ETHIOPIA

STATEMENT BY H.E. M Juneydi Saddo
Minister of Transport and Communications

Mr. Chairman,
Excellencies,
Distinguished Delegates,
Ladies and Gentlemen

It is my great pleasure to join other speakers in congratulating you, Mr. Chairman, on your election. I would also like to thank the Government and People of the Republic of Turkey and in particular the community of Antalya, for hosting this magnificent conference and for the warm welcome and hospitality extended to us. In addition, I wish to express my delegation’s deep appreciation of the excellent work done by the Secretariat of ITU in making the necessary preparations for the Conference.

Mr. Chairman,

Ethiopia would like to see strong ITU which continues to play a key role in transforming our society to knowledge based economy. Ethiopia, as a seat of the African Union and the Economic Commission for Africa, and the host of the ITU Regional Office for Africa, would like to play an active role and participate in the effective implementation of global initiatives such as the World Summit on Information Society commitments and action plans. It is our sincere hope to see ICT playing pivotal role in achieving the MDGs. Bridging the digital divide therefore deserves continuous and relentless effort since it stimulates and attracts investment and trade in my country as well as in the African continent.

Mr. Chairman,

Telecommunication and ICT are seen as a strategic and enabling tool for economic growth. Some of the national objectives realized through these applications so far in Ethiopia are:

• quality and equitable delivery of education throughout the country,

• modern health service provision in major health establishments,

• assisted to bring forth good governance in the different layers of administration,

• improved efficiency and effectiveness of the civil service,

• facilitated market access for producers, exporters and, small and micro enterprises, and

• enabled fast and economical interaction between academia, research institutions and stakeholders in the development process.

Mr. Chairman,

Talking in to account the importance and dynamism of telecom and ICT industry, the Government of Ethiopia has committed to aggressively expand the infrastructure and services to meet the long-term economic development strategy.

To this effect, Ethiopia is engaged in building broadband multimedia, digital fixed and mobile networks under a logo "connecting Ethiopia to the future". These networks are supported by a nation wide fiber based transmission backbone network. The fiber network is also connected to our neighboring country Sudan. This interconnection is expected to be extended to Djibouti which will create an additional high speed international gateway. In terms of access, all district level administrations, all high schools and 5000 rural villages are connected.

With the upcoming huge investment projects, the remaining 10,000 rural villages will be connected as part of our equitable distribution of telecom and ICT services to the low income population which is believed to improve their economy. We believe that this corresponds to the WSIS action plans and targets. In fact, the issues of localized applications and contents are very essential matters to be dealt within the subsequent implementation periods. Further to this in collaboration with the private sector and international vendors, we kicked off large infrastructural projects in fixed, mobile and data which creates modern and reliable network. Along with this, massive institutional and legal reforms are also underway that creates customer oriented business company which is fundamentally different from the present operator.

On the other hand, we have given equal importance to strengthen and upgrade the regulator to be capable of ensuring equitable service distribution and protecting customers by setting quality of services’ standards and affordable price. The legal and institutional reforms of the regulator at the stage of completion.

Mr. Chairman,

Effective utilization of ICTs infrastructure and services require a strong cooperation and partnership between neighboring countries and, at regional and global levels. Establishment and sustainable availability of affordable high speed network interconnection and regional internet exchange points are among the priority issues to be addressed. The cooperation and partnership of the global community has to address the special need of LDCs, small economies and land locked countries with respect to cost of interconnection, network security, exchange of reliable traffic information and the like. In addition, initiatives recommended by the World Telecommunication Development Conference, Doha 2006 should be put into reality.

Mr. Chairman,

The role of the private sector to develop telecom & ICT infrastructure and services is not questionable. However, the approaches and modalities of working with the private sector mainly depends on the level of development of the sector and the socioeconomic situations of a country - no one formula fits all. Ethiopia recognizes the need for concerted efforts to ensure the universal access and service in Telecom and ICT. However, this shall take into account national interest, sustainability of growth, equity, affordability and broad based transformation. Nonetheless, the focus need to be on developing and expanding the infrastructure, ensuring quality of services, affordable price and equitable distribution to the society in each of our countries. At this juncture, it is worth mentioning that private sector involvement in telecom & ICT services’ provision can be done as part of downstream liberalization and we are confident that this approach can help both the development of the sector in general and that of the private sector in particular.

Finally, I would like to assure you that my country will continue its commitment to work with a fast and responsive ITU.
I Thank you.