PARLIAMENT - Six Speakers of Parliament have so far confirmed their attendance at the upcoming International Conference on the Development of an Equitable Information Society.

The meeting slated for March 4 and 5 will take place at the Parliamentary Building in Kimihurura.

Close to 150 delegates from 40 African countries are expected to attend the meeting. Also expected are Members of the European Union Parliament and Members of Regional Parliaments in Africa.

Addressing a press gathering yesterday, the vice president of the Senate, Prosper Higiro said, "So far the Speakers of Burundi, Congo, Brazzaville, Malawi, Nigeria, Zimbabwe and the Speaker of the East African Legislative Assembly have confirmed their attendance.”

The conference is expected to address issues of how to bridge the digital divide and assess the role of African parliamentarians in developing the Information Communication and Telecommunications (ICT) policy.

Breaking down details of the meeting, Higiro explained that there is a big digital divide in African countries, an issue that the upcoming meeting has to come up with possible ways of addressing.

He however said that the agenda of the meeting will partly be creating awareness among continental lawmakers on how big the problem of digital divide is and encourage them to pass ICT related bills.

"Although Rwanda has advanced in the use of ICTs, there is no law governing the use of ICTs like many African countries,” said Higiro.

The Senate vice president added that during the meeting, delegates will also come up with strategies on how parliaments can share information using advanced technology.

"This will be an opportunity for Rwanda to showcase its advanced parliamentary technology and share it with other parliaments,” added Higiro. 

According to the Representative of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), Seck Marter, Rwanda’s advanced ICT Sector was the reason why UNECA chose to have the meeting held in Rwanda. 

Addressing a press conference Marter said; "Rwanda is the only African country that is implementing the NICI II plan; the country leads Africa in its ICT vision with a lot of best practices that is why we chose to host the meeting here.”

Meanwhile, Senator Wellars Gasamagera gave the origin of the meeting saying that after the establishment of the World Summit on the Information Systems (WSIS) in 2002 it was realised that the digital divide between developed third world countries was big and needed to be bridged.

"And in 2005 during the WSIS held in Tunis, Tunisia, the parliament was entrusted to take on the bridging of the digital divide among African countries and since then series of meetings have been held across the world and this is one of them,” said Gasamagera.

The conference is being co-organised by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNECA-DESA), the Rwandan Parliament in conjunction with the African Union Pan African Parliament.

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