Digital Divide in Sub-Saharan African Universities: Recommendations and Monitoring

Abstract

The Digital Divide prevents Africa from taking advantages of new information technologies. One of the most urgent priorities is to bring the Internet in African Universities, Research, and Learning Centers to the level of other regions of the world. eGY-Africa, and the Sharing Knowledge Foundation are two bottom-up initiatives by scientists to secure better cyber-infrastructure and Internet facilities in Africa. Recommendations by the present scientific communities are being formulated at national, regional and international levels. The Internet capabilities are well documented at country level overall, but this is not the case at the University level. The snapshot of the Internet status in universities in 17 African countries, obtained by a questionnaire survey, is consistent with measures of Internet penetration in the corresponding country. The monitoring of Internet performance has been proposed to those African universities to provide an information base for arguing the need to improve the coverage for Africa. A pilot program is recommended that will start scientific collaboration with Europe in western Africa using ICT. The program will lay the foundations for the arrival of new technologies like Grids

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