News
African Leadership in ICT (ALICT) News
ALICT Consultative Workshop on Leadership and ICT
A high level regional consultation workshop with key policy, research and ministry official stakeholders was held from 14-16 December 2010 in Nairobi, Kenya, to help establish the parameters for the ALICT capacity building conceptual framework.
In recognition of the need to assist stakeholders navigate their way through the highly complex area of the Knowledge Society, GeSCI commissioned a series of four background papers to examine thinking and to build knowledge on issues related to the Knowledge Society and its pillars of ICT, Education, Science & Technology and Innovation. These studies provide recommendations on strategies and interventions to assist African states in building leadership capacities on the vision of the Knowledge Societies. The study series papers were made available to participants prior to the workshop and are now available for public access on GeSCI’s resource center along with over a dozen other presentations from the workshop including three country case studies from Botswana, Mauritius and South Africa.
Workshop Objectives Strategic objective:
• To identify a broad range of stakeholder views and opinions that will inform the development of the African Leadership for ICT conceptual framework and strategy Specific objectives
• To share a synthesis of inter dependencies between the pillars of the KS as well as the key challenges and opportunities for development towards Inclusive “Knowledge Societies”.
• To exchange ideas and explore issues on ‘how’ topics for building awareness and leadership capacities on the Knowledge Society themes and issues.
• To explore through case studies how some countries are making progress towards building Inclusive “Knowledge Societies”.
• To share views and ideas on the choices and parameters for the ALICT framework and strategy.
For a full report on the workshop please download this report.
PRESS RELEASE (Addis, Abba 15/10/2010)
The African Leadership in ICT Program On Friday, the 15th of October 2010 at the African Union Headquarters, a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to support the implementation of the African Leadership in ICT (ALICT) program was signed by the African Union Commissioner for Human Resources, Science and Technology, H.E. Jean-Pierre EZIN, The Finnish Ambassador to Ethiopia, H.E. Leo Olasvisrta, and the CEO of the Global eSchools and Community Initiative, Dr. Jyrki Pulkkinen.
The ALICT programme is a direct response to the Addis Ababa declaration on information and communication technologies in Africa: challenges and prospects for development which undertook to intensify activities to implement the African Regional Action Plan on the Knowledge Economy (ARAPKE); The African Leadership ICT Program is one of the concrete developments achieved under the 8th Partnership(Science, Information Society and Space) of the first action plan of the Africa-EU strategy whose objective is to bridge the digital and scientific divide within African countries and between Africa and other regions. The program is a three-year partnership between the African Union Commission (AUC), the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland and Global e-Schools and Communities Initiative (GeSCI). It will address leadership capacities on evidence-based policy making and inter-ministerial strategic planning for ICT and knowledge based social and economic development in Africa.
The program will also support member states’ capacities on ICT and Knowledge Society with focus on regional and national ICT capacity development emphasizing change management, strategic planning, policy formulation, programme implementation and evaluation Furthermore, a curriculum and a multi-stakeholder knowledge exchange platform will be developed to train and build the capacity of 150 potential leaders and policy makers in Ministries of ICT, S&T , Education, and Human resources development in Southern and Eastern Africa.