Small in number; big dreams being realised

Presented by: Khadijah Aja TambajangICT Officer(Communication Affairs)

December 5th 2013

MINISTRY OF INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION INFRASTRUCTURE

(MOICI)

ICT DEVELOPMENT IN THE GAMBIA

Country Profile – Smallest country on the continent map

Location: Western Africa, bordering the North Atlantic Ocean and Senegal

Population: 1.7million

Age structure: over 34% of population under 14 years ofage

Population growth rate: 2.29% (2013 est.)

Area: 11,300 sq km

Economy dependent on agriculture, tourism and bulkre exporting

Natural resources: fish, clay, silica sand, titanium (rutile and ilmenite), tin, zircon.

Domestic Telephone lines: combined fixed-line and mobile-cellular teledensity, aided by four (4) mobile-cellular providers, is roughly 80 per 100 persons

Mobile and Internet facts: 85% mobile coverage in 2010, and the number of mobile phone subscribers increased 264-fold to 1.47 million between 2000 and 2010. Internet access increased ten-fold from 0.92 per 100 individuals in 2000, to 9.2

individuals per 100 in 2010. We have six (6) ISPs

MOICI Profile

Our goal at MOICI is to turn The Gambia into a competitive ICT incubator andhub, in our region, which would become an outsourcing destination and abase for technology services, knowledge, production and development. Wewould like to see a Gambia where its citizens have accessibility to connection,be it in the health, commerce, agriculture or education sector. The surge ofICT-based mechanisms in The Gambia in the last 11 years has proved thatour Ministry in on the right path to realizing our vision: A Gambia with therequisite infrastructure and enabling policy framework that ensuresfull connectivity of everyone to ICT services by 2015.

Our Objective Increase investment in ICTs as a major economic activity.

StrategiesPromote the development of ICT investment i.e., manufacturing, parks etc that

respond to local and export oriented product and service requirements and to create a strong e-government platform to mainstream development in all

sectors especially in the service delivery of government.

In 2010, MOICI launched its four-year strategic plan, a new framework furtheradvancing its ongoing commitment to provide The Gambia with advancedtelecoms infrastructure. This process was given a further boost last year withthe launch of the government’s central Programme for Accelerated Growth andEmployment (PAGE).

The majority of Gambians now have thepossibility to access mobile phones, radioand television, thus we are taking itfurther in pushing hard to manifest ourobjectives of connecting schools aroundthe nation, irrespective of region orpersonal affordability i.e., our ITUfunded ‘Connect a School, Connect aCommunity Project,’ which we havepartnered with the Ministry of Basic andSecondary Education in implementing.

To reach this goal, we are workingtirelessly in pushing our ongoing projectsand bringing them to fruition based onthe National Information andCommunications Infrastructure(NICI) Plans, Policies and Strategies.The fundamentals of the NICI are to bethe guiding framework for the diffusionof Information and CommunicationTechnology (ICT) applications toaccelerate the attainment of the nationaldevelopment goals.

This falls in line with Open Access Policies that promote the mantra:Connectivity for All! Getting Gambians connected and promoting PublicPrivate Partnership (PPP) via involving potential stakeholders in the affairsof government is the way forward for us to realize our aspirations of being onthe cutting edge of technology in the world at large.

The NICI’s 10 pillars: infrastructure, e-Government, agriculture, health, tradeand commerce, education, local governance, regulatory issues, media andgender will be a cross cutting one, for it is to create a data and knowledge-based platform that will strengthen our human resource capacity in an ICT-cushioned environment, hence making a positive impact in The Gambia’ssocio-economic development.

Figure : Total GDP, and communications sector value and contribution to the Gambian GDP

Currently, our country is going through an ICT overhaulwith the advent of these key projects:

The ICT4D Action Plan -- a UNECA supported project that focuses onimplementing the provisions of The Gambian NICI Policy focus areas hasbeen re-organized into the respective 10 pillars designed to alsoincorporate specific programmes and initiatives for implementing inconcrete terms the various actions of the World Summit on InformationSociety (WSIS) Plan of Action. The goal is to make The Gambian ICT4DAction Plans ‘WSIS-compliant.’

Connect A School, Connect A Community Project

This ITU funded Project is designed topromote broadband connectivity inschools in remote, rural or underservedareas of the Gambia that will see schoolsdouble as community ICT centres (CICs).

This Project aims to improve ICT accessand use by school children and membersof the local community, includingdisadvantaged and vulnerable groupssuch as, women and girls, indigenousand rural people, older persons andpersons with disabilities

ECOWAN -- an ECOWAS Regional Backbone Infrastructure responsiblefor upgrading our national fibre optic network to a Next GenerationNetwork (NGN) under open access regime. This also includes an e-government platform. ECOWAN project is a priority project for thecountry as it would build the missing/critical fibre network on the NorthBank.

It will replace existing obsolete network on the South Bank of the country,replacing major switches and secondary switches, overhauling oftransmission elements and network monitoring and management system.Thus significantly contributing to national competitiveness, publicand private sector productivity and efficiency, and job creationthrough ICT led SME growth.

The West Africa Regional Communication Information Project (WARCIP)

WARCIP is poised to address theconnectivity gaps, which included theWorld Bank funded African Coast toEurope (ACE) submarine cable landingstation for The Gambia, which hosts ourfirst undersea cable.

The ACE is to remedy our connectivitygaps in the country focusing oninternational, regional and nationalconnectivity to enable the creation of afully integrated network, which willprovide affordable high-speedconnectivity to the country. WARCIPcomponents also include support tostrengthen an enabling environment fordevelopment.

E-Government

The Government of the Gambiathrough MOICI with the supportof UNDP has implemented thefollowing projects under the FirstPhase of The GambiaGovernment’s e-Governmentprogramme: e-GovernmentData Center -- The Data Centreand Disaster Recovery Site wasestablished with thecollaboration of IFMIS. It iscurrently providing e-mailservices to all civil servantsunder the dot gov dot gm domain.

E-Judiciary Project – (A project in partnership with the Judiciary)

E-Judiciary Project: Interlinking courts – The first phase of thisproposed project is to have all our national courts on one communicationplatform. Our goal is to improve administration of courts in which peopletrust. With the utilization of ICT tools, this can be done as it has beenimplemented in countries like Ghana, Mauritius, Nigeria, Rwanda and India.With a country our size, this initiative can soon become a reality. We haveengaged the UNDP on this project and are actively seeking potentialpartners

E-Judiciary Computer Literacy Training -- The computer toemployee ratio of 1:8. Computer literacy is also about 50% based on acomputer literacy survey conducted by MOICI. This lead to theJudiciary being the first beneficiaries of the newly revamped GambiaTelecommunications Multi media Institute (GTMI). Our objective is to haveall staff, Management and even judges trained.

IXP Project

We have recently partnered with the AfricanUnion, who contracted the Internet Society toconduct capacity building workshops on theTechnical Aspects of operating andadministering Internet Exchange Points underthe African Internet Exchange System (AXIS)project. This first took place in January 2013.

According to a report, “Lifting barriers toInternet development in Africa: suggestions forimproving connectivity,” for the InternetSociety by Robert Schuman and MichealKendel, IXPs can and do improve the quality ofInternet services and save African operatorsmillions of dollars per year in connectivity feesbut that a key factor in the success of IXPs isthe availability of good domestic connectivity.

*End of projects*

Public Private Partnership

Few examples of PPP Initiatives in Gambia’s ICT sector

QPOWER – NAWEC Cash Power on your QCell Mobile line

QPower is QCell’s innovation in partnership with NAWEC, our nationalwater and electricity provider, that enables QCell customers to purchaseNAWEC Cash Power (for electricity meters) using their QCell lines in twoeasy steps – Register and Purchase.

Benefits of QPower:

Brings convenience to QCell customers with NAWEC Cash Power Meters. The constraints of waiting in long queues; The inconvenience of having to sleep in the dark when cash power runs

out in the middle of the night when all cash power points have closed; Right there on your mobile phone- QCell is giving you the power to

purchase Cash Power at your own time, available to you 24hrs a day,7days a week.

Few examples of PPP Initiatives in Gambia’s ICT sector cont’d

Gambia Submarine and Cable Company (GSC)

To take advantage of the Africa to Europe Project (ACE)opportunity, a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) called theGambia Submarine Cable (GSC) Company Limited wasestablished between private operators, the incumbentstate owned company, GAMTEL/GAMCEL andGovernment to further support the ACE. This gives ourprivate sector partners a sense of ownership. Asgovernment, our role is to facilitate private sectorparticipation. We would like a Gambia with an enablinginvestment environment. This is highlighted with thefirst mobile / computer assembly plant in the Gambia,RLG Gambia Limited, led by a young Gambian serialICT sector entrepreneur, Papa Yusupha Njie. Hiscompany also trains people in phone and computerrepairs.

Girls in ICTs: Tech Needs Girls Campaign in the Gambia

This initiative is a two year programme in partnership with ITU and ourGambia ITAG chapter; we run workshops for girls in Senior SecondarySchools in mostly rural areas, that give basic computer literacy tools to basicinternet use, that will eventually lead to the introduction of girls toappropriate computer skills that will lead to an interest in technical andinnovative aspects of ICTs. Girls are also linked with femaletechnologists who will be instructors and mentors. The goal is toempower girls and young women to be entrepreneurial and make use ofopportunities ICTs avails. This initiative hopes to debunk the difficulty mythsurrounding science technology engineering and mathematics.

ITAG has set up a Computer Learning Lab in the only female girls highschool in the Gambia, St Joseph Senior Secondary School.

ITAG Gambia has been working with the Gambia YMCA Chapter to setup a Computer Training Centre and Digital Studio, under the Jelypalsand web. This programme is designed by women for women. It is lead byyoung female ICT professionals to lead to the innovative use of ICTs bygirls . You can follow them on twitter on https://twitter.com/YPlusYMCA

Challenges

Funding;

Human resource capacity;

Inadequate collaboration;

Narrow market for service delivery, irregular and unstable gridline electricity supply;

Cooperation from other government and non-government entities.

All these need to be addressed for The Gambia to be able to be successfulin the optimal usage and adoption of ICT for development.

Why Invest in The Gambia ICT Landscape???

In line with promoting partnerships in creating ICT basedinvestments across the country, we have a few investmentincentives and benefits below:

Special Investment Certificate (SIC) -- VAT exemption onimported direct inputs items (materials, equipment) for projectsfor 5-8years depending on location.

Export processing zone license – when at least 80% of output isexported then the company is exempted from VAT, import dutyon capital equipment and custom duty for 10 years.

Close proximity to Europe and America has made it a good choiceof investment.

Conclusion

The Gambia is a small nation filled with bold ideas that are beingrealized. The rapid growth of the ICT industry is prove that ourpolicies are working and enabling a healthy growth in the sector. Justas countries we would like to emulate: Ghana, kenya, Rwanda andMauritius have utilized ICTs in realizing their development dreams,we are following the same path and hopeful that ICT will be indeed acatalyst to furthering our country’s development agenda.

We look forward to hosting IAD Summit 2014 in The Gambia and to welcome you all in the Smiling Coast of

Africa.

Thank you! Merci!

Gambia information: http://www.visitthegambia.gm/