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Roundup: African leaders push for digitized economies

Xinhua, July 19, 2016 Adjust font size:

African leaders are harnessing ways to enable Africa fully embrace information communication technologies (ICTs) in the social and economic transformation of the continent.

Speaking at the Smart Africa board meeting on Monday during the 27th African Union (AU) summit in the Rwanda's Capital, Kigali, Rwanda President Paul Kagame emphasized on the importance of digitized African economies to achieve structural transformation of the continent.

Rwanda hosts the summit from July 10-18 dubbed; "2016: African Year of Human Rights, with particular focus on the Rights of Women."

"Connecting our networks and our markets is a tangible realization of this ideal with real and tangible results for our people. Smart Africa marks another step forward, towards our goal of a single digital market for Africa," he emphasized.

"The creation of Smart Africa is a testimony of our resolve to put in place the right policy and regulatory environment that will encourage partnerships, entrepreneurship, job creation and knowledge sharing."

Smart Africa is the continent's innovative commitment to accelerate sustainable socio-economic development in Africa using the power of ICT. It seeks to usher Africa into a knowledge based economy through affordable access to broadband and usage of Information and Communications Technologies.

Founded in 2013, Smart Africa is made of all African countries adhering to the Smart Africa Manifesto. Its founding members include the African Union, International Telecommunications Union (ITU), World Bank, African Development Bank (AfDB), UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) among others.

According to Ali Bongo Ondimba, Gabonese President, ICTs have the ability to level the global playing field, unlock human capital and promote Africa's growth.

"Our move towards an ICT and knowledge driven economies together intends to increase Africa's competitiveness in the global economy. The Smart Africa is committed to lead this transformative agenda in our respective countries," he added.

The next decade 2016-2025 promises to be the decade of Africa's development through ICT, according to Smart Africa manifesto.

Hamadoun Toure, executive director of Smart Africa, said that the smart Africa initiative has embarked on an ambitious commitment to mobilize over 300 billion U.S. dollars worth of investments in ICT sector on the continent by 2020.

"We are focusing on greater integration of the African continent using ICTs. We call upon all countries of the African Union to join this initiative to realize Africa digitization," he noted.

The Smart Africa Manifesto was signed during the inaugural Transform Africa held in Kigali in 2013.

Among the highlights of the manifesto were that nations would put ICT at the centre of their development agenda, improve access to ICTs especially broadband, improve accountability, efficiency and openness through ICT and prioritize the private sector to boost the industry. Endit