Preliminary reflection to launch an African action plan on e-governance

Abstract

E-governance or the utilization of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) to facilitate public administration at the national, regional and local levels is considered as an important element of the information society building process. Both the draft declaration of principles and draft action plan of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), that emerged from its second Preparatory Committee (PrepCom-2) meeting held in February 2003, have put the role of e-governance in the information society. This paper aims to initiate discussion for drafting an African e-governance action plan for submission to the third preparatory meeting of the WSIS (PrepCom-3) expected to take place in Geneva from 15 to 26 September 2003. The contents are compiled from the various submissions to the WSIS by African entities as well as e-governance related issues included in the recent versions (21 March 2003) of the working documents for the Draft Declaration of Principles1 and Draft Action Plan2 of the WSIS. Comments relating to the latter are expected to be submitted to the WSIS Secretariat before the 31 May 2003 deadline.