African youth commit to ICT

By Itumeleng Mogaki, ITWeb junior journalist

Johannesburg, 03 Jul 2005

The African Nepad Youth Conference on the Information Society held in Limpopo province last week was concluded by adopting a declaration titled the "Limpopo Commitment" on the role of youth in boosting ICT development on the continent.

Around 500 young delegates attended the conference, which was held in preparation for the next round of the World Summit in Information Society (WSIS), to be held in Tunisian capital, Tunis, from 16 to 18 November.

The Department of Communications and the Presidential National Commission on Information Society and Development hosted the event.

According to the declaration, the conference led the creation of a report on concerns and challenges facing the development of the information society in Africa, and suggestions were made on resolving these challenges.

Among the challenges and commitments listed were:

* Projects engaged by stakeholders should be based on the needs of the communities into which these projects are deployed.

* The youth see a role for themselves to lead ICT awareness-building activities in communities. This includes "massive voluntary peer education in ICT, particularly in rural communities and pro-poor urban areas".

The statement issued after the conference added: "We see the need to empower youth activists to form a network to actively push for faster development of policy and infrastructure in Africa."

It also stated: "The way of thinking of our peers needs to be revolutionised to embrace the multifaceted development benefits of ICT."

Countries committed to the declaration for the African youth are Cameroon, Congo-Brazzaville, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mali, Mauritius, Mozambique, South Africa, Tanzania, and Uganda.