AITEC, the continent`s leading organiser of IT exhibitions and conferences, is convening an African Electronic Commerce Forum to take place in Nairobi over 8-9 March next year as part of ea.telecom, the annual East African Telecommunications & Broadcasting Exhibition & Conference. The Forum will contribute towards the African Green Paper on Electronic Commerce being prepared by the African Telecommunications Union, to be finalised by mid-2001.
"We believe that the time is right to bring together all key players in Africa`s electronic commerce drive to develop an effective continent-wide framework that will benefit all countries and organisations by making systems accessible and efficient immediately, rather than some time in the future. The technology exists. We have to work out how to make it work for our benefit," said Sean Moroney, head of AITEC, announcing the event this week.
Jan Mutai, Secretary-General of the African Telecommunications Union (ATU), welcomed the Forum as an opportunity to develop a continent-wide e-commerce strategy. "ATU is pleased to be working with AITEC to convene this event as a forum for Africa to work out an e-commerce strategy that takes into account the limitations of our bandwidth and the diversity of our economies. We need to pull together the creativity, knowledge and ingenuity of all players from across the continent to establish a common understanding on how to move forward as part of the global economy," he said.
AITEC plans to develop a practical Forum programme which will encourage dialogue between potential business partners, promote dialogue between the private sector and governments, and develop practical recommendations for national and continent-wide e-commerce systems.
"Key participants will be the region`s banks, who have to co-operate with each other, with governments and with ISPs to make e-commerce work for Africa," said Moroney. "We have to find solutions to Africa`s lack of credit card facilities and difficult trans-border transactions. This is Africa`s opportunity to create a virtual united economy at some levels and lateral, imaginative thinking is needed to enable us to do it. We want the e-Forum to act as a catalyst for this."
In addition to banks, AITEC will target ISPs, Ministries of Trade & Industry, credit card companies, telecommunications operators and service providers, regional organisations, multinational corporations active in Africa, commodity traders, the continents emerging dot coms and other IT companies providing e-commerce solutions, as participants in the Summit.
Individuals or organisations wishing to contribute to the Forum should e-mail Sean Moroney on sean@aitecafrica.com.
For further details see the AITEC web site www.aitecafrica.com
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