Public-Private-Peoples Partnerships are aim of COMARCI initiative

Thursday, 25 March 2010 01:00

The CTO’s Rural Connectivity Workshop launched in Sierra Leone is intended to focus on Public-Private-Peoples Partnerships, thereby promoting rural access and leveraging ICTs for broader development in Africa.

The Commonwealth African Rural Connectivity Initiative (COMARCI) took another step towards “achieving real and felt results” in connecting unconnected rural communities in Africa, when a two-day in-country COMARCI workshop for Sierra Leone (and hosted by that country’s National Communications Commission) was launched today in Makeni.

COMARCI was initiated in 2007 as a Pan-Commonwealth response to the perennial challenge of asymmetric connectivity that tends to marginalise rural areas. The Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation (CTO) studied the status of Commonwealth Africa in terms of connectivity, policies, regulation and adoption of technology within the context of comparative policies and regulation of five countries - Australia, Canada, India, Malaysia and the US. It also looked at innovative technologies and novel business models, leading to the African Rural Connectivity Report in December 2008.

Realising that bringing connectivity to marginalised communities requires a more active role by stakeholders, the CTO is conducting a series of in-country workshops to facilitate the building of Public Private Peoples partnerships. The resulting partnerships are expected to bring new connectivity and new services to rural communities.

The workshop in Makeni is being attended by some 300 delegates representing all the ICT operators, some manufacturers, donors and importantly, community representatives, who will examine and debate issues impacting rural connectivity. Sierra Leone’s National Communications Commission is facilitating these consultations with the help of the CTO and will help to identify potential partnerships for nurturing. These partnerships will be anchored on local needs as community representatives will be involved in the process from an early stage.

On behalf of President Ernest Bai Koroma, the workshop was officially launched by the Minister of Presidential Affairs Hon Joseph Koroma, who drew the attention of delegates to the need to empower local people and communities through ICT connectivity by using Public Private Peoples Partnerships.

Importantly the Makeni workshop has drawn attendance by a number of regulators of the region who are keen to observe the next phase of COMARCI at work with a view to replicating this successful model in their own countries, including regualtor representatives from regulators of Gambia, Ghana and the West African Regulatory Assembly (WATRA).

* With a history dating back to 1901, the Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation (CTO) is an international development partnership between Commonwealth and non-Commonwealth governments, businesses and civil society organisations. CTO provides the international community with effective means to help bridge the Digital Divide and achieve social and economic development by delivering unique knowledge-sharing programmes in the use of ICT. CTO’s mission is to reduce global poverty through the more efficient utilisation of ICTs, and its development agenda reflects the priorities set in the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

More info:

• www.cto.int

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