We recently came across a newly published document (“Ouagadougou Declaration“) from last October’s African Forum on Best Practices in ICT. The initiative, reportedly co-driven by the President of Burkina Faso, took place in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso following the ITU IMPACT alliance meeting.

{Extensia}

The Forum understands the need to promote the development of local digital content and research expertise in the field of ICT in Africa. Accordingly, the group came away from their meeting with 9 recommendations to guide Africa’s ICT development. We’ve highlighted each key topic in bold:

1. The commitment of African governments in the provision of digital data
2. The promotion of expertise in the production of value-added services based on open digital data
3. The development of local content to better meet the needs of populations and strengthen the African presence in cyberspace
4. The establishment of Internet exchange points in order to improve the quality of Internet services and optimize international bandwidth
5. Taking strong measures by African States to facilitate the population’s access to terminals and services for all
6. The acceleration of the implementation of broadband infrastructure projects
7. The evolution of regulation to take into account the new challenges related to the development of broadband
8. The commitment of all African stakeholders (private sector, civil society, public administration) to use ICT as a catalyst for economic growth
9. The establishment by African governments of framework partnership with the private sector in order to achieve the development goals of the ICT sector

Also emphasized is a need to create a secure online environment that respects freedom of expression.