The ECA/IDRC Pan-African initiative e-commerce

Abstract

The African Development Forum Meeting, convened by the UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) in Addis Ababa in October 1999, considered the development of Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) in Africa and their contribution to development. One area of concern under discussion was electronic commerce and how it might be harnessed for the development of the continent. The ability of governments to influence - both positively and negatively - the growth of electronic commerce is underlined by the fact that over 70% of the world's Information Technology Associations, from both developed and developing countries, are on record as saying that public policy is critical to the growth of electronic commerce1.