ICT development in Africa

Meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) makes an enormous difference for the vast majority of Africans. However, ICT and economic growth poverty alleviation, promotion of social equality and adequately addressing MDG’s can only happen within certain policy regimes and institutional arrangements. In order to harness ICT for sound economic and social policies, continental and national ICT strategies must be integrated into broader policy agendas and coordinated with different policy sectors, most notably Poverty Reduction Strategy Programes.

Nevertheless, affordability offers one of the most generic perspectives to analyze how ICT is meeting the challenges of development. Falling prices on products and services is key for delivering ICT products and services for low-income people. Affordability is also a center piece of policy strategies advancing mass penetration of ICT’s throughout African society, especially in rural local communities or among the urban poor. Pushing the prices of products and services in new generation telephony, computing and internet below the affordability thresholds for the majority of Africans presents great potential to contribute to poverty alleviation and welfare.

ICT is also increasingly important for meeting climate change challenges globally. ICT accounts for 2.5 percent of total greenhouse emissions, but has the potential to reduce overall emissions greatly in Africa. ICT has the potential to reduce the need for travel, which accounts worldwide for about 14% of greenhouse emissions. Introduction of intelligent ICT into energy management and monitoring systems provides another highly potential contribution to energy efficiency and environmentally sustainable development.