IfG.CC -
Institute for eGovernment

The conference, co-organized by the ACP Secretariat and the Commonwealth Telecommunications Organization (CTO), aimed to increase awareness about the latest technological developments and policy trends in Broadband, and its key role in promoting e-governance and e-society.

Following are extensive excerpts from the opening remarks by the Secretary-General of the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States (ACP) at the high-level E-Governance Conference on 30 May 2017 in Tallinn, Estonia.

Many institutions and organizations (public and private) in developing countries, such as ACP (the African, Caribbean and Pacific) countries, have embraced the utilization of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to address the various opportunities and challenges in the context of their respective development strategies.

Estonian President Kersti Kaljulaid wants the world to realize that technology makes you free. At the same time, as she told Fortune’s Nina Easton at the Most Powerful Women Summit in Laguna Niguel, Calif. on Tuesday, “Technology doesn’t make you safe; it’s all up to the people using it.”

Kaljulaid told the summit audience about her digital-first republic. Estonians live in an increasingly digital country, with an e-government infrastructure that was introduced in 2001. So-called E-stonia is built on a platform called X-Road, a digital infrastructure that supports both public and private services. Kaljulaid says that the infrastructure works like an app store, where nearly any business or individual that has built a product or service can make it available online.

MTN Rwanda has launched a new service on it MTN Mobile Money platform which will make it easier for parents to pay schools fees.

"It has not been very easy for schools to collect on time school fees for children and this is why as MTN, we decided to invest in a platform that would enable parents pay school fees for their children conveniently," Norman Munyampundu, General Manager of MTN Business said during the launch of the service in Kigali last week.

Zanzibar President Dr Ali Mohamed Shein yesterday called on members of the Commonwealth to invest heavily in promoting the use and teaching of ICT in local communities in order to reap optimal benefits of introducing e-Parliament.

Dr Shein made the remarks when opening of the 50th Commonwealth Parliamentary Association Africa Region conference taking place in the Isles.