ITU Telecom Africa 2004 Forum opens to explore future of African communications

Participants represented government officials, policy makers, regulators, academia and leaders in the ICT industry.

On behalf of the Minister of CIT of Egypt, Senior Advisor to the Minister Dr. Tarek Kamel gave the opening address. Dr. Kamel highlighted that the event attracted double the number of exhibitors than its preceding one in 2001; elaborating that the exhibition houses 235 exhibitors from 43 countries including 9 national pavilions; signifying a healthy exhibitor mix of multinationals and a large number of SMEs. Moreover, the highlight of the event, entitled 'Access Africa' gathered 77 young adults from 40 countries and 16 speakers to share their views towards issues related to the advancement of telecom in the region.

Dr. Kamel stressed that Egypt is proud that ITU Telecom Africa 2004 returned to Cairo after 10 years; eemphasizing that the event received the highest Governmental support ;'we are proud that President Mubarak launched a new model for broadband in Egypt yesterday.' Notably, H.E. President of Egypt, UN Secretary General and ITU Secretary General, sent electronic invitation during the WSIS, December 2003, to the World Community to meet at ITU Telecom Africa 2004 in Cairo.

Secretary General of the International Telecommunication Union, Yoshio Utsumi highlighted in his address the ongoing work and efforts up to phase two of the WSIS; emphasizing two aspects: managing internet resources and funding mechanisms for bridging the digital divide. The Secretary General stated a few marks significant for Africa: the rise of independent regulators; the ICT market has doubled since 2000 and that Africa has the fastest growing mobile economy; stressing that African markets are far from saturation.

The Secretary General highlighted Egypt's successful models for the promotion of ICT namely PC for Every Home, Free Internet, Information Technology Clubs, and Broadband. "I am sure that Egypt's success will be mirrored in other economies in the region." In his closing words Mr. Utsumi declared: "advantage is now Africa".

Ugandan Minister of Works, Housing and Communications Mr John M. Nasasira presented the Ugandan experience in introducing telecom services in rural areas; which lead to a significant leap since the launch of this imitative to a 10 fold in the subscriber base. Notably, Uganda was the first country to have more mobile subscribers than fixed.

The Minister began his address by an alarming statement saying that 50% of the African population never made a phone call. On the positive side, during his talk, on working towards bridging the digital divide, HE stressed that we have to identify milestones and sign posts as we work towards phase two of the WSIS. He ended his talk by optimistically saying that ICT data and statistics change positively swiftly in Africa.