The protocol signing follows an earlier meeting of ICT Ministers held in Johannesburg on 5-6 June 2006, at which the official signing of the protocol was scheduled for August in Kigali. Several other exhaustive consultative meetings have been held prior to the signing, with government ICT policymakers, regulators, telecom operators and financial institutions, among others.

President Kagame of Rwanda will preside over the signing ceremony which will also be attended by the Rwandan Prime Minister, Albert Butare, the Rwandan Minister of Communications and top officials from NEPAD and the African Union.

The ceremony will enable the project Steering Committee to fast-track implementation of the NEPAD ICT broadband infrastructure network that, among other things, involves construction of the 9900 km submarine cable from Mtunzini, South Africa to Port Sudan in Sudan.

The 23 countries involved in the network are Angola, Botswana, Burundi, Djibouti, DRC, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Rwanda, Somalia, South Africa, Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Project run under NEPAD principles NEPAD recognises the pivotal role that ICT and backbone infrastructures can play in accelerating regional and national socio-economic development, regional integration and trade, wealth creation, employment generation, poverty reduction, and meeting the Millennium Development Goals.

NEPAD’s priority ICT objective is to ensure that all African countries are connected to one another by broadband fibre-optic cable systems that will in turn link them to the rest of the world through existing or planned submarine cable systems.

Since its adoption by the Heads of State and Government Implementation Committee (HSGIC) in November 2004 as a NEPAD flagship project, the ICT broadband infrastructure project is being run under the auspices and principles of NEPAD, which emphasise collaboration among African countries, and specifically African ownership and leadership.

Source : nepad news - 18 août 2006