MEETING OF THE NATIONAL PREPARATORY COMMITTEE FOR THE WORLD SUMMIT ON THE INFORMATION SOCIETY HELD ON 20TH JANUARY 2002 IN THE CONFERENCE ROOM
OF THE MINISTRY OF COMMUNICATIONS AND TECHNOLOGY

         PRESENT:

OPENING
The meeting was declared opened by the Hon. Minister, MOCT at 3:27pm after an opening prayer delivered by Mrs. Marian Tackie, of the NCWD.

ADDRESS BY FORMER HON. MINISTER
The Hon. Minister thanked the house for honouring the invitations sent to them even at the short notice. He informed the meeting that the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) would be held by the United Nations in December 2003 at Geneva and in Tunis in 2005. The Summit would consider how best Information and Communication Technologies (ICT’s) could be employed to promote the goal of the UN Millennium Declaration. The meeting was called, as part of a series of meetings to be held with the various stakeholders so that a national consensus would be developed to prepare the nation’s contributions to the Declaration of Principles and Action Plan.

He explained that the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) had been assigned the responsibility of seeking appropriate ways to provide for development of the telecommunication sector in a manner that would promote the goals of the UN Millennium Declaration.

The Minister drew attention to Ghana’s recent election to the Council of ITU and acknowledged the interest demonstrated by the Development Partners and MDA’s towards Ghana’s participation in the Summit.
He asked the meeting to be guided by the general principles identified for the work of the Committee, namely:

· Summit should be development-oriented aimed at bridging the Digital Divide.

· Summit should consider in a balanced manner, infrastructure and content issues.

· Preservation of linguistic and cultural diversity should be a priority.

· Ethical values should be considered an essential component.

· Previous work on relevant issues should serve as a basis for future work.

· A spirit of international co-operation should prevail.

· ICTs are a tool for achieving economic and social goals, such as poverty eradication, and not an end in itself.

· The importance of universal and inclusive access to the Information Society.

· There is need for broad-based partnership among stakeholders.

The Minister advised that contributions to the WSIS could be made on-line using the following address: www.ict.gov.gh. He appealed for support for the preparatory processes being undertaken and also for sponsorship of Ghana’s delegation to the Summit.

ADDRESS BY PROF. CLEMENT DZIDONU
The Chairman of the National ICT Policy and Plan Development Committee gave an account of the consultation exercise that is being undertaken with the stakeholders in the country to develop for Ghana an ICT-led socio-economic Development Policy and Plan.

He indicated that the Framework Document that is expected by the end of the month will strategically focus on both the development of the local ICT industry and sector as well as on using ICT as an enabler of Ghana’s broad developmental goals.
Specific objectives include using ICT as:

· A social-enabler (education, health, poverty-reduction, income distribution, etc)
· An enabler of Government administration and service delivery,
· An engine of the Service sector,
· An enabler of Industrial development,
· An enabler of the Agriculture sector,
· A driver of Private Sector development,
· An enabler of rapid socio-economic development, and
· An agent of wealth creation.

To achieve this some drivers identified were;

(a) Human Development
(b) ICT Education
(c) Private Sector
(d) Development of ICT in Governance
(e) Addressing regulatory issues.

ADDRESS BY PROF. ANSU-KYEREMEH (Coordinator)
The coordinator of the National Preparatory Committee expressed satisfaction at the attendance and urged the meeting to take advantage of the WSIS and send contributions that will feature in the Declaration of Principles and Action Plan for the world.
He invited the meeting to give consideration to issues of:
· Sustainable connectivity
· Higher performance and affordable costs
· Attraction of resources
· Actions to address the processes of convergence
· Development of standards, etc

The coordinator called for the formation of a Committee to undertake the drafting of the national presentation at the Summit

CONTRIBUTION BY OTHERS

UNFPA
The Country Director of the UNFPA, Mr. Moses Mukasa, who also stood in for the Resident Representative of the UNDP, informed the Meeting that the United Nations family fully endorses the work of the Ministry with regards to the WSIS and that a Statement to be coordinated by the UNDP will be forthcoming.
Given the tasks to be undertaken, he gave an assurance of assistance, technical or otherwise, within the resources available.

The Country Director gave indication that a meeting will be convened shortly and there would be the need to identify the areas requiring assistance.
He advised that there was not much time remaining for preparatory work towards the WSIS and so there was the need for the Ministry to come out with the schedule of support early enough.

UNESCO
The UNESCO Representative fully agreed with the submission of Director of UNFPA and revealed that UNESCO was currently running 14 to 15 programmes in ICT in Ghana.

He declared that the Committee is welcome and that UNESCO was happy and ready to support its activities.

GENDER
The Executive Director of the National Council on Women and Development lent her Ministry’s support to the work of the Committee. She gave an analysis of the impact of ICTs on the development of women and hoped that the WSIS would address the handicaps of women, particularly those from the poor countries. She was of the hope that they would be given the opportunity to participate in the Summit.

OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT
The representative from the Office of the President acknowledged that the various issues enumerated fell in line with Government’s aspirations. He informed the meeting that the Presidency was delighted that Ghana’s participation in the forum would highlight the voices and concerns of the people of the country.

He assured the Meeting that ICT is dear to the heart of His Excellency the President and so he will be closely monitoring the preparatory activities.

MEDIA
The representative of Media appreciated the Committee’s recognition of the Media and offered to take advantage of the big opportunity in the WSIS.

PRIVATE SECTOR
The representative from EC-TECH, a computer hardware company requested the Committee to ensure that computers are manufactured in Ghana. This would ensure that national security is maintained.

NETWORK COMPUTER SYSTEMS (NCS)
The representative of NCS promised support for the work of the Committee and called on the Summit to encourage developing countries to gain access to cheaper bandwidth. He called on the meeting to examine way to get connectivity to secondary cities.

SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT
It was suggested that international financial support should address capacity building of local developers. Government should create a system to grow local competence.

NGOs
The representative of the International Institute for Communication and Development (IICD) undertaking the Global Teenager Project, informed the meeting that it was developing content for schools and helping to link rural schools with Internet. He commended the Ministry of Communications and Technology for the re-structuring of the telecommunication sector to provide broadband connectivity to all towns with Senior Secondary Schools and/or Teacher Training Colleges.

The Project Manageress of the Environmental Information Network of the IICD, in her contribution called for the establishment of electronic network system on environmental information.

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION
The Director of Science Education expressed enthusiasm about WSIS. She acknowledged ICT as a tool to enhance quality education. She also recognized that several ICT programmes were being executed in an uncoordinated manner and there is need to bring these together.
She also informed the meeting that the MoE had developed a Policy Framework in education and was requesting guidelines since the development of ICT should be the driving force in education.

CONCLUSION:
After the animated discussion, the members were challenged to come out with clear contributions to be collated by a committee that will represent the various themes. The coordinator emphasized that the WSIS offered an opportunity for the developing world to shape ICT Policy in the world.

A drafting committee was subsequently formed with the following volunteering as members:

CLOSING
The Co-ordinator thanked the meeting for making it a success. He informed the house that the Committee members would later be contacted and that other volunteers would be added in due course to ensure that all shades of opinion are covered in the discussions. The meeting then came to a close at 5:00pm.

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