Internet Development in Africa

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

Organizations

Pan African Development Information System

The Pan African Development Information System, or PADIS was a co-operative initiative started in early 1980 in Ethiopia. PADIS was comprised of five sites that stored data from The PADIS Network which consisted of 39 centres that interacted, created and exchanged information system data amongst themselves. These centres aimed to assist policy-making decisions and the socio-political development of the African continent. Its primary objectives were as follows:

• To promote the improvement of information infrastructure in African member States, especially through the adoption of information technology in Africa as a tool for improvement information management and exchange on behalf of development;

• To promote the creation of databases in fields of importance to development in the region;

• To promote the utilization of common norms and standards of information handling in the region in order to ensure compatibility and to facilitate information exchange;

• To establish a system which will improve access to both published and unpublished documents produced in Africa on questions relating to scientific and technological aspects, economic, and social aspects of development;

• To train information specialists at national, subregional and regional levels in order to upgrade skills and introduce improved methods of information handling.

PADIS strove to undertake the following activities:

• Delivery of advisory services to African States and institutions on aspects of development of information and documentation systems, e.g. needs assessment, formulation of information plans and policies, design of national/sectoral information systems, choice of information technologies and strengthening of information centres;

• Training staff of national, subregional and institutional participating centres as well as information policy makers and other system users through workshops, seminars and short courses in information system methodologies, computerized documentation techniques, information systems policy and management and statistical data base management and utilization;

• Creation and maintenance of bibliographic, referral and numerical data bases;

• Provision of user services, including printed outputs from data bases, newsletters, selective dissemination of information, current awareness profiles and retrospective searches, question/answer service, hardcopy and microfiche document delivery, data bases on magnetic media and consolidating and repackaging of information.

PADISNET

In a fashion somewhat similar to ARPANET, PADISNET began in 1990 as a pilot project to electronically link distinct network nodes. Supported by the International Development Resource Center (IDRC), PADISNET connected on-demand to London, South Africa, the United States, Dakar (Senegal), Accra (Ghana), and Dar Es Salaam (Tanzania). To be sure, this was not the official beginning of Africa's Internet, but a major step toward refining and advancing it.

NSRC

In the early 1990s Egyptian universities were struggling to connect to one of education's top data dissemination tools, the Internet. After contacting the Network Startup Resource Center or NSRC, this goal was achieved. Bolstered by this success, the African Education division of the World Bank requested the NSRC to build a sustainable network for email in Guinea. Worked continued in Conakry, where the organization set up a Point to Point Protocol or PPP and dial up to establish the country's first connections to the Internet.

The NSRC is currently working with Uganda On Line, the East Africa Help Desk, Makerere University and the African Virtual University to connect more of Africa's academics and NGOs with the Internet.

Internet Society

The Internet Society (ISOC) first established roots in Africa in Morocco in April 1996, with Ghana and Egypt following close behind.

ISOC was instrumental in creating INET Technical Workshops as a means to educate those who wanted to set up IP networks. This focused, one-week training covered the DNS and routing and Internet services implementation. Dr. Nii Quaynor, Dr Tarek Kamel and Pierre Dandjinou were instrumental contributors to INET and its proliferation throughout Africa.

Internet Society