The Ghana experience with ICT Policy Development

William Tevie

tevie@ghana.com

Digital Divide Measures

• Population of Ghana ~ 20,000,000 people

• Active Computers < 500,000 (2.5%)

• local email Addresses < 100,000 (0.5%)

• telephones < 400,000 (2%)• computer science & engineers/yr < 300 p.a

(0.0015%) {In - 0.1%} [EE produced < 50 p.a]

• literacy ~ 50% (opportunity!)

Scale of the Digital Divide

• Awareness: for 20m population and population growth rate of 5%, must train 1m people a year to keep the divide from widening?

• To provide 1m additional PCs could be $1b, additional 1m telephone lines could also be $1b? Backbone costs much more?

• Government annual revenue < $2bn ( other demands)

Knowledge Resource Requirements

• Example: – typical SW is 100 man year code, 1 million

lines of code– need 100 new / enhanced products a year– => 10,000 graduates active (minimum)– LOTS more needed!

• May Cost $10,000+ to produce a graduate

Building IT

• Large R&D costs (Government critical in LDC)

• Build Technical Workforce (Knowledge in People: they may leave to work for Multinationals)

• Be very applied, reduce decision times (requires less but sharp management)

• Move Up Value Chain ( where possible)

100 1’000 10’000 100’000

0.1%

0.001%

1%

10%

100%

GNP per capita, US$

Source: International Telecommunication Union, 2000.

Inte

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rs,

per

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pop

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Internet Penetration and GNP Per Capita

Different ways of deriving ICT policy

COUNTRY

WEBSITE EXTRACT

ROUNDTABLE

NEW DOC

POLICY

Different ways of deriving ICT policy

GOVTMANIFESTO

(OBJECTIVES)

GOALS

ICT

DOMESTICATION

VISIONS

LOCALLANGUAGES

POLICY

FRAMEWORK

1. HUMAN CAPACITIES

2. INFO / INFRA

3. ENTERPRISE

4. CONTENTAPPLICATIONS

5. POLICY REGIME

ROUNDTABLE --- GROUND UP

Rules of behavior

• Rules of behavior important

• Purpose is to get buy-in of stakeholders– They must be owners– Get their Insight– Seek Feedback, modification– Build trust between stakeholder, industry and

policy makers

Rules of behavior

• Therefore– Must announce this policy development process– Announcement must go with set of ideas,

questions– Comments Period- anybody can comment– Collated around key issues

• new position

• facilitator less a decision maker

• discussions must be trying to get closure.

Rules of Behavior

• Policy lags Technology

• Participate in Global Fora

• Start Roundtable from Ground up and refine and refine till you get final document.

Ghana Policy -1975

• Establishment of civil service IT dept (CSDU Central Systems Development Unit)

• Import Control (High Cost) demand

• Ministry of Transport and Communications

• Frequency Board ( Military)

• Telecom and Post were combined P&T

Ghana Policy - 2000

• Unification amongst Operators – fixed (2 operators)– cellular (4 operators)– Value added services (26)– Internet (27)

• NCA Independent regulator,7 member board

• Ministry of Communications

• Media commission content regulator

Ghana Policy - 2000

• Split Post and Telecom

• Private media , print , radio and TV

National Communication Policy

• Cabinet met on 6 October 2000

• Policy covered: Telecommunications, ICT,Meteorology, Mass Media, Libraries,Publishing, Postal

Ghana Policy-2000 ICT

• Considerations:– Build an active local Market– Promote access and usage– put a cultural stamp on ICT– attain competitiveness in indigenous ICT

development

Ghana Policy- 2000 Government Shall

• Speed up computerization in educational Institutions and others

• step up formal ICT education at all levels

• Computer Drivers License for informal education

• Networking of public institutions

• Make Internet Access affordable

Ghana Policy- 2000 Government Shall contd.

• Develop local manufacturing of ICT devices

• Fiscal measures including tax incentives

• Explore, research and develop technological capacity

• Forge closer relationship between education and industry

Ghana Policy- 2000 Government Shall contd.

• Mandatory National archival …. Folklore etc

• Appropriate legal and regulatory framework for e-commerce

• Greater participation of WOMEN

• Measures for preventing computer use for malice

Ghana Policy- 2000 Government Shall contd.

• Legal regimes to support ICT eg. Crimes

• Flagship projects:– Education

– Health

– Agriculture

– Investment and Tourism

– Women and Development

– The Child, The aged and Challenged

Ghana Policy-2001

• Distributed Policy

• Separated Information and Communications– ministry of transport and comm– ministry of information– Independent regulator- chairman minister– independent regulator by act of parliament– media commission by constitution– no license fee for private newspapers

Ghana Policy 2001

• Roundtable Conference• Listserve (nita-discuss@lists.gh)• document at www.ghana.gov.gh• Policy document not concluded yet• Exclusivity for telco’s end• Contract with telecom malaysia ends• New entrants being encouraged.• Deliver 400,000 new fixed lines in 2 years

National ICT Strategies

• Liberalization in the sector maybe too fast since with, Globalization our market is becoming captured.

• It is difficult for natives to keep up

• Conflict in “affordability” and “cost” of service.

• Focus on National Capacity/Domestic Market + Support for Development Goals– Look for Poverty Alleviation and Wealth Creation

Opportunities

Main Areas of Concern

• Human Capacity

• Infrastructure

• Policy

• Enterprise

• Content (applications)

Human Capacity: Skill set Challenge

• Limited availability of Skill set is an important impediment in growth (cant produce fast enough and cant attract nationals overseas to return - cant pay) [The Universities never had opportunity to lead industry and should be given opportunity to get it right this time]

• Brings Intellectual order, too few graduates

Human Capacity Strategy

• A goal of X10 Graduates produced p.a in number of years (5 yrs.), consistent quality

• Strengthen the EE and CS departments at the government Universities

• Follow this Development Model: “Concentrate on training creators of money, managers, spenders in sequence.”

Infrastructure• Ghana is ahead of several west african

countries including Nigeria telephone penetration higher, Internet bandwidth (e.g. NCS BW is bigger than many West African Telco’s 10mb)

• Telecommunications assets of GT, GBC and VRA maybe strategic to development

• Private sector is becoming foreign owned– e.g South Africa 30% empowerment, 49% foreign max

investment in Policy Framework, force alignment

Policy• ICT Policy development is inter-sectoral and must

be coordinated

• Clear Separation of operators, regulators, policy development eases the Industry

• Standardization and technical policy is global (participation can be difficult)

• Encourage stakeholder networking (avoid capture)

• South- South Cooperation necessary

Programs in Support of Policy

• “Silicon Valley” - leverage university + csir areas

• Basic Information Systems: – all individuals,companies,laws,….,knowledge– civil service operations+related+private

sector+community

• Universal Access solutions, for Government Communications is important

Enterprise• Local Enterprises and operators should be

challenged with projects to develop skills, infrastructure and services ( large projects are routinely awarded to large more experienced multinationals)– gives post project completion blues

….sustainability, many reasons including bank guarantee requirements.

– (native empowerment, silent protectionism, development goals)

• Target Groups: Youth, Female

Content (Applications)• Store and preserve our material for access

(biggest complaint about Africa is no content)

• Preserve history digitally, folklore, language, art….

• Meanwhile foreign companies take/put our information freely on their information services (usurping our wealth & identity while feeling proud they helped a poor African)

IT Related Laws• Privacy Act

• Intellectual Property, Marks - “Robert Burch, Quebec vs NCS, Ghana”

• secure transactions (authentication and secrecy in Commerce)

– build certification authorities, key escrows

• Anonymous Online speech and protections

• Anti-Intrusion laws (against Spam, viruses, worms)

– IT security alert centers

– Crime and Fraud laws

Some IT Industry Categories(Opportunity Areas)

• Information Processing

• Manufacturing

• Infrastructure

• Services

• Applications

SAT-3

• Landing countries : South Africa, Portugal, Angola, Gabon, Cameroon, Nigeria, Benin, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Senegal, Canary Islands,

• Spain Purchasers : Marconi, Sonatel, Cote d'Ivoire Telecom, Ghana Telecom, OPT Benin, Nigerian Telecommunications Ltd, Camtel, OPT Gabon, Angola Telecom, Telkom SA Ltd, BT, Cable and Wireless, Teleglobe (USA), AT&T, Telefonica

Internet Technical Policy

• Standardization and technical policy is global (participation can be difficult)– IETF, ICANN

• Stakeholder networking with Public sector essential

The Changing Global Policy Horizon

• Local => more global – affects technical policy, standards

• Regulated => self-regulation– more players, more private sector

• ensured participation => if able to participate– Traditional Institutions forced to change

Need for New Relations

• Traditional Regulator, Standards Bodies change to become global participation of individuals and operators

• More participatory and self-organized

• Must coordinate, Fund & organize positions

• Public-Private Partnerships required

Info-Structures (1)• ccTLDs

– most Tech POC outside country

• gTLDs (7 new )– none in Africa, attempt to claim .africa

• Registrars (> 150)– none in Africa

• UDRP Resolution Providers(5 accredited)– 5 approved (1-Asia, 0-Africa)

Info-Structures (2)

• Regional Address Registries (RIR)– one per region– ARIN, RIPE, APNIC, LACNIC (provisional)– AfriNIC in formation

• Root Servers– very difficult

Conclusion

• We are a poor nation

• UN Millenium goal to halve poverty

• Poor people have needs– Education– Agriculture– Health– Shelter

Conclusion

• We have to scale our ability to provide needs• We have to scale the capacity of the resources

we have• We have to be able to use ICT to alleviate

poverty by scaling the resources we have • We need to be able to use ICT tools in such a

way that they are able to serve people and serve them better