African Telecommunications Union

STATEMENT BY THE SECRETARY GENERAL OF AFRICAN TELECOMMUNICATIONS UNION (ATU), MR. JAN MUTAI AT THE 3rd AFRICAN TELECOMMUNICATION SUMMIT

At Accra International Conference Centre
Accra, Ghana, 27 - 29 March 2001

¨ Chairperson
¨ Honourable Ministers
¨ Your Excellencies Ambassadors & High Commissioners
¨ Distinguished, Sponsors, Speakers & Exhibitors
¨ The Organisers of this event
¨ Ladies & Gentlemen

I am truly delighted, to be able to address, such a distinguished audience, which includes among others, Policy Makers, Regulators, Industry leaders and heads of consumer interest groups. I would like therefore, at the onset, to thank the organisers 'Spectrum Internation' headed by Mr. Larry Attipoe, and 'Kemilinks International' of Mr. Shola Taylor, for extending the invitation to me and also for putting together such a momentous event. Furthermore, I am happy to be back in this great country of Ghana which pioneered the political independence spirit way-back in the fifties and is now, once again, spear-heading economic and technical freedom through activities such as this Summit. By bringing stakeholders in the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Sector together, we shall be enabled to deliberate on forward strategies in terms Communications priorities for the 'African renaissance'. I welcome the opportunity to take part in the ensuing public policy debates. May I extend my gratitude too to the Government and people of Ghana for the hospitality and courtesies extended to my delegation since arrival in this lovely city.

Chairperson, within the theme of this summit, "Universal Access and ICT in Africa: Strategies for effective development", I have been asked to speak about "The New ATU: a public sector/private sector partnership". I am glad to do so, given that I now have, a little one over year experience, of restructuring the Secretariat, to become a platform for effective working partnership between old and new stakeholders in the ICT Sector. The new stakeholders from the private sector domain include: Mobile Network Operators, Internet Service Providers and Equipement vendors. From the public domain, these are principally the Regulators from the over 50% of African Countries who have restructured their telecom sectors. All these stakeholders from the African Continent have special challenges as compared with counter-parts in other continents given the combination of past 'analogue missing links' with the emerging 'digital divide'. They have little choice but to come together in forums such as this one to share knowledge, experience and 'best practices' whilst being actively involved in finding innovative solutions to African problems. In the past, Africa has led in the amount of technical advice it has received from 'development partners' without showing much fruitful results, because it was not fully involved, in most of those policy debates, and solution formulations. With the restructuring of the Union in December 1999, to involve private sector Operators and Service providers, a new partnership was launched to give voice to African perspectives and priorities in the ongoing dialogue for development of global standards and regulatory frameworks for converged and IT networked world.

Chairperson, the rationale for partnership does not require much elaboration these days. It is now global conventional wisdom. For example, the Chiefs of IMF and World Bank after their joint visit in Africa in February 2001, where they met 22 Heads of States concluded, and I quote:
"… The fight against poverty requires courage, commitment and sustainable effort. It requires new partnership and a spirit of co-operation. It will succeed only if it is based on strategy designed by the country itself. Governments together with their people must be in the driver's seat as they journey towards their own African 'renaissance'…" end of quote.

Furthermore, President Mbeki of South Africa, in briefing the World Economic forum at Davos in January 2001, on the new Millennium Africa Renaissance Program (MAP), emphasised partnership as a major tool for redevelopment of Africa, and I quote:
"…Another prerequisite is a partnership with the rest of the World especially the developed countries, multilateral institutions and (global and national) private sector players…" end of quote.

Chairperson, as partners in bridging the digital divide for our people, we need to evolve our own definitions and metrics for the concept of 'Universal Access' to ICT. Is it Internet and telephone connection at every village? , or is it Internet and telephone within walking distance? Is it Internet based telecentres at every school, every health-Centre, every Chief's/grass root administration office? Because of funding constraints, I do know, that many of us in the continent shy away from setting quantitative targets. It is justifiably so, as reality is too close to us from recent past experience with other goals that were not met (water and electricity for all by year 2000 for example).

However, we need to be bold and we need to take courage from the emerging global consensus for action. We can, and must now, start to set new challenging goals for access to ICT, on the basis, that these convergent technologies play a catalytic role, in reducing poverty and improving the quality of life for all of us. Last year, in several fora I called out to all stakeholders to research and formulate new funding mechanisms for universal access to schools, health-centres and Post Offices. Like all participants, I am looking forward in the next three days to hearing some innovative solutions and suggestion from this telecom Summit. We need to start rolling out access networks based on the successful pilot project of yesteryear. Time to go beyond pilot projects is now.

Chairperson, regional trade and closer economic integration are still being hampered by limited backbone capacities in the cross-border telecom infrastructure. Several projects remain at the feasibility or pilot study phase. A few are approaching deployment but still have to overcome policy and regulatory hurdles. ATU has therefore made completing pilot and ongoing projects a matter of priority. These include 'RASCOM' satellite network, 'AFRICA ONE' fibre optic undersea cable network, 'COMTEL' microwave/fibre optic network and the West African Submarine cable. In addition to promoting them on our website and other fora to investors, we plan a number of network interconnection workshops so that early agreements on interconnection tariffs can be reached. The participants at theses series of workshops will be drawn from the wide base of public and private sector players involved in cross-border ICT connectivity. We look forward to these series of events to build-shared vision and consensus for rapid implementation of these projects.

Chairperson, ATU is also outreaching to build global partnerships. We now have very close working partnership with ITU in the dialogue and formulation processes for global standards, policy and regulatory frameworks. On the financial partnership front, ATU has established through its Ministerial Oversight Committee (MOC) the 'African Connection Secretariat' and African Connection Trust. The African Connection Secretariat headed by Mrs. Mavis Sintim-Misa will undertake priority projects for harmonising regional policy and regulatory frameworks so as to attract accelerated investment to the continent. The African Connection Trust on the other hand will be used to manage the 'seed capital' for undertaking these projects. The Trust has the support of major Development Partners/Agencies like the World Bank and European Union.

Another aspect of the Union's global partnership outreach is the recent decision by the MOC in March 2001 to establish the Ministerial Task Force to follow-up on UN, EU, OAU, G8 and other initiatives on ICT (or bridging the digital divide). The task force will seek to map out practical paths for moving from 'Declaration to Action'. It will seek to build synergies between present and future initiatives and minimise duplication of effort and resources.

However, I cannot over emphasise the fact, that our success, at global arena, very much depends on us building working partnerships at regional and national levels. We must therefore dedicate ourselves finding the means and mechanisms for co-operation at all level in our quest towards being active participants in the global information society.

Chairperson, Ladies and Gentlemen, May I once again commend the organisers for sustaining spirit of these summits. I trust we shall all be very enriched by the discussions and the exhibits we shall see in the next three days. I wish you success in your search for new knowledge and insights.