A press release showed that the signing, presided over by the United Nations Under-Secretary General and Executive Secretary of ECA, Mr. Abdoulie Janneh and the Microsoft Africa Chairman (Middle East & Africa), Dr. Cheick Modibo Diarra, took place at the UNECA headquarters in Addis Ababa as a pre-event to the 14th African Union Summit of Heads of State and Government with the theme “Information and Communication technologies in Africa: challenges and prospects for development”.

Through the public-private partnership, UNECA and Microsoft will employ their respective expertise in a number of areas including: access to software and technical support; local software development; capacity building in ICT for socio-economic development; and supporting the development of Africa’s e-government programmes through enhanced use of ICT.

Partnership programmes will support and align closely with the work of UNECA’s Information Technology Centre for Africa (ITCA) to raise awareness and commitment in the use of ICT as a driver of economic opportunities in Africa. Microsoft will assist in technology infrastructure planning for the ITCA and provide curriculum and certification to ITCA trainers so that they can in turn teach ICT skills. The partners will use a “train the trainer” approach to ensure the long-term sustainability and scalability of the centre.

During the ceremony Mr. Abdoulie Janneh emphasized that:

“Technology is a powerful tool to help drive investment competitiveness and growth on the African continent. Through this partnership, we aim to strengthen Africa’s access to ICT tools to build modern economies”.

The partnership will also include collaboration on issues relating to safeguarding intellectual property, security of information systems and networks and minimizing the impact of attacks on citizens and critical infrastructures.

Dr. Cheick Modibo Diarra affirmed that:

“Microsoft is committed to helping provide creative thinking and innovative solutions in areas where the necessary resources and capabilities are often lacking. Our partnership will allow us to use ICT to support UNECA’s broad mandate and apply the potential ICT has in supporting economic development in Africa”.

The collaboration further broadens Microsoft’ overall commitment to Africa and its partnerships with other major international organizations – including the African Union, African Development Bank, Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD). Microsoft first began operations in Sub-Saharan African in 1992 and has expanded to 13 offices in 9 countries, with more than 600 employees and over 17,000 commercial partners across the region.

In October 2008, Microsoft and the Eastern and Southern African Management Institute (ESAMI) signed a memorandum of understanding to develop and deliver a programme aimed at providing ICT policy training to government officials.

Delivering on this agreement, Microsoft and ESAMI are today launching the first session of the ‘Schools of Government’ initiative in Arusha, Tanzania. The first session will run for five days starting on Monday, 19th January.

Twenty-four trainers will undergo an ICT policy training programme that is based on a curriculum that was piloted in conjunction with the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR), USC School of Public Policy in California and the Dubai School of Government in the United Arab Emirates.

“Microsoft Corporation has, for the past two years, worked to develop a programme that can be used worldwide to train government officials in IT-related policy and planning issues. We are pleased to announce that this programme has been officially launched in East Africa,” said Dr. Cheick Modibo Diarra, Microsoft’s chairman for Africa.

“Microsoft pioneered this program in Africa from 2007 with the intention to build the capability of African educational institutions by providing them with the tools to equip current and future government leaders, officials and policy makers with a modern education on technology policy trends and policies that enable the success of ICT projects and programs,” he says.

Technology is a key element that can help accelerate Africa’s growth and industrialisation – whether it is technology being used by government agencies to assist with the delivery of better civil services, or technology being used to transform education to benefit the people themselves.

However, World Bank data suggests that 50% of ICT projects in Africa fail and that this is typically due to a combination of poor initial design along with insufficient execution and maintenance capabilities.

“Good policy lays the foundation to overcome such problems – and considers critical factors that underline all infrastructure needs, in order to not only create successful and sustainable individual projects, but also projects which complement each other as part of a broader governmental system,” adds Dr. Diarra.

“The program curriculum is developed in English and the possibility of developing content in Portuguese for subsequent training in Lusophone countries, such as Mozambique and Angola, is being considered,” adds Professor Bonard Mwape, director general for ESAMI.

“The goal of this program is to put the building blocks in place for a sustainable, multi-year government training program on ICT policy for the whole of Africa.”

“This cannot be achieved by providing a limited number of workshops to government officials,” he adds. “Only by creating a structure and capacity within existing training institutions to conduct ongoing programs will this initiative bear the expected positive outcomes.”

The ESAMI programme follows on from a similar, highly-successful memorandum of understanding that was concluded between Microsoft and the Centre Africain d’Etudes Supérieures en Gestion (CESAG) earlier in 2008.

CESAG is an institution specialising in the delivery of government-related training and leadership capacity building across French-speaking Africa.

Along with a number of other citizenship programmes that are operated across Africa, Microsoft believes that this initiative addresses a huge challenge with regard to the reasons that ICT projects very rarely work in Africa.

“The steps to economic prosperity in Africa could almost be considered pieces of a grand puzzle, and effective ICT policy implementation training is one piece of this entire puzzle,” Dr. Diarra says.

“It cannot work on its own. Instead, it requires a number of other pieces in order to complete Microsoft’s vision of how it would like to help the people of Africa meet the economic and social demands of the 21st century.

“Other pieces of the puzzle will fall into place over time as initiatives like the Microsoft Leadership Lecture Series and the ICT Best Practices Forum gain momentum and begin attracting more interest from other African countries.”

Microsoft Research, in partnership with TWAS (the academy of sciences for the developing world) and AAS (the African Academy of Sciences), will support two new programmes designed to recognize and assist scientists working in Africa in the field of computer science.

The Microsoft Award for Young Scientists will recognize young scientists in Africa whose research in computer science promises to have a positive impact in the developing world. Each year, three winners will be selected from different countries on the continent. Scientists who have received their most recent research degree within the past 10 years will be eligible. Each recipient will receive a euro €7,000 cash award.

Nominations may be made by members of national academies and senior academics. Winners will be chosen on the basis of their past achievements. The nomination and selection process will be administered by TWAS in collaboration with AAS.

The first winners of the prize will be announced in 2009. The award ceremonies will be held in Nairobi, Kenya, and organized by TWAS and AAS.

The Microsoft Grant for Scientific Meetings in Developing Countries aims to encourage the organization of international and regional scientific conferences and workshops in Africa. Microsoft will provide support in the form of travel grants for some principal speakers from abroad and/or participants from developing countries other than the country in which the event is held.

Applicants, who may be of any nationality, must be involved in the organization of international or regional scientific meetings to be held in Africa in the field of computer science. Selection will be undertaken by TWAS.

“To achieve the Millennium Development Goals, Africa must create knowledge- and skills-based wealth,” says Dr Cheick Modibo Diarra, Microsoft’s Chairman for Africa. “The prosperity of the continent is dependent on Africa’s small and medium enterprises relying on results from research and development. They can then develop locally relevant solutions and value-added opportunities that will lead to the accelerated industrialisation of Africa.”

Andrew Herbert, Managing Director of Microsoft Research Cambridge, adds: “Computer science has a key role to play in tackling some of the developing world’s greatest challenges, from education to infrastructure, and so it’s vital that we support and encourage the scientists and researchers who are working to address these issues.”

“TWAS and AAS are always eager to work with the private sector for the benefit of the developing world,” observes Mohamed H.A. Hassan, executive director of TWAS and president of AAS. “We believe that this initiative will not only mark an important step forward for science in Africa, but will also serve as a valuable model for future partnerships between international organizations and for-profit companies.”

more than 55 areas of computing and collaborate with leading academic, government and industry researchers to advance the state of the art in such areas as graphics, speech recognition, user-interface research, natural language processing, programming tools and methodologies, operating systems and networking, and the mathematical sciences. Microsoft Research currently employs more than 800 people in six labs located in Redmond, Wash.; Cambridge, Mass.; Silicon Valley, Calif.; Cambridge, England; Beijing, China; and Bangalore, India. Microsoft Research collaborates openly with colleges and universities worldwide to enhance the teaching and learning experience, inspire technological innovation, and broadly advance the field of computer science.

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