IFAP supports national information policies and knowledge strategies in Africa

The two-day Africa Forum on Knowledge Societies for Sustainable Development took place on 14 and 15 March 2019 in Harare, Zimbabwe.

Participants from 18 African countries reiterated the importance of actively contributing to the Information for All Programme (IFAP) governance structures in order to harness knowledge societies for the sustainable socioeconomic development of Africa. The IFAP Chair, Ms Dorothy Gordon, who joined the conference online, underscored the opportunities that IFAP offers to advocate for knowledge societies within regional and national development plans and policies, and to provide guidance in the implementation of concrete strategies that will realize Africa’s full potential.

The Director of the UNESCO Regional Office for Southern Africa, Prof. Hubert Gijzen reminded participants that the challenges facing Africa are immense, such as the implications of artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies on Africa’s national development plans and the achievement of the sustainable development goals. The IFAP priorities are important ingredients of Agenda 2030 and Agenda 2063 and regional caucuses proposed concrete actions that can contribute towards an Africa of good governance, democracy, and respect for human rights, justice and the rule of law.

The participants discussed the scope of the 6 priority areas (information for development, information literacy, information preservation, information ethics, information accessibility and multilingualism in cyberspace) and its complementarity, with a specific focus on information literacy.

The value of ensuring open licensing to share knowledge in support of the 6 IFAP priorities was underscored and concrete examples were provided from the ICT Competency Framework for Teachers Harnessing Open Educational Resources (OER) project and UNESCO’s ongoing work in the follow up to the Ljubljana OER Action Plan. Furthermore, the IFAP Chair invited all participants to the celebration of the International Year of Indigenous Languages as Ghana is planning a conference on Information Literacy and Indigenous Languages later this year.

Participants had an opportunity to exchange best practices in working towards knowledge societies in their respective countries. Specific emphasis was put on the work of the Mozambique and Zimbabwe IFAP Committees that realized important strides in localizing the IFAP priorities towards national needs.  UNESCO, through the Korean Funds-in-Trust Project, currently supports the two countries: ‘ICT Transforming Education in Africa’, in reinforcing their National IFAP Committees. 

Participants in the Forum saw a demonstration of mobile applications that were developed within a framework of a pilot project of the National IFAP Committee in Zimbabwe. Young people were trained in a youth coding and mobile applications and these initiatives are strengthening the e-Schools models and the pedagogical use of ICTs in Primary and Secondary Education. Ms. Martha Muguti, Director of Higher Education Programmes, representing the Minister of Higher and Tertiary Education, Science and Technology Development reminded the participants of the importance of information literacy skills that are in conformity with the new curriculum and global trends.

The Forum finished with closing remarks by Mr Papa Youga Dieng, Coordonator of IFADEM, who urged African governments to embrace technologies so that it can contribute towards an Africa of good governance, democracy, and respect for human rights, justice and the rule of law.

The two-day major event was funded by the Republic of Korea in the framework of the UNESCO Korean Funds‐in‐Trust (KFIT) project “ICT Transforming Education in Africa”.