


While the rest of the world is fast heading towards a globally networked information economy (IE) and society, Africa seems far behind as it is still grappling to provide its citizens with the most basic requirements of life such as food shelter and equal distribution of resources. However, Juxtaposing the opportunities and impacts of IE with its challenges, Africa must wake up to the global challenge and the earlier we do that the better.
Information Economy on one hand may describe the ongoing economic and social transformations following the pervasive applications of ICT, yet on the other hand it can represents an emerging and fast growing economic sector. These two views are yoked together and any attempt to conceptualize the information economy must have the robustness to address both. Hence we conceptualize the information economy to include the following:
(1) The design, production and distribution of ICT goods,
(2) The development and operation of network backbones and infrastructure and other telecommunications services
(3) The design, production and distribution of software packages and application solutions (4) The design and provision of professional services
(5) The design, packaging and distribution of contents
(6) E-commerce related activities and
(7) The informatization of the economy and society through the use of ICT and lastly the expected benefits to the whole economy from the above 7. (Alemayehu Molla, 2000).
Whereas Information economy provide a window of opportunities in terms of hardware which help to gradually build technological capability, software (niche domestic market for application solutions due to language, tax and regulations), professional services (pride in made in Africa consultants), market for Content production, telecommunications services (Mobile service provision (both in urban and rural areas (following the Grameen model), running telecenters for business, internet service provision), e-commerce (teleservices and opportunities due to WAP), Alemayehu Molla(2000) has asserted that Africa is still a
very poor player with little informatization of its economy and society, with very small share of the world’s ICT market and with an infant e-commerce experience.
What then is the way forward?
The AISI’s vision, which is subscribed by African countries, is set to lead the continent to a sustainable information society by the year 2010. To achieve this African countries must be willing to tackle the following challenges.
1. The Awareness Challenge: Sectoral and national awareness programs on the whole aspect of information economy should be lauched while local, national, sub-regional and regional economic learning on ICTs should be promoted.
2. The restrictive policies challenge: Policies that inhibit or make it very expensive to procure, deploy and roll-out the infrastructure should be abolished.
3. The infrastructure challenge
4. The Human resource capital challenge: Low human resource capacity in key technical skill areas to support designs is a major challenge. Training facilities should be made available for manpower development.
Information Economy on one hand may describe the ongoing economic and social transformations following the pervasive applications of ICT, yet on the other hand it can represents an emerging and fast growing economic sector. These two views are yoked together and any attempt to conceptualize the information economy must have the robustness to address both. Hence we conceptualize the information economy to include the following:
(1) The design, production and distribution of ICT goods,
(2) The development and operation of network backbones and infrastructure and other telecommunications services
(3) The design, production and distribution of software packages and application solutions (4) The design and provision of professional services
(5) The design, packaging and distribution of contents
(6) E-commerce related activities and
(7) The informatization of the economy and society through the use of ICT and lastly the expected benefits to the whole economy from the above 7. (Alemayehu Molla, 2000).
Whereas Information economy provide a window of opportunities in terms of hardware which help to gradually build technological capability, software (niche domestic market for application solutions due to language, tax and regulations), professional services (pride in made in Africa consultants), market for Content production, telecommunications services (Mobile service provision (both in urban and rural areas (following the Grameen model), running telecenters for business, internet service provision), e-commerce (teleservices and opportunities due to WAP), Alemayehu Molla(2000) has asserted that Africa is still a
very poor player with little informatization of its economy and society, with very small share of the world’s ICT market and with an infant e-commerce experience.
What then is the way forward?
The AISI’s vision, which is subscribed by African countries, is set to lead the continent to a sustainable information society by the year 2010. To achieve this African countries must be willing to tackle the following challenges.
1. The Awareness Challenge: Sectoral and national awareness programs on the whole aspect of information economy should be lauched while local, national, sub-regional and regional economic learning on ICTs should be promoted.
2. The restrictive policies challenge: Policies that inhibit or make it very expensive to procure, deploy and roll-out the infrastructure should be abolished.
3. The infrastructure challenge
4. The Human resource capital challenge: Low human resource capacity in key technical skill areas to support designs is a major challenge. Training facilities should be made available for manpower development.