Original : English CK98/WS/14 Volume 1 September The Regional Informatics Network for Africa (RINAF) An External Evaluation for UNESCO

Transcription

1 Original : English CK98/WS/14 Volume 1 September 1998 The Regional Informatics Network for Africa (RINAF) An External Evaluation for UNESCO Prepared by Michael Jensen United Nations Educational; Scientific and Cultural Organization

2 The views expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of UNESCO The designations employed and the presentation of material throughout this publication do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of UNESCO concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or area or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries Recommended catalogue entry : The Regional Informatics Network for Africa (RINAF), an external evaluation for UNESCO / prepared by Michael Jensen - Paris: UNESCO, vi, 41 p ; 30cm - (CII-98/WS/14 Volume 1) I- Title II - UNESCO

3 Preface Today s revolution in information technologies is providing broad new vistas for human progress, involving new sectors of economic activity, universal access to education, health and other social services, enhancement of democratic processes, advancement towards tolerance and inter-cultural understanding, and new opportunities for creativity and personal fulfilment The developing world has special challenges in this time of accelerating change, and specialists and decision-makers in Africa - a region with the some of the greatest development needs - have a particular interest in the opportunities provided by electronic networking and telematics to bypass some of the traditional stages of the development process and to build information societies open to all and corresponding to national culture and aspirations UNESCO was one of the first international organizations to develop a self-governing programme of cooperation with African Member States in this area - the Regional Informatics Network for Africa (RINAF) initiated in 1992 within the UNESCO Intergovernmental Inforrnatics Programme Initial action aimed to create nuclei of connectivity and competence within the sub-regional nodes (in Algeria, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal and Zambia) though provision of training and networking equipment Working closely with other international networking efforts, RINAF subsequently helped 21 other countries to initiate or extend Intemet connectivity for education and research and generally to develop their networking capacities RINAF has benefited from extrabudgetary contributions of $13 million including more than $1 million from the Government of Italy and other contributions from France, the Netherlands, and the Republic of Korea, as well as substantial support from UNESCO s Regular Programme 33 Member States have nominated RINAF nodes who co-ordinate national telematics activities in the public service sector and advise UNESCO on national and regional support actions For the past two years, UNESCO s action to assist Africa to benefit from the challenges and opportunities of telematics and information highways has been reinforced and extended through an active collaboration with national and international partners within the Africa s Information Society Initiative (AISI) which was approved by the Conference of Ministers of the Economic Commission for Africa in Addis Ababa (3-7 May 1996) and by the Regional African Telecommunication Development Conference (Abidjan, 6-10 May 1996) AISI calls for the formulation and development of a national information and communication infrastructure (NICI) plan in every African country, driven by national development priorities, and proposes co-operation, linkage and partnership among African countries to share the success of accumulated implementation experiences and stimulate regional development in the area of telematics In this context, and in keeping with the UNESCO s overall action in promoting an Information Society for All, the telematics strategies of African Member States and Organization s action in this area have extended beyond the original RINAF goals of network development in the academic and research sectors, to encompass the generation and exploitation of telematics applications in these and other public service

4 sectors, the promotion of universal access to telematics for development, and support for national and regional policies and planning taking into account the social, cultural, legal and ethical aspects of Information Highways At the same time, the African countries have been taking an ever stronger role in planning and organizing modalities of regional co-operation corresponding to endogenous needs and models The present external evaluation of RINAF has been commissioned at this turning point in informatization in Africa to assess the actual and potential impact of UNESCO s support for the Region in the telematics area, and to provide recommendations on the organization of the RINAF and on future co-operation modalities which can be debated by African Member States and by UNESCO and its international partners Comments and suggestions are welcome and should be addressed to: Mr Giinther Cyranek Regional Telematics and Informatics Adviser UNESCO Office PO Box 1177 ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA Telephone: (251-1) or (251-1) Fax: (251-1) gcyranek@unescoorg ii

5 Table of Contents Preface i Table of Contents lll Executive Summary iv 1 Introduction 1 2 Status and Achievements of RINAF 2 21 Geographical spread of activities 2 22 Coverage of target groups 4 23 Funding 5 24 Project Management, Technical Co-ordination and Support 6 3 Overall Conclusions and Recommendations 7 4 Linkages with other Regional, Global and Developing Country Assistance Projects 13 5 Intemet Accessibility 20 6 Applications and Content Development 23 7 Training and Human Resources Development 28 8 Organization and Co-ordination 32 Annex: Summary Tables of National Partners 35 Appendixes (in separate document Cll=98NvS/14 Volume 2) Appendix 1: National Profiles 1 Appendix 2: Summary of International ICT Development Projects in Africa 111 Appendix 3: An Overview of Intemet Connectivity in Africa 133 Appendix 4: Summary of General Constraints to the Use of ICTs in Africa

6 Executive Summary This external evaluation of RlNAF identifies the impacts of the project and the wider framework for networking, and tries to isolate the problems, success factors and the ongoing needs in order to develop ideas for new projects in the area of academic and research networking and public access in Africa The evaluation includes the identification of opportunities for collaboration with others interested in supporting these areas and makes a large number of recommendations for further action Many of these are not specific to any particular country and so the evaluation also argues for a stronger UNESCO central support programme to assist with the large number of activities which will benefit all of the African countries In general it can be said that RINAl? contributed significantly to some of the early efforts to establish national and international networking within the academic and research sectors in African countries, This occurred mainly through skills transfer and capacity building of technicians and the supply of computer equipment and modems There were some problems with the capacity and commitment of some of the FUNAF focal points which were identified in a top-down process which delayed developments in some countries and regions Also, the initial conception with a topology involving the establishment of sub-regional nodes which would manage the RINAF projects in neighbouring countries and also consolidate traffic from national nodes was not a particularly effective strategy, and the sub-regional and inter sub-regional connectivity goals were not pursued This was partly because when the FUNAF project developed, the Intemet was only just beginning to take off in the USA and Europe with almost no penetration in Africa As a result the initial focus of the project was on support for establishing local nodes and international connections for some countries Since then, the Intemet has now reached almost all of the capitals in Africa, and national academic and research networks are being established in many countries This suggests that RINAF can reduce its initial focus on academic and research networking and play a wider role in supporting the public sector in general On an implementation level, RINAF could reduce its emphasis on the international transfer of basic networking skills and equipment, and re-orient toward capacity building for larger network management skills, cross-connection of national networks, the provision of broadband services and in particular on capacity building for content development At the same time however, while the academic and research sectors are usually better represented in national networking plans, the NGO sector does not have the same level of support Many small grassroots NGOs are unable to afford the cost of obtaining access (equipment, training and setup fees), and this sector stands to benefit substantially from the mobilization of international support for this purpose The evaluation found the possibility for low-cost local access to the Intemet in most of the capital cities in Africa5 and nation-wide in a few countries But there are only about 100,000 users in Afiica (excluding South Africa which has about 600,000) - this is less than one in 5000 people, compared to one in four in the USA and some countries in Europe But in contrast to the USA and Europe, Africa s population is predominantly iv

7 rural so special efforts are needed to ensure that the Intemet is more widely available nationally - rural accessibility is the next big frontier for support for infrastructure development While the capitals and the next level of major economic centres will likely be well serviced by through the critical mass of users in these locations, the remaining areas are likely to continue to be left out unless special measures are taken at a policy level and at an infrastructure investment level One of the other major problems is related to the human resources - the limited exposure to the culture of effective network use and the limited skills with which to implement it While basic networking skills may be available, the top-level commitment and more advanced skills needed to see that the potential is fully exploited or cost effectively used are often not present Fax is still in widespread use and few computers are locally networked Inefficient transfer protocols and clogged international links without caches further increase communications costs While network administration skills may be available in sufficient quantities to administer the more centralized networks in the capital cities, skills outside the capitals are extremely scarce As a result there should be an an emphasis on support for basic technical training at a national level for the provincial centres to build the capacity of the provincial and district structures Training in higher level technical networking skills and network management policy development should still be supported at a sub-regional level for the key technical and administrative staff involved in national network management But sub-regional activities should, for cost and assimilation reasons, have country participation grouped along language lines rather than geographically Of course some common resource people should attend both language events for improved continuity and crossfertilization At the regional level, some training and capacity building activities would best be activated through support for emergent efforts to form an organization similar to Terena for Africa Also, very few academic institutions in Africa offer degree programmes in ICTs So the other area of major support should be directed toward the full range of education and training institutions, from primary schools to Universities, from continuing education units to private training institutions In most countries an added problem for networking in the public sector, such as the academic and research agencies, is the high cost of using the Intemet Public access points are few and in many countries the private Intemet service provider (ISP) subscription fees are beyond the limited budgets of many agencies, let alone individuals Furthermore, in many countries the high cost of a local call (up to US$ 14 per hour in some cases, such as Angola and Gabon) further restricts usage to urgent , or only to the executive staff Until this situation changes, Intemet access cannot become the ubiquitous tool that has come to be expected of it in developed countries where public policy is increasingly being shaped by assumptions of its accessibility On the content development side, still relatively few African institutions are well

8 represented on the Web While increasing numbers of organizations have a Web site with basic content and descriptive information, many are hosted by international development agency sites and very few sites actually use the Web for their activities While the unique attributes of each African country make it hard to generalize about the status of networking and connectivity in Africa, it can be observed that the French speaking countries have a far higher profile on the Internet than the non-french speaking countries This is due to the assistance provided by the various Francophone support agencies and the Canadian and French governments The non-french speaking countries (largely English and Portuguese speaking since the Arabic speaking countries are also French-speaking) have considerable catching up to do to reach the same levels of connectivity and representation on the Web As a result of Francophone support, most institutions that received or were considered for initial support under the RINAF programme in the French speaking countries are now relatively well supported in this way with free Internet connections, some equipment and training being provided by the Francophone agencies This has left the available content in English, Portuguese, Arabic, Swahili and Spanish languages considerably further behind Thus the evaluation suggests that content development support should be focussed on holders of cultural, scientific and technical documentation in these countries The importance of UNESCO s role in the above rests on its reputation as an honest broker and un-biased partner on the one hand, and on being able to develop effective partnerships with key actors This requires a strong understanding of the roles and activities of all the different national and international organizations, and the assessor therefore devotes a large part of the evaluation to coverage of the activities of others in this area Due to the large number of networking-related international and national projects now taking place, new strategies will need to take these into account At the same time, within the context of increased collaboration of the African Information Society (AISI) framework, and the congruence of the goals and similar activities of the UNDP s SDNP programme and the ITU s TELECOM fund, it is suggested that a strong partnership between the three agencies be developed Suggestions for action also stress participation in the AISI process and links with other regional and international efforts The evaluation will provide input for the first meeting of RlNAF co-ordinators planned to be held in Dakar in October 1998 during CARI 98 As a reference support to the present report, the reader is referred to the four Appendixes to the evaluation presented as a separate document vi

9 1 Introduction In the late 1980 s, the importance of access to new information and communication technologies (ICTs) for the research and academic communities was becoming increasingly apparent Universities and other similar organizations in North America and Europe were making heavy investments in ICTs and networking, but their use in Africa and other developing countries was extremely rare To address the perceived need for access to ICTs and networking by the academic and research community in Africa, and in concert with its similar activities in other developing regions, UNESCO s Intergovernmental Informatics Programme (IIP) began formulating the Regional Informatics Network for AFrica (RINAP) project in 1989 After an initial period of project development and fund raising, the project was established by IIP in 1992 With initial financing of nearly $1 million provided by the Italian Government as funds in trust, the main focus of the project was to support the interconnection of academic and research institutions within Africa and to the international research community This was to be mainly achieved through capacity building of the human resources necessary to maintain and expand the use of computer networking technology, along with limited provision of computer equipment and support for the costs of the communications links The CNUCE Institute of the Italian National Council for Research (CNR), was selected as the primary technical support agency for the project In addition some aspects of the project were executed directly by UNESCO along with some direct country support Support was implemented through the national RINAF focal points which were identified by the UNESCO National Commissions in African countries In addition an African committee and five sub-regional nodes were established (one for each region - north, west, central, east and southern Africa) The Italian-supported component is supervised by the RINAF Steering Committee which includes Italian representatives, the RINAF sub-regional co-ordinators and UNESCO The evaluation included visits to seven of the RINAF focal points (Cameroon, Kenya, Mauritania, Mozambique, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe) and a mission to CNUCE in Pisa in Italy This was augmented by the contacts and knowledge accumulated during the consultant s work on ICTs in 31 African countries over the last five years Information and observations were collected from the other focal points and from a wide range of contacts familiar with the ICT environment for the academic/research sector in the various RINAF countries In addition, the evaluation reports already carried out for North, East and West Africa were taken into account Aside from a general evaluation of the overall progress of RINAP to date, this report s primary objective was to identify the future requirements for sound support strategies in further programmes of support for networking in Africa within the areas of UNESCO s responsibilities The evaluation aims to provide the information necessary for this by analyzing the overall context within which RINAF is operating (the present document), and secondly with a survey of each country s ICT and networking environment by examining its public sector, academic and research networking activities (presented as

10 Appendix 1 in a separate document) A large number of recommendations for further action are made and while many of these suggestions could equally apply to other developing countries, the need for them is most acute in Africa, where the lack of resources is most severe A note on terminology Because of the convergence of communications and information technologies there are a number of terms used in this document which increasingly mean the same thing In particular, ICTs, telematics and networking, most evidently manifested in the use of the Intemet, are used to describe efforts to engage in the emerging Global Information Society In discussions relating to geography, regional is taken to mean the entire continent, while sub-regional is reserved for smaller gatherings of countries - usually the five standard groups of north, west, east, central and southern Africa The assessor also attempts to maintain the distinction between RINAF as a conceptual framework and the RINAF project executed by UNESCO with support under Italian funds-in-trust, by using the respective designations RINAF and RINAF project While the RINAF project has often referred to its national activities carried out by the national nodes, the author has preferred to use the term focal points or co-ordinators, reserving the node term for an actual network hub The details and URLs of the organizations and activities referred to in the report are consolidated in chapter 4 and Appendix 2, while further details on African organizations are covered in the national profiles (Appendix 1) 2 Status and Achievements of RINAF 21 Geographical spread of activities Of the 53 countries in Africa, a total of 33 have identified RINAF focal points through a questionnaire sent via the UNESCO National Commissions Of the remaining 20 countries, 9 have IIP focal points About half (15) of the focal points are located within higher education agencies and the remainder split between science and technology institutions and government agencies responsible for informatics (the latter most commonly in Frenrh speaking countries) At the same time there is a mixture of technical and political focal points The countries were divided into five regions, as shown below, with the * indicating an identified RINAF focal point, and the subregional nodes identified with capital letters Further details and contact information are given in the Annex

11 NORTH WEST CENTRE EAST SOUTH ALGERIA* Egmt* Libya* Mauritania* Morocco* Sudan Tunisia* SENEGAL* Burkina Faso* Cape Verde Cote d Ivoire* Gambia Guinea Guinea Bissau Liberia Mali Niger* Sierra Leone NIGERIA* then KENYA* GABON* Burundi* Benin* Comoros Cameroon* Djibouti Central Afr R * Eritrea* Chad Ethiopia* Congo Madagascar DRC (ex Zaire) Mauritius* Equit Guinea* Rwanda Ghana* Seychelles* Sao Tome and Somalia Principe Tanzania* Togo Uganda* ZAMBIA* then ZIMBABWE* Angola* Botswana Lesotho Malawi* Mozambique* Namibia* South Africa Swaziland* The initial aim of the project was to establish five sub-regional nodes and ten national nodes While there could be some varying interpretation of what establishment of a node constitutes, it can be broadly said that RINAF has had a substantive programme in 15 countries with activities starting up in three more While handover of subregional activities has taken place in two out of the 5 sub-regional nodes, in general, the national projects had by and large more impact than any sub-regional activities carried out by the sub-regional nodes The countries where RINAF is most actively involved are: Algeria, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Cote d Ivoire, Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Senegal, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe The countries where RINAF has had some initial involvement: Burkina Faso, Egypt, Mauritania, Morocco, and Niger (Mauritania, Morocco and Niger are in line for obtaining support from their sub-regional nodes) Regions where handover to the local partner has taken place: North Africa (AlgeriaCERIST) and West Africa (SenegalCNDST) Countries selected for the RINAF Extension financed by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs: Angola, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Nigeria Countries where UNESCO has identified a RINAF focal point but no activities have taken place: Benin, Botswana, Burundi, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea, Lesotho, Libya, Malawi, Seychelles, Togo, Tunisia Countries where UNESCO has an IIP focal point only: Chad, Congo, DRC, Madagascar, Mali, Rwanda 3

12 Countries without focal points or other RINAF/IIP related activities: Cap Verde, Comoros, Djibouti, Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Sao Tome and Principe, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, Sudan Including both the RlNAF and IIP focal points, more than half (25) have , half (22) have full Intemet access About 12 have their own Web sites and 13 have full Intemet access permanently on site In order to make RINAP a truly continent-wide project, countries without RINAF focal points should be encouraged to identify an appropriate partner organization Ret (1) As a general principle however it should be said here that additional support should be made available for the countries furthest behind in the development of their national networks Ret (2) To determine the most needy countries, the following checklist of telematics capacity development criteria could be used: l l l l l National intersectoral and inter-ministerial ICT forum National Top Level Domain Name Management National Intemet Hub (with caching) for peering and sharing of international bandwidth costs National low cost Intemet dial-up National research and academic networking support programme l National Telecentre/Universal Access programme (including programmes for access in schools and libraries) l National programmes for digitization of educational materials and cultural heritage collections Building on the experience acquired at CNUCE, continued input into national networking plans and organizing more advanced sub-regional courses is likely to continue to be required Ret (3) 22 Coverage of target groups In total about 100 organizations were directly assisted in obtaining and Intemet connections, and over 250 specialists were able to attend training workshops with RINAF support Almost all of these were in the initial primary target group - the academic and research sector: l The first workshop was held in Pisa, Italy 26 October-6 November 1992 The course was attended by two delegates for each of the initial eight RINAF nodes along with a delegate from Tunisia, one from Uganda and another from Kenya The total number of attendees was 19 l A Central/West African Training Course was held in Ile Ife, Nigeria in April 1993 The course had 24 participants, mainly from Nigeria, but also from Gabon, Guinea, Kenya, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, Tanzania and Zimbabwe l An technical training course for three Algerian technicians from CERIST was held at CNUCE in Pisa, Italy November 1995

13 A West African Training course was held in Dakar, 9-11 December 1995 The course trained four technicians from Senegal and two each from Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger A introductory course on networking for 79 Gabonese informatics students was organized in Libreville on April 1996 in conjunction with the RINAF Steering Committee, April 1996, which included seven participants from five countries of this sub-region A Swaziland Training Course was held at the University of Swaziland, Kwaluseni, 9-13 December 1996 which trained 8 people from the University Two training courses for East Africa were organized: at AFALTI, Nairobi, in January 1997, training 23 participants on intranets and groupware, and at Moi University, Eldoret, Kenya, in February 1997, which trained 11 technicians on access to the Intemet Two national workshops in Ile Ife and Abuja, Nigeria (6-24 October 1997) were supported, training about 50 specialists A North African sub-regional course in Algeria was planned for April 1996 but due to the deterioration of the political situation in Algeria the course was postponed until June 1998 and trained six participants from Mauritania in network configuration and Intemet services A southern African sub-regional training course at NUST in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe on August 1998 also covered both networking and service provision and trained nine specialists from five countries RINAF has also supported the attendance of staff from RINAF nodes to the ISOC Developing Countries workshops in San Francisco, Prague and Montreal, the 1995 African Regional Symposium on Telematics for Development in Addis Ababa, and the Afristech 95 Symposium in Dakar Many others benefited by being able to access the Intemet via the local nodes that were installed and also through the transfer of skills that the trainee technicians were able to effect after the workshops The gender the recipients of training was not well balanced, not through any intrinsic fault of the project design, but largely because up until recently there have been so few women technicians available to train This is improving somewhat of late but it will still be necessary to make explicit reference to the encouragement of support for women in future project proposals To ensure the full representation of women it may be necessary to impose a quota system on trainees, as has been done in the South African Universal Service Agency s telecentre operator training programme that stipulated 50% women trainees One UNESCO training activity in this area which could be a useful model is the national course on telematics for fifteen women working in NGOs which was organized in Burkina Faso in June 1997 with UNESCO Regular Programme support, followed by the provision of modems to enable the participants to benefit from their training 23 Funding The original RTNAF project idea was developed and launched with Italian assistance, but other donors also contributed when the framework for regional co-operation was 5

14 established (notably the Republic of Korea and also indirectly by the Netherlands which has supported education oriented ICT activities within the RINAF framework in Southern Africa) Also, UNESCO has dedicated a relatively large effort within its Regular Programme (including Regular Programme funds which were integrated into the IIP intergovernmental mechanism - a practice that was discontinued after 1997) This support has amounted to several hundred thousand dollars per year on average, but it is difficult to specify precisely because of the diverse mechanisms involved and the problem of delimiting RINAF activities (eg many IIP activities in Africa which are not explicitly attributed to RINAF have had a strong networking or network application component) Nevertheless the extent of contributions by Member States and other international donors has been much lower than expected In the future it is expected that RINAF activities will be increasingly proposed and implemented by the African counterparts, whether it is within the UNESCO Regular Programme or financed by extrabudgetary funds In the absence of a precise definition of what constitutes RINAF in the rapidly evolving context of telematics in Africa, UNESCO considers that all UNESCO support for networking in Africa falls within the overall RINAF conceptual framework, including support for ICT applications within the African Information Society Initiative (AISI) framework 24 Project Management, Technical Co-ordination and Support Decisions regarding grants currently made available from the Italian Government are taken by the Steering Committee, in order to carry out the project goals The Steering Committee is responsible to the African Committee, composed of all of the RINAF coordinators designated by Member States, which was set up to approve all actions taken Although the African Committee was intended to consider RINAF in the wide sense, ie looking the initial RINAF project, and to provide a forum for the representatives to continue to define their needs, it has so far not developed as an effective structure for this purpose Mr Stefano Trumpy, Director of the CNUCE Institute of the Italian National Council of Research (CNR), was nominated Technical Co-ordinator of the RINAF Project The task of the Technical Co-ordinator is to propose the activities to the African Committee, based on the knowledge of the situation concerning network infrastructure and computer usage in the African countries In addition to the Technical Co-ordinator provided by CNUCE, the support group set up in co-operation with the Consorzio Pisa Ricerche included a full time telecommunications engineer and by a part time professional in charge of organizational matters These roles were successfully fulfilled by Abraham Gebrehewot and Adriana Lazzaroni respectively The support provided comprised: l Evaluation and advice on the sub-regional and national networking plans of the African RINAF co-ordinators; l Organization of and participation in training courses; l Determining needs for, acquisition, testing and shipment of equipment; l On-site and remote ( /telephone) technical assistance; l Maintaining leased line and dial-up (uucp) connections (for Algeria and Nigeria); 6

15 Establishment and maintenance of domain name servers for some African top-leveldomains (Algeria and Nigeria); l Management of mailing lists (RINAF-L, RINAF-T, RINAF-R, CAMNET, NGR- MAIL, SENEGA-L, and GUINEQ-L); l Management of the RINAF Web site; l Writing of reports and articles for publication; l Attendance at various international conferences and workshops relevant to the development of networking in Africa (participation in about ten such events has been ensured); l The Technical Co-ordinator and support staff interact with the local RJNAF country Coordinators who are responsible for national project implementation In general it can be observed that the decision-making procedures, feedback mechanisms and interaction between the international co-ordinators and the counterpart institutions proceeded in good faith by all, but were hindered by the limited capacity of many of the African organizations (resulting in delayed responses and frequent need for clarification) as well as the high cost of communications and the poor state of the telecommunications infrastructure In each country there is also a RINAF technical officer, in charge of the technical aspects of the services provided by the RINAF node and in direct contact with team in Pisa for technical support as needed With the rapid spread of the Intemet, further activities within RINAF are unlikely to require the same level of technical support and central administration because many of these functions have now been taken over by local institutions RINAF has also encouraged the establishment of a local committee for data network services development, formed by the most interested user groups of each country, by experts in networking and by representatives of possible funding institutions So far however, these local committees, where they have formed, have not played a major role in determining national strategies with regard to public and academic/research networks, with the exception of the Ghana National Committee on Intemet Connectivity (GNCIC) which was provided with special support as an alternative model of RINAF assistance 3 Overall Conclusions and Recommendations Any development assistance project in Africa will run into a variety of constraints common to most developing countries However in Africa these problems are generally more severe - the continent has 33 of the 48 least developed countries Furthermore, Africa is particularly poorly developed in the area of telecommunications, networking and ICTs, especially in the academic, research and other public sectors, which makes projects in this area even more difficult to execute Particular problems include: l l l l General lack of government funding for non-essential expenditures such as research and higher education Severe financial constraints and very low salaries in education (tertiary as well as primary and secondary) in many countries Competition among institutions for available international funds The limited skills pool and experience in the use of ICTs in all sectors 7

16 l Major deficiencies in the underlying telecommunications networks and high costs for their use l The high cost of equipment and software relative to income levels, exacerbated by import duties l Limited use of local area networks, even where many PCs are in the same building l Very limited Intemet access outside the largest cities l Limited, high-cost international bandwidth and infrequent network peering l The lack of exposure to the culture of information sharing and open access to communications The problems of ICTs in tertiary education were of particular relevance to RINAF - in many universities there may be only a few dozen standalone PCs for thousands of students There are often no up-to-date text-books and manuals, and some campuses often close for many months at a time due to lack of government funds or strikes by teachers and students RINAF project activation in the selected countries was, however, generally successful, being based on sound principles - the identification of a responsible champion at the national node, a nucleus of qualified system operators to manage the node, and national committees for network service development formed by the most interested user groups and experts Perhaps the most lasting and influential impact of the project to date has been to have made a significant contribution in many countries to the establishment of a core group of network technicians who are able to carry on with the build-out of their national networks However, building leadership for national networking activities was not entirely successful in all countries, through a combination of factors: The limited funds available when spread over so many countries resulted in budgets for national activities being so small that it was not easy for the project to be taken as a serious effort to help build a national network Combined with the externally generated nature of the project meant that the sense of ownership on a national basis was limited The unexpectedly rapid uptake of the Intemet by the commercial sector in the initial years of the project resulted in major shifts in the institutional frameworks for establishing national networks The identification of focal points and champions was not always done on the basis of full knowledge of the different players in the field This was compounded by the complex and often overlapping or competing institutional frameworks in many of the countries, resulting in the selection of some less active champions, and some institutions with limited leadership roles in national networking The initial conception and technical co-ordination of the project was done outside the continent by an agency with limited initial on-the-ground knowledge of the institutions and environment in Africa (not that this information was readily available anywhere) Technical skills in the public sector were often very scarce, due to difficult working conditions and low rates of pay Provision of equipment and support was not made contingent on the establishment of / active and representative national committees FUNAF activities in the French speaking countries were not taken into account by the many Francophone community support agencies which forged ahead independently, 8

17 often eclipsing the network development activities of the local RINAF nodes (for example, in the free access to the Intemet being provided by the Syfed Centres which have now been set up in most of the French speaking countries) As a result of the above it is therefore not unexpected that the RINAF project took longer than expected to gather momentum, was relatively costly in overheads and the impact perhaps less readily apparent than projects in other sectors or geographic areas As a starting point for a detailed evaluation of the impact of RINAF, it is appropriate to consider the five general RINAF goals as defined in the 1993 project document: 1 To bring basic data communication services to a number of African countries in order to, a) improve the communication capabilities among African research institutions, and b) to improve the communications with the world-wide research community; l When RINAF started there were virtually no international data connections in Africa and the Intemet was only just beginning to take off in the USA and Europe There were only a few hundred users in Africa and in 1993 it was hoped that RINAF, with the participation of other funding projects, would significantly contribute to increase this up to several thousands To do this the project focussed on support for basic connectivity needs and the development of international dial-up store-and-forward connections (international leased lines were too expensive) Since then the Intemet has become a mainstream communications tool which now reaches almost all the capitals in Africa International connections are no longer an issue with the presence of local Intemet hubs, costs of dial-up access and equipment have fallen in many countries and there are now a number of private and public sector agencies in these cities which focus on the provision of connectivity While many institutions in Africa have clearly benefited from the connectivity provided through RINAF, the project has so far been unable to attract additional sources of funding to live up to its goals for leadership in this area In general it can be observed that the spread of the Intemet through commercial and public telecommunication operator (PTO) channels, and the development assistance projects of some other international agencies, have had a wider impact in increasing the number of network users Nevertheless, there are many needs that remain unaddressed by these developments and as described further below, RINAF could provide leadership in many areas to improve the level of exploitation of ICTs, and in Intemet content development within the public sector One of the overriding issues that needs to be addressed is the cost of access, which is a critical barrier for most public institutions as they are already underfinanced and cannot pass on the charges on to others Most ISP subscription fees are beyond the limited budgets of many agencies, let alone individuals, and in many countries local calls are prohibitively expensive (up to US$ 14 per hour in some cases - see national profiles, Appendix 1) As a result, many users (including some of those supported by RINAF) have allowed their subscriptions to lapse, or only use the facility for essential communications 9

18 l UNESCO and RINAF should assist in addressing the issues around usage costs for Intemet access as this would be a major step forward for much of the continent Ret (4) Aside from network access charges, there is also the issue of the cost of the network access equipment Support for the acquisition of computers and associated networking hardware and software should still be made because few institutions in the public sector have the necessary budgetary resources to make such purchases Ret (5) 2 TO create a group of technicians specialized in the African network services management; l l As described above one of the most important outcomes of the project was the training of network technicians However with the spread of Intemet use across the continent it appears that RINAF can reduce its initial focus on the international transfer of basic networking skills and re-orient itself toward capacity building for wider network management skills, cross-connection of national networks, the provision of broadband services and, in particular, on capacity building for content development All of these areas are multi-faceted and are covered in more detail further below However it should be pointed out here that future support activities need to cover improving second-level connectivity for institutions Ret (6) This is a term used refer to the evolution from first-level connectivity, typified by infrequent use of mainly for international messages and occasional Web surfing, usually where staff share a single account, using the only machine in the office with a modem This makes Intemet access particularly difficult as users have to go to a dedicated machine to send or read which is usually in a common account, without privacy Incoming messages may even be printed out and circulated in a semi-public fashion Even where LANs are installed, it is often found that a single machine is used for all Intemet access, with the LAN being unused for one of its most valuable functions - giving every PC access to the Intemet Second-level connectivity implies: l l l l l Every PC in the office networked A shared modem which regularly dials out to the service provider to transfer messages many times a day, Users with their own accounts Users being familiar with the use of file attachments Users able to update a Web page and being able to easily find information on the Web Clearly there are some additional costs associated with second-level connectivity, but many well resourced organizations in Africa which could easily afford it have not implemented it because of the lack of a solid skills pool in this area, lack of awareness of the possibilities, or if they are aware of the possibilities, often the costs are assumed to be greater than they really are Furthermore, 2nd level connectivity building goes hand in hand with the development of applications and content that will ensure there is sufficient utility from the network that 10

19 organizations ensure its sustainability through dedication of a portion of their budgets to its support 3 To increase the awareness of the importance of data network services in Africa; l l The early initiation of RINAF and the high level at which the RINAF project began operations, starting with the IIP focal point who is usually the director of the appropriate agency in the relevant Ministry, has clearly contributed to the awareness raising which also took place in a number of the workshops held under RINAF auspices These activities most probably also assisted in the implementation of projects by other development assistance agencies who subsequently began working in this area Having said this, there are still many areas where awareness raising is still required, for example in improving accessibility to public institutions as described in Ret (4) above There is also one other area where awareness raising is particularly needed - to assist governments to consider novel institutional arrangements in the provision of shared access facilities in rural areas (such as where the departments of education and health could share the costs of a link at a clinic which also serves as a distance education access point) Ret (7) 4 To contribute to the cultural growth of the institutions hosting the RINAF nodes; l This is a rather nebulous objective for which substantive impacts are hard to assess However awareness raising activities, attendance at international workshops and access to the Intemet in general have no-doubt contributed to the cultural growth of many of the organizations involved in the project The lack of a clear institutional consistency with respect to the type of organizations hosting RINAF nodes has not made it easy to develop activities around this idea, but in the future, a number of the recommendations made elsewhere, especially in relation to international co-operation, may contribute further to this goal 5 To leave, at the end of the project, a structure that may be completely handed over to one or more regional centres able to manage the data network services for Africa l l l In general it can be said that this goal has not yet been fulfilled There are a number of issues at stake here Firstly, countries were grouped together in geographic sub-regions which did not take into account the more important factor of the different languages present within each of the sub-regions While geographic sub-regions may appear to improve the potential for sub-regional coordination due to physical proximity, in actual fact air-travel and telephone connections in Africa do not reflect physical location Virtually any international air-travel is costly, often requiring a connection in a third country Likewise international calls to neighbouring countries are often just as expensive as calls to Europe, the USA or more distant parts of Africa Also, for various reasons there were problems with the placement of the subregional co-ordinating institutions Some of them did not have the leadership or capacity to carry out an international support role, others were in countries whose situation was not conducive to this role (Algeria and Nigeria), and none of them had an existing sub-regional mandate before the RINAF designation Another problem was that the logic for dividing the countries of Africa into sub- 11

20 l l regions does not reflect the nature of networking today The concept of regional centres able to manage the data network services for Africa has now been overtaken by the organic growth of the Intemet and the rise of nationally managed networks, largely operated by the PTOs, which, due to the nature of the Intemet protocols, can link into the Intemet cloud at any location Since this is usually to the USA via satellite (because of the lower costs and proportion of traffic destined for/from the USA), the general idea of a regional or sub-regional physical data network was rightly abandoned At some point in the future when sufficient traffic has built up to other African countries, and the underlying telecommunications infrastructure can support it, an indigenous international data network linking African countries directly may emerge However even then, this is more likely to be managed by the PTOs rather than by a smaller network user-group such as the academic and research sector There are however still some needs in network management across that continent that could be addressed through RINAF activities: 1 The establishment of an African IP registry Ret (8) Currently African IP address space is temporarily managed by the USA registry ARIN which charges a minimum of US$2500 / year for a block of addresses A proposal for an Africa NIC has been made for some time and raised at the previous INET 97 conference So far little progress has been made because of the lack of on-the-ground national networking associations to support it and the political difficulties of identifying the appropriate host country and organization There are now Intemet Society chapters in all of the African regions and in most of the countries with large Intemet user populations If a meeting of representatives of these could be held at the same time that funds were lined up to support the establishment of the NIC, it should be possible to at least temporarily identify a host body nominated by consensus of the ISOC chapters 2 Capacity building of Domain Name System managers Ret (9) Domain name management is deficient in many African countries - the capacity to respond to requests is limited in many cases, reverse name servers are often misconfigured (partly explaining the very low host count in international statistics) and a systematic and understandable naming system is often not in place Guidelines and a training programme could be developed for this as part of RINAF Topics should include links with trademarking, copyright, etc and should use leading models as examples for national domain name registration management, such as In addition this would be an opportune occasion to promote the model of the infrastructure fund built up by the 30% allocation of the commercial domain name registration fees, used in the USA and South Africa, which could be replicated elsewhere The USA has recently discontinued its fund, but this is largely because of its controversial nature (the monopoly of one registrar) and the high level of infrastructure development in that country 3 A general strategv to encourage peerinp within and between African 12