Communication Minister Ursula Owusu Ekuful has called on African leaders to take full advantage of the digital age.
Speaking at Smart Africa Steering Committee Meeting made up 24 African Countries in Addis Ababa Ethiopia, Mrs. Owusu Ekuful said digitization is crucial to securing the Continent’s socio-economic development.
“I’m happy and I’m sure we are all glad that digitization is being prioritized on the continent and everyone realizes that it’s the way to go and we cannot wait,” Mrs. Owusu Ekuful told the meeting.
SMART Africa is an initiative within the framework of the Presidential Infrastructure Championship Initiative (PICI). The Steering Committee is composed of Ministers of ICT, International Organizations and the Private Sector.
Headquartered in Kigali, Rwanda, Smart Africa brings together African governments, the private sector, international organizations and academia to promote and ensure affordable access to broadband and ICTs in general, ushering Africa into the knowledge economy.
Mrs. Owusu Ekuful since her confirmation as the Communication Minister showed great passion for digitization, noting last year at the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) world conference in Durban South Africa that for Africa to develop socio-economically it needs to bridge widening digital divide.
In a bid to actualize that passion government of Ghana through her Ministry has embarked on a deliberate agenda to digitize Ghana—which is an ambitious technological programme of infrastructural development with national broadband infrastructure and connectivity with the unserved and underserved at the heart of the agenda.
The government of Ghana in recent times has scales up its digitization effort under the Ghana Investment Fund for Electronic Communications (GIFEC)—which is mandated by law to provide financial resources for the establishment of universal service and universal access to all communities.
GIFEC is also to facilitate the provision of access to basic telephony, internet services, multimedia broadband and broadcasting services—is playing an increasingly “critical role” in the digital transformation “our countryside.”
Source: Ghana/Starrfm.com.gh/103.5FM
