AFRICA TELECOM 98
4 to 9 May, Johannesburg, South Africa

The decision to stage AFRICA TELECOM 98 in South Africa was made following the invitation which Nelson Mandela extended to the ITU at the Opening ceremony of the ITU’s World event, TELECOM 95, in Geneva. 

“The ITU is a body of crucial importance for South Africa,” he said, “and indeed the entire African continent. We need a vast expansion of our communication and information network. The ITU, as the principal driving force behind international policy; technological development; co-operation; and skills transfer is an indispensable agent in this regard.

“It therefore gives me great pleasure to announce that, following discussions between officials of the ITU and the South African government, we have formally invited the Union to hold its next Africa region TELECOM Exhibition and Forum in 1998 in South Africa. We would be happy and proud to host this prestigious event, and look forward to further close co-operation to make it a memorable occasion.”

Three and a half years after making that speech, Nelson Mandela opened AFRICA TELECOM 98 on Monday 4 May 1998. The event was hailed as a triumph by many of Africa’s leaders. 

In a century dominated by what Jay Naidoo, then South Africa’s Minister for Posts, Telecommunications and Broadcasting, described as Afro-pessimism, AFRICA TELECOM 98 was notable for the commitment and tremendous spirit of optimism expressed by government ministers, exhibitors, Forum speakers, delegates and the world’s media.

Opening Ceremony

The Opening Ceremony featured presentations from Mr Jean-Patrick Baré, the President of ITU TELECOM, Minister Jay Naidoo, Dr Pekka Tarjanne, the ITU’s Secretary-General, President Nelson Mandela, and Mr Noah Samara, the Chairman and CEO of WorldSpace, who sponsored the ceremony.

Nelson Mandela spoke of the huge, untapped market which Africa represents and of the need to create a dedicated African Telecommunications Development Fund. “Such a fund,” he said, “would finance the infrastructure projects needed to extend technology to every village in Africa, and would certainly put the continent on the map of the global information society.” WorldSpace, whose goal is to provide digital direct audio and multimedia services to over four billion listeners, was represented by its founder, Noah Samara, who said that ever since he was six years old his dream had been that one day communications would be available to all.

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A Telecommunications Imbizo

On the afternoon of the opening day Deputy President Thabo Mbeki spoke at the Telecommunications Imbizo, a special session of the Forum. Traditionally, an Imbizo is a meeting of leaders to discuss the appropriate strategy to use in a forthcoming battle, or war – in this case the battle for improved telecommunications access across the whole African continent. Ghana’s Minister of Communications, Ekwow Spio-Garbrah, who was chairing the session, said that in the past Africans had been passengers in the telecommunications car, and colonial interests had been the drivers. “Now,” he said, “it is time for us Africans to learn how to drive, how to take the driving seat, and even how to build or buy our own cars.”

Both at the Exhibition and at the Forum there was great enthusiasm voiced for smart partnership, where the interests of investors and governments were balanced so that investors saw a good return on their capital, while governments were able to pursue their human development goals. In 1998 Africa was the world’s second fastest growing region, and GDP was forecast by the IMF to achieve 4.7 per cent growth during that year.

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The Exhibition at AFRICA TELECOM 98

The Exhibition at AFRICA TELECOM 98 was more than twice as big as that at the previous AFRICA TELECOM, and attracted nearly 20,000 telecommunications professionals, who came to see the latest technology on display from 443 exhibitors from the telecommunications, information technology and audio-visual entertainment fields. Industry leaders at the highest level, from ambassadors and government ministers, to the CEOs of the front-ranked market players, participated, along with some of the most respected industry analysts and commentators. All of Africa’s 55 countries were represented on a Pan-African Renaissance stand.

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Strategies for Sustainable Development:
The Forum at AFRICA TELECOM 98

The Opening Session of the Forum, held on Tuesday 5 May, was chaired by Jean-Patrick Baré, and featured speeches by Pekka Tarjanne and Jay Naidoo. There was also a presentation by Craig Barrett, President and COO of Intel Corporation, which was broadcast live in the United States via webcast – a process which used some 25 per cent of South Africa’s entire dial-up capability. One of the demonstrations was a live videoconference between Mr Barrett and a Digital Village in Soweto, where 20 multimedia PCs had recently been connected to the Internet. When asked what difference this had made to him, Joe Mphahle, a teacher in Soweto, said “the world is at our fingertips now.”

The Forum at AFRICA TELECOM 98 was especially well attended, with standing room only available at some sessions such as those concerned with financing, regulation, and technology and women – a session which was opened by Mary Robinson, the United Nations’ Commissioner for Human Rights, speaking live via videoconference from New York. Altogether more than a thousand people attended the Forum, which encompassed a Strategies and a Technology Summit, billed together under the single theme Strategies for Sustainable Development. The Forum was a milestone event for ITU TELECOM, in that it was telecast to Africa and around the world on the Internet.

A session on Emergency Telecommunications was held to address the issue of reaching an international agreement on transporting emergency communications equipment across borders without needing customs clearance or licensing. Partly as a result of the session at the AFRICA TELECOM 98 Forum, ICET 98 (The Intergovernmental Conference on Emergency Telecommunications), which was held in Tampere, Finland, from 16-18 June 1998, was able to adopt and ratify the Convention on the provision of telecommunication resources for disaster mitigation and relief operations.

The Forum was closed by Henry Chasia, Deputy Secretary-General of the ITU, and Thabo Mbeki, South Africa’s Deputy President, on Friday 8 May. In his address Dr Chasia said “this will be remembered as a watershed event which has helped shape the new Africa.” He went on to point out that whereas Africa had installed 14 million lines in the century since the telephone was invented, China installed 20 million lines in 1997 alone. “This shows,” he said, “that it can be done, and we here in Africa can witness the same progress.” Deputy President Mbeki, in an inspiring closing address, took up the theme. “We have the political will,” he said, “to put in 50 million lines in Africa in the next five years. We will connect every village, every school and every clinic in Africa, if we are determined enough to do this.”

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TELECOM Development Symposium

A TELECOM Development Symposium was also organized, in conjunction with the Forum, which brought 92 telecommunications specialists from 46 countries to AFRICA TELECOM 98 on a fellowship to discuss the principal factors that governments, regulatory bodies and operators need to bear in mind in order to be customer and business oriented, to provide services within their own countries and, in the case of operators, to survive in a liberalized market.

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AFRICA TELECOM 98 Event Statistics

 

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Women’s Day

Wednesday 6 May 1998 was designated as Women’s Day, and featured not only the special session on Technology and the Status of Women but also a lunch hosted by Graca Machel, whose work in the fight to ban landmines has made her famous. In a rare public appearance, Ms Machel, the widow of the President of Mozambique, and now Nelson Mandela’s spouse, spoke passionately and movingly about the work she had performed in refugee camps. “In one camp, in Sierra Leone,” she said, “I knew that half of the children were going to die – and why? Not because there was no food or medical supplies, but because of a failure in communications.”