Downloading or uploading? The information economy and Africa's current status

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Molla, Alemayehu

Affiliations: Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia

Note: [] Present address: Center for Information Technology and National Development in Africa, Department of Information systems, University of Cape Town, Private Bag, Rondebosch 7701, South Africa. E‐mail amolla@commerce.uct.ac.za, Alexmolla@hotmail.com.

Abstract: While Africa is confronted with the urgency to provide its citizens with the basic requirements of life such as peace, food, education, health, shelter, safe drinking water, etc., the rest of the world and the developed nations in particular are fast heading towards a globally networked information economy. This raises questions about what the information economy holds for Africa and specifically what opportunities, challenges and impacts it may have. This paper attempts to provide an overview of the current state of affairs of the information economy in Africa by implementing a generic conceptual framework that includes ICT hardware, software and services, informatization and e‐commerce. The paper also identifies the basic challenges that Africa faces in developing and benefiting from the information economy.

Journal: Information Technology for Development, vol. 9, no. 3-4, pp. 205-221, 2000