GHANA IN THE WORLD MAP OF ICT

Mawutodzi K. Abissath

Daily Graphic Jan. 25, 2005

THERE is this simple Ewe proverb which tells us that: ''If Sunday will be a glorious day, it would reflect on the preceding Saturday."

Ghana seems to be poised for glorious days in the coming year and beyond. In fact, if I were to pretend to be a clairvoyant and looking into a crystal ball, I would predict that 2005 would be sparkling for Ghana indeed.

The just-ended general elections, which was universally acclaimed to be one the best in the political history of the country, has set the tone for magnificent things to follow. Numerous foreign journalists who covered the 2004 elections were marvelled about the civility with which Ghanaians went about the entire event.  Anyway, that was just a discourse. Ghana is starting the year 2005 with a mammoth Information Communication Technology (lCT) event that must be promoted and projected by the media. Come February, precisely from the February 2-4, 2005, Ghana will host an international conference in Accra.

The conference is dubbed: "African Region World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) Preparatory Conference". The conference is expected to bring over one thousand delegates made up of ICT

gurus, media professionals, academicians," politicians, scientists, engineers, legal experts, agriculturists, technologists, educationists , human rights activists, NGOs, the private sector, civil society, development partners and many more.

Africans are expected to use the Accra event to build consensus to place the continent in a position where it 'Will harness the potential of information and communication technology to promote the development" goals of the Millennium Declaration before another 'summit scheduled for November 2005, in Tunis, Tunisia. Documents' available from the WSIS Accra National Planning Committee, under the brilliant chairmanship of Mr Mike Gizo, indicate that Ghana is ready to offer the world one of the memorable events in technological history of the globe.

The genesis of this whole WSIS business started in December 2001, when the almighty UN General Assembly adopted Resolution 56/183 ordering that the World Summit on Information Society must be

structured and fashioned out in two phases.  Consequently, the first phase was held in Geneva, Switzerland, in 2003. The second phase is what was scheduled to take place in Tunisia. 

It is imperative to put on record that it was at the Geneva summit that this Declaration of Principles was made among other things, the declaration said; - "We, the representatives of the peoples of the world, assembled in Geneva from 10-12 December, 2003, for the first phase of The World Summit on the Information Society, declare our common desire and commitment to build a people-centered, inclusive and development-oriented Information Society, where everyone can create, access, utilise and share information and knowledge, enabling individuals, communities and peoples to achieve their full potential in promoting their sustainable development and improving their quality of life, premised on the purposes and principles of the Chapter of the United Nations and respecting fully and upholding the Universal Declaration of Human Rights."

Respected reader, if you find the first paragraph of that declaration, which I have quoted verbatim, mouthful, then read the second one which says: "Our challenge is to harness the potential of information and communication technology to promote the development goals of the Millennium Declaration, namely the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger; achievement of universal primary education; promotion of gender equality and empowerment of women; reduction of child mortality; improvement of maternal health; combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases; ensuring environmental sustainability; and development of agreed development goals, as contained in the Johannesburg Declaration and Plan of Implementation and the Monterrey Consensus, and other outcomes of relevant United Nation Summits."

Paragraph four of the Declaration reads: "We reaffirm, as an essential foundation of the Information Society, and as outlined in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, that everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; that, this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media regardless of frontiers.” Communication is a fundamental social process, a basic human need and the foundation of all social organisations. It is central to the Information Society. Everyone everywhere should have the opportunity to participate and no one should be excluded from the benefits Information Society offers…”

These statements deal with issues like poverty, hunger, starvation and above all, the dreadful killer diseases, HIV/AIDS and malaria. lCT tools or applications can be employed to solve some of these seemingly insurmountable challenges facing Africa.

The author works with Information Services Department (ISD) abissath@gmail.com

NB: This article was first published by the Daily Graphic Jan. 25, 2005.