessary condition for the breakdown of economic barriers, enhancement of competitiveness and the inclusion of the poor into the mainstream of society is an efficient information infrastructure. This provides reliable and affordable access to information. The impact of progressive liberalization of information infrastructure will be significant as we continue the dialogue towards free trade and economic union within SADC.
The public sector alone cannot fulfill the investment needs for this rapidly expanding sector. This will have to become a shared responsibility through the building of effective partnerships between the public sector and the private sector. Such partnerships have the potential to develop a climate for sustainable investment in infrastructure that guarantees good returns on investment, while at the same time closing the information gap. For the global players ignoring a potential market of 160 million people in Southern Africa can surely not be a viable business strategy . Critical challenge is to establish a consistency of rules across the region. Three years ago SADC heads of state and government adopted a Protocol on Transport and Communications. Last year the Council of Ministers adopted Model policy and legislation. We now need to move to implement a three tier separation of power with government responsible for national policy framework, independent regulators responsible for licensing a multiplicity of service providers in a competitive environment. SADC should look towards creating complimentary infrastructure capable of interconnecting with members states and setting the norms and standards.
The management of common resources such as a regional frequency plan is essential to the creation of an attractive environment for investment. Certainly potential investors are looking for a one stop shop where information and opportunities are readily available. The consideration of regional projects operating in a regional market are essential to attract the necessary investment for the region.
While we consider the medium term and long term goals for the region, there are pressing issues such as the Millennium Bug or Y2K, which threatens devastating consequences if we fail to act in unison. Inter-regional trade worth billions of dollars could the severely disrupted if we do not act quickly enough to contain the Y2K phenomenon. Given the interdependencies in the region backbone services such as electricity supply, telecommunications, transport and financial services could be disrupted.
A recent International Telecommunications Unions survey of the problem in Africa found that the level of preparation in the continent, including Southern Africa is sufficiently low to cause concern. The ITU estimates that basic Millennium compliance outside of South Africa will cost the SADC region between $50 to $60 million (USD).
We need urgently to take the following critical steps:
At the threshold of the third millennium, let us ensure that the historic opportunity to harness information communication technology is utilized effectively to position the African continent in the global village. SADC has a historic opportunity to lead the continent through innovative and creative policy interventions that put people at the centre of the information revolution. Let us make a commitment to our future generations, that they can look back to this gathering and be proud of its achievements. No challenge irrespective of how daunting it may appear, can ever be beyond collective human endeavour.
I thank you