Developing the Ghana Integrated ICT-led Socio-Economic Development Policy and Plan

STATEMENT BY THE HONOURABLE OWUSU-ADJAPONG, MINISTER OF COMMUNICATIONS AND TECHNOLOGY ON THURSDAY 22ND AUGUST 2002

Government of Ghana		Economic Commission	for Africa

Honourable Ministers of State,

Distinguished Members of the Media,

Invited Guests,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I wish to warmly welcome you to this morning’s press briefing that is basically to acquaint you with progress of work being undertaken to develop the national ICT Policy and Plan for the country.

You would recall that in March last year, I had the occasion to launch the process for developing the national ICT policy which culminated in the national stakeholder discussion at GIMPA, Greenhill in September. Valuable submissions were collated at the forum and these now constitute the Framework document that has now been presented to the Ministry for finalisation and submission to Government.

Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen, the 22nd Meeting of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) Conference of Ministers in 1996 adopted the African Information Society Initiative (AISI) as a framework for a radical socio-economic transformation through deployment and exploitation of ICTs in the context of globalisation and the information age.

H.E. President John Agyekum Kufuor has made it abundantly clear that in this Information Age, Ghana would not be left behind and therefore every effort would be made to develop ICT in Ghana. The challenge therefore facing us relates more to the formulation and implementation of appropriate ICT-led socio-economic development policies and plans that could aid the process of moving the economy and society to the other side of the digital divide.

The first Africa Development Forum organized by UNECA in 1999 based on the theme “Challenges of Globalisation and the Information Age” examined and proposed a number of actions that need to be taken at the national and continental levels. Fortunately for us, this ‘What-to-do’ framework has, since adoption, been operationalised, field-tested and refined.
The Government has identified five critically interrelated areas for strategic intervention. These include:

• Infrastructure – deploying a core ICT network infrastructure, achieving relative ubiquity of access, and investing in strategically focused capacity to support high development priorities.
• Human Capacity – building a critical mass of knowledge workers, increasing technical skills among users and strengthening local capabilities.
• Policy – supporting a transparent and inclusive policy process, promoting fair and open competition, and strengthening institutional capacity to implement and enforce policies.
• Enterprise – improving access to financial capital, facilitating access to global and local markets, enforcing appropriate tax and property rights regimes, enabling efficient business processes and stimulating domestic demands for ICT.
• Content and Applications – providing demand-driven information which is relevant to the needs and conditions experienced by local people.

There is no doubt in our minds that the information and knowledge economy is generating opportunities across all sectors in a number of countries. It is a new source for the creation of quality jobs, wealth generation, income redistribution and poverty alleviation, as well as for rapid economic development, prosperity and a source for facilitating global competitiveness. However, as a Government, we do acknowledge that if Ghana is to move her industrially weak, subsistence agriculture-based economy towards an information and knowledge economy, then we, as a nation, will need to develop and implement a comprehensive integrated ICT-led socio-economic development policies, strategies and plans.

It is in this regard that the NPP Government after coming into power, initiated the process of developing an ICT policy and plan that takes into account the socio-economic development aspirations of the nation. Some work has been done, but a lot more need to be done to finalise the process. The Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) which has been leading the ‘ICT for Development’ process in African countries under the Africa Information Society Initiative (AISI), has kindly agreed to assist Ghana to move its process forward by facilitating and supporting the work of the National ICT Policy and Plan Development Committee. To this end, the Ministry has set up the Drafting Committee under the leadership and chairmanship of Professor Clement Dzidonu.

Distinguished Guests, permit me to explain that the process of developing a comprehensive policy involves:

1. Developing a Framework, then
2. The Policy, to be followed by
3. The Plan on how the broad policy would be implemented, and finally
4. It’s Implementation.

Essentially, what my Ministry has in its possession now is the Framework Document, which specifies and defines the general problem and policy areas. Considerable amount of work has already been done and what will be required will be to fill in the gaps to bring it in line with the objectives of the process and then proceed with the other stages of the process.

Professor Dzidonu, as some of you may be aware is an international expert and advisor to a number of African Governments in this area. He has been assisting a number of African countries under the auspices of the ECA, to develop their ICT policy and plans. He developed the highly praised Rwandan ICT-led socio-economic policy and plan, which is being adopted as a model by a number of African countries. He is involved in the ICT policy and plan development process in other countries including Malawi, Kenya, Nigeria among others. Of late he was engaged by the African Development Bank to assist in the development of the NEPAD Short Term ICT Action Plan, which was approved by the Heads of States and is now being implemented by the Regional Economic Communities under the auspices of the NEPAD.

The other members of the Committee are:

The Task of the Committee

The Committee’s Task is to develop on the basis of extensive consultation with all stakeholders country-wide, an integrated ICT-led socio-economic development Policy and Plan for Ghana - the implementation of which will assist in accelerating Ghana’s socio-economic development process.

The Committee will begin its work immediately and the consultative process will be an all-inclusive one involving dialogues with Government Ministers on a one-to-one basis. Also group consultative meetings and briefing sessions will be held with key organizations and stakeholders in the public and private sectors as well as the Civil Society including the Academic Institutions. Extensive dialogue with be held with the Ministry of Economic Planning and Regional Cooperation and the National Development Planning Commission during the process to ensure that the Committee’s work does address key socio-economic developmental priorities, programmes and areas of the Government.

I want to take this opportunity to emphasize that the exercise we are undertaking is not aimed at developing a sectoral ICT policy or plan but rather to develop an ICT-driven socio-economic development policy and plan that will aid our developmental process and move our economy and society towards a knowledge based information society and economy in the shortest possible time. We in the NPP Government strongly believe that the information and knowledge economy is the economy of the future. We are therefore committed to the process of putting in place the necessary policies, programmes and plans that will move our predominantly agriculture-based economy into a predominantly information and knowledge based economy.

The job for this Committee we are launching this morning is to lay out the roadmap in terms of policy and the corresponding plan that will assist us in achieving this goal as a nation. The Committee’s Programme of work is broken down into three phases.

Phase 1 will concentrate on the development of an Integrated ICT-led Socio-Economic Development Framework for Ghana. The Framework Document will provide an analytical basis for the development of the subsequent Policy document and the Plan and will be based on a review and analysis of the current national socio-economic development frameworks, policies, strategies and provisions as well as the ICT development, deployment and exploitation profile of Ghana.

Phase 2 will be devoted to the development of an Integrated ICT-led Socio-Economic Development Policy and Strategies for Ghana (The Policy Document). The Policy Document will provide details of the Government’s policy commitments in relation to WHAT need to be done towards the realization of the Vision for Ghana through the exploitation and development of ICTs.

The Committee hopes to complete the policy process by December 2002, when the draft policy will be submitted to the Cabinet and thereafter to Parliament. The 3rd Phase, which will be a six month consultative process involving all key stakeholders will concentrate on the development of the Plan. This will produce the first ICT Plan for Ghana, guided by the Government’s Policy commitments, and we envisage that this would be ready for consideration by the Cabinet by June 2003.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I wish to acknowledge that the development of an ICT Policy for Ghana has been on-going for some time. In 1998 for instance, there was a national conference for a Communications Policy. What we are embarking upon now is to expand the focus and to position ICT as the enabler of the socio-economic development programmes of Government. It is in this respect that this process is referred to as the “Ghana Integrated ICT-led Socio-Economic Development Policy and Plan”.

It is our hope and prayer that what we initiated last year, will now be ably guided to its ultimate conclusion and Ghana can also join the ranks of the other countries on the continent that have developed ICT-led policy processes.

If there is need for any clarifications, I shall invite the UNECA team to throw more light into the process.

I thank you for your attention. I wish you God’s blessings.

Hon. Owusu-Adjapong