Prepared by: Margarida Evora-Sagna
ITU Dakar
margarida.sagna@itu.int

Honorable Secretaries of State
Members of the Diplomatic Corps

Distinguished Delegates
Ladies and Gentlemen
Dear colleagues

It is an Honor for me to represent the Secretary General of ITU, Mr. YOSHIO UTSUMI, in the Banjul Internet and Telecom Summit.
On behalf of Mr. Hamadoun Toure, Director of the Telecommunication Development Sector and my colleagues also here in this Summit, I would like to take this opportunity to express how proud ITU is for, once again, developing so important initiative with the Commonwealth Telecommunication Organisation and Gamtel.
Allow me also to thank the presenters for their preparation work for this Summit and the massive presence of the Africa Internet Family here in Banjul which make this Summit a promise of success.
In fact almost every country in the continent is represented here today and we look forward to hearing about their Internet experiences.

The Banjul Internet Summit is taking place immediately after the Radiocommunication World Conference, in Istanbul, where last week, important decisions concerning IMT 2000, the bigest project ITU ever had, were taken. For example, it has been allocated more spectrum bandwidth to the IMT 2000. The entire world recognised this as a milestone in the process of making mobile telecommunication, Internet, Intranet, E-commerce and Video Services affordable to every one from anywhere.
I can not refrain my emotion to tell you how happy I am to share with you this achievement for the development of telecommunication in the world, and in particular for our African Countries whose Governments, policy makers, telecom oerators and the private sector have been struggling to find formulas to build reliable Internet networks and to offer Internet Services at affordable rates.
As you know the lack of bandwidth for Internet services in Africa resulted in having this type of service very expensive comparing to the same ones in the developing countries. This is due to the fact that most of African Internet networks have the size of those of the enterprise networks in a developed country. In addition, for most of them the routing of a message to a neighbor country and sometimes to a neighbor city travels through continents before reaching its final destination.

Distinguished Delegates
Ladies and Gentlemen

This Summit is part of a new initiative by the ITU's Development Sector to become more involved in internet-related activities in order to respond to the Members requests for exchange of technical, regulatory and policy issues as well as socio-economic impact of Internet. Additionally to this Summit other ITU activities includes the Electronic Commerce for Developing Countries Project, which aims to assist emerging nations to develop the now how to successfully compete in the fast growing of electronic trading over Internet. Moreover another activity is the multi-purpose telecentre projects that the ITU is implementing in several African Countries.

The BDT also initiated this year the Internet case studies, which the Internet sector of one country in each region will be studied. The relationship between Internet and telecom market, regulatory and policy issues will be examined, as well as, the use of Internet in key sectors of the economy such as government, health, education and business. As an example, the Uganda case study will be presented. during this Summit

The benefits of the Internet are several. Apart from providing an alternative of cheaper telecom service, the Internet provides important benefits in numerous areas. These benefits once recognised for scientific and academic exchange, the Internet nowadays is considered in many developed countries as an appliance of every day life.
Although Africa entered the Internet in its commercial stage, countries must benefit from the spirit of collaboration that has traditionally characterized the Internet by responding and proposing practical and sustainable projects to donor agencies that are keen to assist developing countries in the area of Internet. Our host country can tell us their experience for they have been successful in working with partners to build up their Internet sector.

The Africa Region also needs to be united for Internet registries and also when participating in International Internet technical, regulatory and policy forums. Therefore, coming to these forums with agreed common proposals and strategies would benefit the entire continent.
The Internet becomes each day more the biggest challenge and opportunity that traditional telecom operators have ever faced, having a stronger impact in the Africa region. On the one hand, the Internet is a tremendous threat to telecom operators because it affects their core business. Facilities like the e-mail replacing fax and the possibility to make inexpensive phone calls through Internet are all innovations that provide users and telecom operators major opportunities.

We are fortunate to have in Banjul this week experts coming from the entire continent and from several recognised Telecom and Internet Authorities. Policy Makers, Regulators, Telecom Operators, Internet Service Providers, Manufactures, Bankers, etc all to discuss the African solutions for better and faster penetration of Internet in our every day life.
Our hope is that by bringing together both traditional telecom players and new Internet Service Providers at this Summit the challenge can be met and Africa can move forward to successfully exploit the benefits that the Internet provides.

However for Africa to maximise the gains from these benefits, among others, we still need:

• Government clear policies for telecomm development;
• Consistent telecom legal framework;
• Adequate Regulatory Bodies;
• Incentives for private sector investments in Internet infrastructures;
• Reduction of the cost of computer and telecommunications equipment;
• Affordable Interconnection rates;
• Support for development of local Internet content and applications;

I wouldn't conclude without remembering that the e-commerce is revolutionizing retail and direct marketing. Consumers are shopping from their homes, viewing from their homes the products they want to buy and paying for their choices without bothering to move.
Although all this progress in ecommerce through Internet, crucial issues remains ensolved for both developed and developing countries and I take this opportunity to invite you to discuss some of them like:

• Customs and taxation of Internet sales;
• Electronic payment systems;
• Commercial codes for ecommerce;
• Intellectual property protection (copyrights and protection of databases, trademark and domain names);
• Privacy;
• Security;
• Internet voice and multimedia

Though, I am confident that the exchange of experiences and knowledge will bring us new ideas to make Africa to move forward to the GLOBAL INFORMATION SOCIATY.

I wish the Banjul Summit will have a lot of success.
Thank you very much.