Agenda

Background

As of 28th August 2020, Africa reported over 1,213,706 cases of COVID-19, while the death

toll stands sadly at 28,621. The continent has made 942,872 recoveries.

Facing this worsening crisis, the African Union and the United Nations have both issued emergency appeals to enhance efforts to strengthen the continent’s response to the pandemic. The vulnerability of our communities to COVID-19 pandemic is made worse by the current state of development in terms of lack of adequate provision of water, sanitation and hygiene, weak healthcare systems, lack of adequate housing in urban areas, mapping of citizen’s residences as well as mediums for information dissemination.

COVID-19 however is anticipated by many as a speeding agent for Africa’s digital economy. Several countries in the region declared a lockdown and in some cases restrictions in some areas for fear of the virus spreading given the capacity of healthcare systems to cope with potential outbreaks. This has however positive side that necessitated people to go online while in self-quarantine. This need to go online was possible due the rapid uptake of smart phones in Africa in which a one third (around 226 million) of the mobile subscribers (about 725 million mobile subscribers) use smart phones in Africa.

COVID-19 as an agent for speeding up the digital economy in Africa, there has been a sudden increase in the purchase of more bandwidth as observed in usage in the networks since the lockdown measures came into effect since March 2020. However, the regional average broadband penetration – including 3G and 4G connections – is only 25% and mobile broadband coverage in Africa is still at 70 percent of the population

It is therefore anticipated that there is huge potential for digital impact in Africa. But to achieve that, African countries need to ensure impactful use of the WSIS action lines of harnessing ICTs to fight Covid-19 to support the implementation of the SDGs and the Agenda 2063 during the decade of Action.

In light of the current global situation, the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa through the Technology, Climate Change and Natural Resources Management Division (UNECA/TCND) in collaboration with the Africa Union Commission and ITU convene the African WSIS Meeting as part of the WSIS Forum 2020 to discuss the best ways on COVID- 19: a Catalyst to Achieving WSIS as well as progress made by African in the implementation of the WSIS outcomes.

Objective

The objective of this virtual session is to bring together key main actors in the ICT sector across the continent to discuss within the Covid-19 context how we can fully improve the digital framework in the continent and to showcase best practices and innovative solution developed on how African countries are implementing the WSIS Action Lines in the attainment of the Agenda 2030 Sustainable Development Goals and the African Union Agenda 2063.

More particularly, the session will address the following:

●  Progress made by African countries in the implementation of the WSIS outcomes to fight Covid-19 in the attainment of the SDGs and the AU agenda 2063
●  Showcasing African initiatives to fight the Covid-19
●  Assesses Africa Digital Transformation Strategy Implementation in line with WSIS
●  Assesses key actions being taken in bridging the digital divide in the continent in order to ensure access to information and knowledge by all towards empowering people and ensuring inclusiveness and equality

o Digital Infrastructures Access
o Cyber Safety and Sensitivity Amid COVID-19: DNS as enabler of Cybersecurity