Twelve African countries including eight represented at the ministerial level will gather in Cairo from May 10-12, 2002 to attend the African Telecommunications Union's Ministerial Oversight Committee (MOC). The meeting, which marks the fifth session of the Ministerial committee, is the first to be held in North Africa, and to address chief information and communication technology issues.
"The meeting's agenda represents a comprehensive overview of the main cooperation schemes in information and cooperation technologies needed to further the economic and social development of the African continent", explained Minister of Communications and Information Technology of Egypt, Ahmed Nazif. "Our agenda even extends beyond this to discuss a unified voice for Africa in international forays", he added.
The three-day meeting of African ministers will focus on consolidating regional cooperation in information and communication technologies progress. It will review a report on the NEPAD ICT program and discuss cooperation between the African CIT private and business sectors, and cooperation between the African and Arab ministers of Communications and Information Technology.
The Ministers will also address the African presence in the international arena during their discussions. Additionally, the agenda of the meetings includes coordinating the positions of the African countries on international events such as World Summit on Information Society and the ITU Plenipotentiary Conference to be held in Morocco in Sept 2002.
The MOC is an open Committee of African Ministers of telecommunications. The countries elected by the PATU Conference in 1998 to constitute the core of the MOC are Egypt, Libya, Gambia, Ghana, Niger, Sudan, Uganda, Cameroon, Democratic Republic of Congo, Zimbabwe and South Africa. The meetings are, however, open to all Ministers of Telecommunications of the African countries member of the Organization of African Union. — (menareport.com)
© 2002 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
