Introduction
This short report provides a synopsis of key issues highlighted during the discussions and presentations of the 2nd EuroAfrica Cooperation Forum on ICT Research. The Forum was divided into three components: main plenary sessions, 8 parallel and thematic sessions, and technical visits. This summary, prepared by the event manager (the Meraka Institute of CSIR, South Africa) is specific to the event’s plenary sessions (the opening session and sessions on AU Framework and Priorities and African-EU ICT & S&T Cooperation), to key issues on ICT and R&D in general, and to the debates that emerged during the thematic parallel sessions.
 
Event summary
The 2nd Euro-Africa Cooperation Forum on ICT Research, organised by the EU-funded EuroAfrica-ICT project and supported by the Human Resources, Science and Technology Department of the African Union Commission (AUC-HRST) and the European Commission (EC - DG INFSO - International Relations Unit) under the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) theme of the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) successfully took place on 4 February 2010 at the United Nations Conference Centre (UNCC) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

This Forum was organised as the only follow-up event to the AU 2010 Summit and the AU-ECA 2010 Summit Exhibition. With the aim of paving the way for a strengthened and coordinated approach to foster Euro-Africa cooperation, this conference - the second of its series (the first edition was held in Brussels, Belgium, early in 2009) - was a considerable success and continued to provide a forum for discussions on recent developments and perspectives in the field.

In addition to an exciting agenda with over 72 chair-persons and speakers/panellists contributing to the Forum programme, almost 300 delegates (80% of delegates coming from African countries, 19% from Europe and 1 % from the Caribbean and other regions) from 44 different countries participated: Policymakers | Senior representatives from governments | Representatives from international development cooperation agencies | ICT project managers | Programme managers | Heads of research labs | Researchers | IT engineers | Deans, directors, lecturers and researchers from universities and the higher education sector | Managers of NGOs, professional associations, centres of excellence, trade unions, chambers of commerce, | Industry stakeholders. Held over only one day, delegates had a very busy schedule with many interesting and stimulating discussions.
 
Aknowledgements
The EuroAfrica-ICT partnership would like to express its most grateful thanks to the many participants from the whole of Africa, from Europe and of course from the Caribbean for having taken time out of their busy schedules to participate in this important Forum. The partnership thanks the many individuals who helped in getting this conference off the ground and would like to gratefully acknowledge the significant efforts and contributions of both EC and AUC staff as well as those of the event sponsors and donors.
 
Opening session
AUC-HRST Director Vera Brenda Ngosi highlighted the relevance of linking the 2nd Euro-Africa Cooperation Forum on ICT Research to the AU Summit of Heads of State and Government and it’s ICT theme of ‘Prospects for development’. Ngosi reconfirmed the commitment of AUC-HRST to working with the European Union and other partners to develop an inclusive ICT society and to bridge the digital divide. In closing Ngosi urged that follow-up to the Forum should bring the benefits of ICTs to all African citizens.

Antti Peltomaki, Deputy-Director at the European Commission’s DG INFSO indicated that the co-location of the Forum with the AU Summit demonstrated the willingness of the EU and AU to work together on growth and development. The mobile boom in Africa has been seen as driven by market liberalisation and novel business models. However, Peltomaki noted that internet penetration and broadband access remain very low and there is a need for a favourable regulatory environment to promote investments.

Moctar Yedaly, Head of Telecommunications & Post, Department for Infrastructure & Energy, at the AUC confirmed that ICTs in most African countries lag behind the global level and highlighted the difference with a poignant analogy: “While a superpower wants to go to the moon, we are still trying to reach villages”. Yedaly remarked that, despite the continuing shortage of human resources for ICT research, there are now several coordinated plans for development of ICTs in Africa that especially include harmonisation policies.
 
AU Frameworks and Priorities
The focus of presentations during this session was mainly on policy mechanisms (including AU Reference Frameworks ARAKPE, AMCOST Consolidated Plan of Action) – and especially the Executive Council decision of the recent AU Summit that clearly puts ICT for development at the centre of the African development agenda.

Presentations emphasised the definite trend towards harmonisation of policies across the continent – essential if African nations are to develop compatible ICT infrastructures together. However, the commitment to work with the private sector is regarded as critical. There was general acknowledgement that the lack of human resources hinders the building of research and development capacity across rica. In order for Africa to address such issues, there has to be improved financing (research and infrastructure) and enabling policies and strategies.

Africa-EU ICT & S&T Cooperation
Plenary session 2 provided an ideal complement to the preceding session with senior-level speakers presenting concrete examples of EU-Africa S&T / ICT cooperation initiatives and programmes which are helping to populate the AU frameworks and priorities described in the first plenary session.

Several papers developed the theme of capacity building: Two key papers, one from the AU Commission and another from the African co-chair of JEG8 respectively described the 3rd and 8th Partnerships of the Joint Africa-EU strategy (JAES), underlining on the one hand, for JAES Partnership 3, the critical importance of infrastructure development and central role of ICT, demonstrating linkages of the EU-Africa infrastructure partnership to AU programmes such as PIDA; and then for JAES Partnership 8, Forum participants learned about the operational mechanism of the joint experts group, and about the deliberate linkages in the 8th Partnership to African programmes such as the CPA and ARAPKE. Two major development cooperation initiatives, the ACP programmes on ICT, and S&T, supported by the European Development Fund, were described by the ACP secretariat, which shares management responsibility for these programmes with AIDCO.

Two other keynote papers, from Portugal and Finland, described the bilateral approaches to advancing the ICT pillar of the 8th Partnership. Finally, in a paper from the European Commission’s Directorate General for Information Society and Media, Forum participants learned about the complexity of the European Framework Programme, the place, priorities and magnitude of support for ICT research within that framework and the opportunities for EU-Africa cooperation.  

Thematic sessions

Session #1a: ICT for Education (Technology Enhanced Learning) (Report prepared by the session rapporteur: Erol Kulahci, European Affairs Manager, Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie (AUF), Belgium & EuroAfrica- ICT Project Partner)
This session highlighted the necessity of reinforcing capacity building especially with regard to access to internet, affordability (open access, Linux training, open educational resources), the role of developed nations and large companies, public/private partnership, sustainability, technical and manpower resources as a key requirements for enabling Technology Enhanced Learning.

In addition, the session stressed the importance of reinforcing content, for example, the use of hardware (video conferences, mobile phone), courseware development, cooperation between African and European universities and research centres (south-north), cooperation between African universities and research centres (south-south) was emphasised as key for future research. Also underlined was the need to ensure the respecting of standards and international norms: recognition and accreditation of e-learning curriculum.

There was general consensus on the need to fight against the digital divide between Europe and Africa, between African countries (language divide) and within African countries (capital vs. provincial cities).  

Session #1b: ICT for Environmental Sustainability and Energy Efficiency (Report prepared by the session rapporteur: Ezra Mugisa, Lecturer, University of the West Indies (UWI), Jamaica & EuroAfrica-ICT Project Partner)
This lively and well-attended session had 4 presentations.

Augustino Nunes, of Mozambique's ICT Policy Implementation Technical Unit (UTICT) gave us a country perspective with specific references to their use ICTs to help in natural disaster management. The government of Mozambique has approved four key strategies on ICT policy, science, technology and innovation, telecommunications law and public sector reform and has charged two ministries (Transport & Communications, and Science & Technology) with overseeing the government's ICT programmes. With a national telecommunications backbone connecting all provincial capitals with optic fibre, EASY and SEACOM submarine cables providing international connectivity, the government electronic network (GovNet) connecting public institutions up to district level and a government portal (http://www.portaldogoverno.gov.mz), the infrastructure is in place to wire the nation for the 21st century. Mozambique is able to monitor floods (especially on the Limpopo and Zambezi rivers), cyclones, earthquakes, droughts and bush fires through data collection and disseminate relevant information to those affected. Systems are not yet perfect but they are working on improvements at various levels.

Chris Morris (African Advanced Institute for Information and Communications Technology (AAIICT), Meraka Institute) posed the problem of connecting a typical rural African village into the global economy in order to transform subsistence farming into market-oriented farming and thereby help prevent environmental degradation and provide job opportunities for young people, thus mitigating brain drain. Morris sees investment in infrastructure as an essential first step to attract the private sector to invest and he made the case for what he called “Green Power Wireless Broadband” as an appropriate means of delivering a broad range of services simultaneously to reach the rural parts of the population and have a measurable impact on national outcomes whilst achieving sustainable development. Citing examples and statistics from around the globe, especially from Asia and Eastern Europe where there has been impressive growth in internet use, mobile penetration and incomes, he presented a possible solution using solar-powered community-owned mesh wireless broadband networks of low cost mobile devices.

Ingo Simonis (International Geospatial Services Institute) looked at aspects of ICT for energy efficiency. Does ICT hinder or help our fight against climate change? The SMART 2020 report found that ICT could save 15% of global emissions in 2020. The use of intelligent systems is one way, with smart motor systems, smart logistics, smart buildings and smart grids. Simonis identified three clear roles for ICT: 1) developing protocols to enable smart systems to interact (standardisation), 2) making energy and carbon emissions visible by linking monitoring to accountability, and 3) organisational decision making, and increasing accountability for energy consumption: We need to rethink how we live play, learn and work.

Paulo Ferrao (MIT-Portugal program) presented the economy metabolism with intelligent energy networks and the energy software revolution. He sees the next revolution as the energy internet with consumers becoming producers with full and smart grid accessibility. There is a critical role for ICT in such an arrangement. Sustainable energy systems require integration through ICT.  

Session #1c: Advanced Technology to improve Health (e-Health) (Report prepared by the session rapporteur: Santhi Kumaran, Senior Lecturer, Kigali Institute of Science and Technology (KIST), Rwanda & EuroAfrica-ICT Project Partner)
Participants emphasized the centrality of health as one of the top three development priorities in Africa. In this session various technologies for developing healthcare systems were discussed. Satellite navigation was discussed as an operational tool for health-mapping services, and as a tool in the distribution of humanitarian aid in flood/disaster prone areas. It is also used for geo-localization in the remote supervision of patients and for telemedicine applications. The high penetration of mobile phones led to a discussion of mobile health solutions. Usage of open source software for e-health application development to make the services cost effective was discussed.

One of the main challenges to the advancement of e-health technologies identified by participants in this session was the fragmentation of different healthcare delivery systems at different levels in a country, supported by different sponsors. With each having a specific agenda for which the health system is being developed and each having a different solution, the consequent proprietary nature of healthcare systems owned by different sponsors and the sustainability and scalability are inevitably called into question. In order to overcome the above challenges, smart partnerships have to be encouraged and healthcare delivery systems should be developed taking a patient-centred and simple approach rather than one focused on technology. Participants identified a need for strengthening local research groups on this and increasing their gradual exposure to ICT. Research priorities identified by the group focused on developing interoperability standards to be adopted by all sectors of healthcare delivery systems. Such systems developed should, participants recommended, be based on evidence-based decision making so that integrity is maintained between systems even where different technologies are employed. This would require the aggregation of data at all levels. The main aim of such recommendations would be to achieve a harmonized healthcare package and IT-healthcare policies. Participants felt that in pursuit of the foregoing, collaboration with EU research groups would be vital to encouraging, for example, good e-health business models and electronic medical record systems.  

Session #1d: Digital Library Services and Digital Content Infrastructure (Report prepared by the session rapporteur: Sarah Hinz, Project Assistant, the Association of Commonwealth Universities (ACU) & EuroAfrica-ICT Project Partner)
In the presentations and the questions & answers session which followed, participants identified major challenges to the advancement of ’Digital Library Services’ and ‘Digital Content Infrastructures’. The ‘access crisis’ (speaker Ronald Munatsi) referring to the situation where the necessary technology exists but there is limited access to it, was a main issue of discussion. A number of reasons were identified for the inadequate access to technologies such as digital library services and other digital content infrastructures; these included low electricity voltage which impedes the use of technology; low income and thus limited funds to afford the technology; low (information) literacy which hinders the application of technology; and insufficient and costly bandwidth which is an obvious obstacle to accessing the existing technology.

Speaker Margaret Ngwira, emphasized the ‘connectivity & collaboration’ issue, emphasizing the importance of inter-regional cooperation with regard to enhancing connectivity. Such interregional collaboration, the speaker claimed, will also facilitate a strong Africa. Speaker Susan Veldsman identified inadequate governmental funding possibilities as a challenge to digital content infrastructures. Citing South Africa as an example, it was explained how funding goes to institutions but doesn’t trickle down to the individual researchers. With regard to any new developments in the field of digital libraries and digital infrastructures, digital networks for informal justice systems used in Rwanda (presented by Cindy Jeffers) have been welcomed by the other speakers and participants. Such examples of oral and participatory technology systems were seen as an innovative way of using African culture. As in other sessions the need for adequate bandwidth, in this case for facilitating scholarly publishing, was highlighted. There was an agreement that collaborations and consortia, such as the Zimbabwe University Libraries Consortium (Agnes Chikonzo), to digitally share research are the way forward. Particularly mention was made of ‘Open Access’ which provides digital literature free of charge, creates knowledge societies and brings together the global learning community.  

Session #2a: GEANT & e-Infrastructures (Report prepared by the session rapporteur: Erol Kulahci, European Affairs Manager, Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie (AUF), Belgium & EuroAfrica- ICT Project Partner)
This session drew attention to the importance of properly organising and evaluating NRENs (National Research and Education Networks) in Sub-Saharan Africa. Development in African countries and economic growth will provide indirect benefit from the proper management and the NRENs.

The NRENs are a critical requirement for human capital development especially in education. However, there is a need that operators are supported in order to ensure the movement towards low prices/increase of volumes in the networks.

In terms of connectivity, there is a need to link NRENs in terms of dark fibre, wavelengths and data capacity and develop interest on ICTs among the academic community as this community is not familiar with ICT. In addition to the Africa Connect project, it is necessary to offer the academic community opportunities to improve its use of ICT especially with respect to research and development.  

Session #2b: Network of the Future (Report prepared by the session rapporteur: Ezra Mugisa, Lecturer, University of the West Indies (UWI), Jamaica & EuroAfrica-ICT Project Partner)
This lively, and somewhat over-subscribed session generated an interesting discussion on where to look for solution to the problems we are currently facing, and are likely to face in the near future.

Debretsion Michael (Ethiopian ICT Development Agency (EICTDA)) explored the challenges and opportunities of migrating from traditional networks to Next Generation Networks (NGN) – a packet-based network providing telecommunications services using multiple broadband, QoS-enabled transport technologies in a portable and inter-operable manner. NGN should support voice, data and video. Michael gave a technical background to, and overview of NGN, its benefits, drivers, and challenges – in particular QoS and transition, presenting the opportunities and challenges for Ethiopia.

Daniel Kok (SAP Research, Meraka Institute) stressed the need for solution for developing regions of the world: “We believe that technology has a large role to play in developing regions, that 'First World' technology to date has been a poor fit in these areas, and that there is thus a need for technology research for developing regions ...” “ ... Although it is clear that there are large differences in assumptions related to the cost, power, and usage, there has been little work on how technology needs in developing regions differ from those of industrialised nations. We argue that Western market forces will continue to meet the needs of developing regions accidentally at best.” Some have predicted that by 2020 internet use will have grown from 1.7 billion today to 5 billion and the vast majority will be mobile phones users. “Once people in emerging markets have experienced basic voice and data communication, through mobile devices, they are eager to take advantage of internet services to enhance their personal and business lives.” Mobile broadband is the wave of the future in emerging economies with growth predicted to go from 17% in 2008 to 54% in 2015. We are likely to see an internet of services and an internet of things for emerging economies. Thus future networks will showcase the ability to connect everyday objects, people, information and enterprises in a context-aware and wireless manner in order to create an integrated value network that is adaptable, affordable, interoperable, safe and usable.

Mahmadou Saibou (ESMT, Senegal) made an interesting presentation on the seven member countries of ESMT : Benin, Burkina Faso, Guinee (Conakry), Mali, Mauritanie, Niger and Senegal and the projects they are involved in.

Omar Farih Hamad (University of Dar es Salaam) presented on “future networks for an integrated collaboration in African academies” alluding to the problem of phenomenal growth in demand for university access (178% increase in undergraduate admissions) with only moderate increases in academic staff (34%) and of which many are not qualified. Rather than curb enrolment the solution proposed is in the use of technology for “integrated academic partnership”. He advocated the creation of “collaboratories” - integrated, tool-oriented computing and communications systems. “Universities must take advantage of “future” networks to deliver real-time, on-demand, good quality voice, video and multimedia services over multi-service, IP communication paths supporting stationary and mobile users, using heterogeneous terminals for the purpose of addressing academic and research staff constraints in the universities”. Hamad presented an architectural framework for the network he envisages.  

Session #2c: ICT for Independent living & e-Inclusion and e-Accessibility (Report prepared by the session rapporteur: Santhi Kumaran, Senior Lecturer, Kigali Institute of Science and Technology (KIST), Rwanda & EuroAfrica-ICT Project Partner)
In this session, the discussion focused on open access to content and technology transfer and on how every new technology should pave the way to allowing inclusive transformation such that the community is involved and gains the necessary skills to access technology. Participants underlined that IT inclusion, including mobile-inclusion, is very important for economic the development of any society. Conversely, IT exclusion results in the slow appreciation of technology in a society. Present society is facing an aging population and so providing improved quality healthcare, and finding ways to extend access to professional medical services to homes is becoming a necessity. Among the key challenges identified during the session were the following:

1) the difficulty in getting rural ICT appreciation for e-inclusion;
2) an ICT-phobia in which people consider ICT to be for the rich;
3) language barriers in accessing information;
4) poor ICT infrastructure in developing countries;
5) the common failure of ICT policies to adequately consider SMEs and low income earners;
6) the low level of ICT literacy among healthcare providers, hindering their provision of quality services;
7) healthcare delivery costs.

Among the solutions identified by session participants to overcome these challenges were the establishment of ICT inclusion centres at which gender inclusion should be maintained as a priority at all levels, and sufficient grants allocated to attract more inclusion. For content, participants recommended the e-content plus initiative. For health delivery, getting local health units in place which can then be directed to a referral hospital was seen as a priority. Collaborative R&D was seen as a way forward and which would include all stakeholders and should increase the IT SME workforce, develop cross language retrieval software for content delivery, build good home telemedicine applications, develop affordable health information models. Above all creating awareness about the health services is important.  

Session #2d: CAAST-Net Information Session on FP7 (Report prepared by the session rapporteur: Sarah Hinz, Project Assistant, the Association of Commonwealth Universities (ACU) & EuroAfrica-ICT Project Partner)
The ‘CAAST-Net Information Session on FP7’ differed from other thematic sessions. CAAST-Net is the Network for the Coordination and Advancement of sub-Saharan Africa-EU Science & Technology Cooperation, a consortium of European and African structures with a mandate for advancing international cooperation in S&T, financed by the EU’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7). In the presentations and the questions & answers session that followed, opportunities and challenges were identified to cooperation between European and African researchers participating in FP7 and in its specific thematic areas, and particularly as they relate to ICT and e-applications .

One of the first challenges referred to is simply accessing African stakeholders and bridging the gap between the two continents; participation in FP7 requires in-depth knowledge of the operation of the programme. Next is identifying areas of mutual interest and benefits for African and European stakeholders to cooperate and participate in FP7. A third challenge is the identification of potential partners to build consortia to apply for funding under FP7. Language barriers and their role in constructing consortia, as well as identifying African researchers was alluded to. Participants and speakers agreed that areas and opportunities of collaboration between ICT and Energy, Transport and Food, Agriculture, Fisheries and Biotechnologies have not been sufficiently identified and enhanced. S&T Work Programmes tend not to place explicit focus on ICT but possibilities may exist for including ICT components in S&T activities. A further challenge to Africa’s increased participation in FP7 is the relatively weak research capacity limiting opportunities to join a consortium. With regard to future ICT research priorities, speaker Habiba Wassef (Egypt) emphasised the need for a stronger focus on ICT in agriculture. Among other research priorities, the following have been identified: ICT and environmental challenges, climate change, fishery, food security, preservation of biodiversity, surveillance of plant and animal disease, and renewable energy supplies.  

Conclusions
The level of debate, quality of presentations and interest shown by delegates in participating in the various thematic sessions of this event was a considerable achievement. The networking and collaboration amongst ICT experts during this event could be singled out as resounding success towards achieving the objectives of the Forum. Sharing knowledge, ideas and exchanging experiences through a platform of this nature is essential f <br>or policy dialogues aimed at creating opportunities for future FP7 research projects and for projecting the innovation of ICT R&D projects in Africa and in Europe.  

ACRONYMS:

- ACP African Caribbean Pacific Group of States
- AU African Union
- AUC African Union Commission
- AUC- HRST African Union Commission – Human Resource, Science and Technology
- AMCOST African Ministerial Council for Science and Technology
- ARAKPE African Regional Action Plan for Knowledge Economy
- CAP Consolidated Plan of Action
- ECA Economic Commission for Africa
- EU European Union
- ICT Information Communication Technology
- JAES Joint Africa EU Strategy
- JEG8 Joint Expert Group on P8 (EU-Africa Partnership 8: Science, Information Society and Space)
- NEPAD New Partnership for Africa’s Development
- NREN National Research and Education Networks
- UNCC United Nations Conference Centre