L I R N E . N E T

Alison Gillwald, director of the Research ICT Africa (RIA!) network, in her article published in Business Day observes “the significance of the communications ministry’s decision to appeal against a recent high court ruling setting aside certain prohibitions in the telecommunications sector and the upholding of the automatic conversion of rights into the new licensing regime may have been lost.”

With the bottom three quintiles of South Africans paying close to 20% of their income on communications, according to a recent national survey by Research ICT Africa!, against 5% in peer economies, consumers and businesses may well ask what drives the continued defence of the policy of “managed liberalisation”, of which high prices and poor access are the outcome.

Click here to read the full Business Day article by Gillwald.

Click here to download the RIA policy brief: South Africa - Policy vs. Performance, ICT Access & Usage in South Africa (in .pdf)

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The Research ICT Africa (RIA!) August 2008 Policy Brief is based on the preliminary analysis of the Individual and Household ICT Survey undertaken by the network.
The policy brief provides a snapshot of ICT development in Ghana, which has not been robust despite the country having been amongst the early reformers of the African ICT sector. In spite of improvements in certain sector segments, others such as household fixed line, internet access and public telephones, need policy support to catalyse their development.

Click here to download the RIA! Policy Brief (PDF format)

For further information about this report, contact:
Dr. Godfred Frempong <gkfrempong [at] stepri.csir.org.gh>

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The Graduate School of Public & Development Management and the LINK Centre at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Afreica are proud to inform that applications to join the January 2009 Master of Management in ICT Policy and Regulation degree programme are now open.

Click here for the programme brochure.

Contact Sue-Ellen Donough at the Admissions Office on +27 11 717-3698.

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Ken Banks, founder of Founder of kiwanja.net in a recent posting to a mobile for development list on dgroups (Development through Dialogue) comments on the inception of the mobility project. “The challenge was this. How do we empower individuals in developing countries to develop and build their own mobile applications?” (See full post on next page.)

“mobility is a collaborative project which brings together some of the leading academics, technicians, educators and practitioners in the IT and mobile fields with the common goal of developing an exciting and empowering range of tools and resources to unlock the power of mobile applications development for users in the developing world”

Click here to go to the mobility project webpage.

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For World Telecommunications Day, Research ICT Africa! (RIA!) released a South Africa Policy Brief based on the preliminary findings of RIA’s 2008 nationally representative household survey on e-access and usage. The brief details covers issues mitigating access and cost, and summarises findings in a number of figures; and concludes with a set of specific recommendations for moving South Africa towards conditions that are more conducive to investment in the sector.

Click here to download the policy brief (in .pdf format).
Click here to go to the Research ICT Africa! website.

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The African Copyright & Access to Knowledge network (ACA2K network) will be launched on 26 April, as the global community marks World Intellectual Property Day 2008. The network comprises a multi-disciplinary team of researchers from Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Morocco, Mozambique, Senegal, South Africa and Uganda, supported by a team of international advisors, and is charged with the mandate to investigate the relationship between copyright and education in African countries.

Click here to go to the ACA2K website.

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Research ICT Africa! (RIA!) will host a roundtable discussion with African policy makers and regulators on the results of a series of research projects known as Towards an African e-Index. This project seeks to provide the data and analysis necessary to move the continent towards evidence based policy formulation in this sector.

For more information, contact RIA! Network Coordinator,
Beki Nkala: Beki.Nkala [at] wits.ac.za

Click here to go to the RIA! website.

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