Africa’s ICT Trends and AfDB Strategy Ali YAHIAOUI, Chief ICT Officer Transport & ICT Department African Dev

1. OPEN DATA E-PARTICIPATION CONFERENCE Tunis  April 3-4, 2012 Africa’s ICT Trends and AfDB Strategy Ali YAHIAOUI, Chief ICT Officer Transport & ICT Department AfricanDevelopment Bank Group

2. Open Data e-Participation Conference Presentation Outline • Africa’s ICT Trends & Opportunities • Challenges • Bank’s Approach –ICT Strategy • E-Transform Africa Study (ModernisingGovernmentthroughICTs: Findings & Recommendations)

3. Open Data e-Participation Conference Africa’s ICT Trends & Opportunities

4. African Undersea Cables: Prospects

5. African Undersea Cables details Source: http://manypossibilities.net/african-undersea-cables/

6. Good prospects for inland networks Prospects • Connecting Africa’s capitals require 66.000 km of fibre-optic cables. • Several major initiatives are already being planned: • Eastern and Southern African Backbone. • Central African Backbone. • Western African INTELCOM II Backbone. 7,200 km in Northern Africa 19,500 km in Western Africa 30,500 km in Eastern and Southern Africa 8,800 km in Central Africa Source: ITU, 2007 • Connect Africa commitments made = $55 billion • Committed to complete the interconnection of all African capitals and major cities with ICT broadband infrastructure by 2012.

7. Broadband growing rapidly: Subscriptions2007-2012 • 10% increase in Broadband subscriptions => 1.3% increase in economic growth • Growth expected mainly through mobile network upgrades to 3G and WIMAX

8. eGovernment E-Government Prospects Prospects • The prospects of increased bandwidth in Africa presents a good opportunity for implementation of E-Government. • E-Government is likely to be a be the game changer in the ICT sector in Africa • ICTs are fundamentally changing the way citizens and businesses interact with government representatives and other agents of the state.

9. eGovernment E-Government Prospects Prospects • Key success factors : • i) Accuracy, completeness and relevance of whatthey communicate. • ii) Balance between citizen-facing aspects and effectiveness of back-office systems. • iii) Establishment of accurate, effective and efficient national identification systems

10. eGovernment e-Government Prospects Prospects • iv) Effective use of ICTs will require cross-sectoral collaboration and a multi-stakeholder approach • v) Governments should recognize the power of social mediaand use it positively

11. E-Government : CHALLENGES Challenges

12. Africa’s Infrastructure lags behind other developing countries Challenges Source: AICD 2008

13. Challenges Lack of Broadband networks Provide the local access to the end-user Connect to the International Networks Build national backbone Broadband networks = Facilitate Internet access & a prerequisite for NGNs (IP Based) ( 3G, 3.5 & 4G mobile services)

14. Huge Investment needs Challenges Source: AICD 2008

15. Open Data e-Participation Conference Banks Approach –ICT Strategy

16. Bank’s Approach • If Africa is to make progress in addressing infrastructure Challenges: There is a need for: “ A user Centric holistic/integrated approach at national, regional & continental levels” • Complementarity of Infrastructure subsectors (Transport, Energy, Water, ICT)

17. User Centric holistic Approach Holistic, Integrated, Coordinated approach in infrastructure development : • Enabling Environment –Policy, Regulatory, Institutional • Economies of scale –Regional approach (road networks, corridors, one stop border facilities; power pools, cross border connectivity -ICT ) • Shared facilities (policy & regulatory coordination is critical) –towers, ducts etc.

18. Short-Short term focus Mid term focus AfDBBank ICT Operations Strategy Stimulation of demand for ICT networks and services - Promoting ICT applications - Customised responses at country levels 1st pillar – Broadband infra-structure – Financing of regional and national backbones 2nd pillar – Policy and regulation - Ensuring enabling environ-ment for investment Re-evaluation of strategy September 2011

19. Banks ICT Strategy-under consideration AfDBAction Plan for Medium Term Mid-term Focus ICT Priority Areas Country Focus

20. eTransform Study eTransformAfrica Study Modernising Government through ICTs Findings & recommendations

21. Findings and Challenges ICT-enabled service delivery trends can be grouped into five main categories, although there is some overlap between them. • Political and executive commitment to service delivery • Unprecedented emphasis on citizen convenience in service delivery • Revamping organisational and legal support structures • Exploiting technological advancements to meet service delivery objectives • Using collaborative arrangements and citizen participation to meet service delivery objectives

22. Findings and Challenges • Political and executive commitment to service delivery There is now greater commitment from political and executive levels to improving service delivery with both groups seeing a stake in it. Two points contribute to this: (a) Emphasis on service delivery in public administration - public administration now focuses efficiency, effectiveness and the satisfaction of clients as a business corporation would and, therefore, uses business-like techniques (b) Political stake in success of service delivery – political leaders now assume that improved service delivery will be attributed to their efforts.

23. Findings and Challenges (2) 2. Unprecedented emphasis on citizen convenience in service delivery • As societies become more democratic, public service delivery agencies now emphasize citizen-centric service delivery. • This is achieved by amending processes and workflows. • Bureaucratic structures are being replaced by a more flexible consumer-oriented organization that require citizens only to know the service they are seeking and not the processes they must follow. • Functional and geographic boundaries of units and organizations become open.

24. Findings and Challenges (3) 3. Revamping organisational and legal support structures • Government agencies are re-orienting their internal operations and structures to support service delivery and are strengthening the legal foundations to achieve this goal.

25. Findings and Challenges (4) 4. Exploiting technological advancements to meet service delivery objectives • As advancements in ICT unfold, it is becoming clear that they can assist service providers and service seekers to meet service delivery objectives. • New technologies often have unexpected consequences and this means that groups who did not originally see reasons to adopt that ICT subsequently find that it is important that they meet the new challenges. • Web 2.0 technologies, including social media, have created a challenge that public service providers need to counter.

26. Findings and Challenges (5) • Falling costs of mobile devices, rapidly increasing coverage of mobile networks, pre-paid tariffs, textbased communication options and the ever-increasing number of mobile applications have meant that those who were earlier on the wrong side of digital divide can now cross over. • In fact, mobile penetration rates have risen very rapidly in Africa compared to Internet or PC penetration rates. This offers important new opportunities to improve communication between government and the individual and the public service sector must capitalise on it.

27. Findings and Challenges (6) 5. Using collaborative arrangements and citizen participation to meet service delivery objectives • New technologies facilitate collaboration between people that are not necessarily near to one another in terms of distance. This includes collaboration between public service agencies, within those agencies and with individuals. • Interaction between service delivery stakeholders now often creates synergy and service seekers, service providers and service facilitators can all benefit. • The Internet can be used as a platform to rally public opinion and generate advocacy of issues. Public agencies, including electoral contestants, are making use of ICT, especially the Internet, to enlist participation from their constituencies.

28. Findings and Challenges (7) • Cloud computing and mobile devices are identified as new and evolving technologies that are likely to particularly change the face of public service delivery.

29. Recommendations The report recommends the following principles to be applied in the pursuit of ICT-enabled public sector reform: (1) Citizen-centric approaches imply a collaborative approach between government and citizens as equal partners; (2) Public sector transformation initiatives involving ICT should always be approached holistically, i.e. with adequate consideration for institutional, legal, process, structural and human dimensions in addition to ICT.

30. Recommendations (2) Specific recommendations for regulators and policymakers include : • New organisational and legal support structures; • National identification systems; • Address socio-economic divides and digital divides; • Recognisethe power of social media; • Economies of scale need to be exploited

31. Recommendations (3) Specific recommendations for donor agencies include: • Expand support for citizen-centric initiatives using Web 2.0 and social media technologies; • Pilot cloud computing for support of independent election monitoring organisations; • Support development of technology platforms for completely anonymous whistle-blowing for exposing corruption in the public sector; • Create collaborative incubation spaces for development of innovative technical solutions for application in the public service sector; • Capacity building programmes for Open Data projects; • Empower public sector workers in rural areas through promotion of adoption and use of mobile resources.

32. Thank Youa.yahiaoui@afdb.org;