|
West Africa’s ICT industry faces
major threat unless…
Accra, April 11, Ghanadot/GNA –
Local players in the ICT sector have expressed pessimism
over the liberalization of trade in ICT services saying,
West Africa stands to lose heavily unless national policies
were reviewed to promote indigenous creativity and
innovation.
The participants, who comprised experts from major telecom
operators, Internet Service Providers, small scale operators
in the software development sector and the media, indicated
that, West African countries were being forced to open up
their markets without being able to evaluate the cost and
gains of the liberalization of ICT services.
This came out at a focused group discussion held by the
Science and Technology Policy Research Institute (STEPRI) of
Ghana last Wednesday as part of the LICOM project, a
sub-regional study, which aims at contributing to a better
understanding of international challenges of the
liberalization of trade in ICTs under the WTO’s General
Agreements on Trade in Services (GATS).
The project, which comprised four countries, Ghana, Nigeria
Senegal and Benin, also intends to encourage the formulation
of public policies conducive to the development of ICT and
private sector in the sub-region.
The participants also advocated a harmonization of national
policies on ICTs and telecommunications in the region within
the ECOWAS legal framework in the sector.
Even those who supported the liberalization of the sector in
the light of the global GATS, which Ghana was a signatory,
cautioned that the national efforts must be pursued with the
recognition that the private sector’s role was critical to
the overall growth of the industry.
The group that appeared to be the most worried as it came up
at the discussion was the software developers, who strongly
intimated that current legislations on ICTs in the Ghana
give them limited space to develop their creativities
because of low recognition.
They said government definition of the ICT sector rested
only on the so called “giant” operators such as mobile
telecom operators and until recently the Internet Service
Providers.
“But the small software developers who mostly comprised
young graduates with fresh minds and constituted the
majority of about 70 percent, are not so much counted,” they
indicated.
Giving an overview of the LICOM project, Dr Godfred Frempong,
Director of STEPRI said ICT domination in West Africa is
still overwhelming and therefore there was the need to
streamline public polices for member countries to take
advantage of the numerous services and products the sector
offers.
He said the ICT sector ought to be facilitated in its
assimilation into the socio-economic activities of countries
and this required commitment from governments and all
stakeholders within the region.
Dr Frempong, who has carried many research activities in the
field of ICT in Ghana, identified difficulties to access to
finance, lack of human resources and inadequate policies as
some of challenges the liberalization of ICTs poses to West
Africa.
Under human resource for instance, he said, currently in
Ghana, due to the inadequate expertise, many companies were
using all kinds of means to poach skills workers from sister
operators.
“This means that the few experts we have, kept moving from
one company to another. We need to assist public policy
making institutions to get deeper understanding of the trade
liberalization on ICT goods as well as build more
capacities,” he added.
The International Development and Research Centre (IDRC) are
funding the LICOM project with PANOS Institute of West
Africa coordinating with the support of Ghana’s Council for
Scientific and Industrial Research through STEPRI.
GNA
|
