After the November 2008 meeting in Johannesburg, the second meeting of NEPAD e-Africa Commission ICT Ministers will be held from 7 to 9 June 2010 at the Meridian President Hotel in Dakar, Senegal. This important meeting will be held under the auspices of the African Union and will be jointly organised by the NEPAD Agency and the Senegalese government.

It will be attended by 20 African Ministers of Information and Communications Technology who make up the NEPAD Heads of State and the Government Orientation Committee (HSGOC); two (2) African Union Commissaries (Human Resources, Science and Technology, Energy and Infrastructure); the NEPAD Executive Secretary; the 20 members of the Commission’s Executive Committee and ISPAD Forum participants (Information Society Partnership for Africa’s Development).

Three key events will mark this meeting to which more than a hundred participants are expected.

7 June – Meeting of the NEPAD e-Africa Commission Executive Committee: the Executive Committee is the organ which steers the NEPAD e-Africa Commission between Commission meetings and its members include senior ICT officials from the NEPAD Heads of State and the Government Orientation Committee. It is presided over by the Executive Secretary of the NEPAD Planning and Co-ordination Agency (NPCA), Dr. Ibrahim Assane Mayaki. It will examine, in particular, the NEPAD e-Africa Commission’s report on its activities, projects and programs; its financial report and questions linked to the Commission’s governance. It will also examine the 2010-2015 Strategic Plan conceived to give new direction to the NEPAD e-Africa Commission’s programs and projects in direct line with the integration of NEPAD into the structures and processes of the African Union, following the decision taken by the Heads of State during their last summit in Addis-Ababa in January 2010.

8 June- Meeting of the Ministerial Commission: made up of 20 ICT Ministers from NEPAD, the Commission is the highest decision-making body. It should proceed to the validation of the propositions which will be submitted to it by the Executive Committee and adopt declarations relating to the way the NEPAD e-Africa Commission functions, considering the integration of NEPAD within African Union structures.

9 June- The Information Society Partnership for Africa’s Development (ISPAD) Forum: the Forum promotes Public-Private Partnerships in order to establish ICT development projects. It brings together members from government, civil society and the private sector who, together with the NEPAD e-Africa Commission, create synergies for the implementation of ICT projects throughout the continent. This initiative currently involves South Africa participants as well as participants from multinational companies that are based in South Africa, but it should be enlarged to the scale of the continent. The Dakar Forum will be in line with this process.

Background The NEPAD e-Africa Commission was established in October 2001, after the creation of NEPAD, by the African Ministers of Communications who met under the auspices of the Surveillance Ministerial Committee (SMC) of the African Telecommunications Union (ATU), who decided to put in place a new continental organ which would address modify the paradigms of the development of the ICT sector in Africa.

In November 2002 in Abuja, Nigeria, the Heads of State and Government implementation Committee decided to make the e-Africa Commission the NEPAD instrument responsible for drafting policies, strategies and projects at the continental level, as well as managing the structured development of the ICT sector within NEPAD.

In his capacity as the Co-ordinator of NEPAD’s ICT chapter, His Excellency President Abdoulaye Wade is the Honorary President of the NEPAD e-Africa Commission. Presently, the NEPAD e-Africa Commission has projects in operation and some in the course of execution throughout the Continent within the domain of education and infrastructure. These consist of the NEPAD e-Schools initiative, present in 16 countries in the continent including Senegal, as well as the NEPAD broadband network with the implementation of undersea and terrestrial cables which will facilitate communication between African countries and the rest of the world. The undersea segment of the network running from France to Cape Town in South Arica is currently being implemented by the ACE Consortium (Africa Connect to Europe) of which NEPAD and SONATEL, representing Senegal, are members.

For further information please contact:
In Senegal: Mr Mamadou Moustapha Seck, President of the Communications Sub-Commission. Tel: +221 77 638 48 25. Email: mamadoumoustapha@gmail.com Dakar, Senegal. Website: www.telecom.gouv.sn/

In South Africa: Mr Gilles Eric Foadey, NEPAD e-Africa Commission Secretariat, Communications Manager. Tel: +27 12 841 4523/ + 27 73 530 6654. Email: gfoadey@eafricacommission.org Pretoria, South Africa. Website: www.eafricacommission.org