African Telecommunications Union

Theme: Bridging the digital divide in the urban and rural areas in Africa:

Choice of technologies

It is yet another opportunity to look back and recall the purposes for the establishment of African Telecommunications Union 36 years ago and the role it has continued to play in the development of telecommunications in the continent. Every year, ATU Administrative Council members discuss and approve the theme to use in celebrating the African Telecommunications and ICT Day. This year, the Council vide Decision No. 07/AC/14/2013 approved the theme for 2013 as: “Bridging the digital divide in the urban and rural areas in Africa: Choice of technologies”. This theme was carefully chosen in view of the growing digital divide between rural and urban communities in view of the emerging competitive technologies in the world today. The objective of theme is therefore to create awareness to this issue in order that appropriate interventions are devised and implemented to bridge the divide. It is usual to find cities of a given country boasting of 4G services while rural and remote areas of the same country with only 1G service or none at all.

Digital divide has had a great impact in the demand for information and communication in terms of content, culture, ICT infrastructure, Human resources and skills, regulation as well as alternative information choices. The content available can only be best utilized by the urban community due to its complexity. The choice of technologies depends on a number of factors including affordability and accessibility. There is very little or no awareness by people in the rural areas on the use of new technology thus limiting them from enjoying valuable services enjoyed by the majority in the urban centers. Efforts to bridge digital divide has been initiated by a number of stakeholders including international initiatives like WSIS, local and international NGO’s, development of national ICT policies, universal access regulation, rural development plans as well as opening up of the market for liberalization to allow private sector play some key roles in rolling out the new technologies.

Narrowing the digital divide is a necessity where mobile technology has improved connectivity indicators in Africa dramatically. Due to its specific properties, cellular mobile appears to be the most appropriate choice for communication in the African countries particularly in rural and remote areas. In these areas, mobile technology is predominately still a voice application with networks in these areas are not yet able to provide broadband internet. Internet is still urban phenomena although some trickling down can be observed to semi-urban areas.

Providing connectivity to rural areas does not guarantee that the information is helpful and meaningful to rural population. The digital divide goes deeper. The public service, like e-government, e-health and e-learning is not solely an enabler to digital development by setting framework conditions and regulations. ICT offer opportunities for the provision of goods and services for example, Services in e-government becomes more transparent thus enabling improved communications and easy flow of information; e-health provides wider information base for doctors and nurses and e-learning which provide new options for distance learning/education thus providing wider base for teachers and learners e.g African Virtual University and linking tertiary education on the African continent. The choices of technologies like satellite technologies are suited to provide these services.

It is therefore our believe that there is a strong demand for ICTs particularly in remote areas and this demand can be satisfied by offering connectivity as well as content fitted for the context of these markets. It is also possible to tap the potential of other technologies like satellite to reach the rural areas as long as proper regulations are in place and the market properly addressed.

We wish to call upon all our members to work closely together to ensure that the digital divide is tackled in a practical and efficient manner through the choice of technologies available in the market today.

We therefore invite you to consider organizing activities or programs in your country in commemoration of the day with a focus on the theme.