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Africa can help itself
23/03/2002 10:24 - (SA)
New York - As Third World leaders pleaded for big increases in
Western development aid, US-based African businesswomen said
governments could help by unshackling their Information and
Communication Technology (ICT) sectors.
"We really believe that Africa can pull itself out of poverty"
and become an information and communication technology centre, said
Rebecca Enonchong, the Cameroon-born founder and chief executive of
Application Technologies, of Bethesda, Maryland.
Awo Quaison-Sackey, president of AQ Solutions in New Haven,
Connecticut, said most outsiders thought of Africa as a war zone or
a drain for aid money, "but no-one sees the business
opportunities."
In countries such as her native Ghana, women played a vital
economic role that could be amplified by access to the Internet,
Quaison-Sackey said.
Both women are members of a committee set up by the UN
development fund for women (UNIFEM) to bring together African
entrepreneurs inside and outside Africa, as well as major firms
such as Cisco Systems and UN bodies.
A third member, Somali-born Yussur Abrar, who heads Warsun
International Communications of Vienna, Virginia, said "we can
perhaps influence some of the regulators in Africa" who keep
markets closed to protect state-run monopolies. Communication
Africa has three telephone lines for 200 people, compared with
128 lines in the United States. The continent's 54 countries, home
to 700 million people, have only one percent of the world's
Internet users, and no more telephones between them than the 26
million citizens of Tokyo.
Enonchong, who runs a company with 100 employees and annual
revenue of $20 million, said she saw that as an advantage.
"There is no way we can catch up, but by using wireless and
satellite technology, we can leapfrog," she said.
In the market at Cameroon's main city, Douala, a seller of local
handicraft had scanned photos of his wares and asked for her advice
about selling over the Internet, she said.
"There are so many things the developing world needs which the
developed world does not see," Enonchong went on.
"If a farmer can go onto the Internet and find out how much his
coffee is selling on world markets, he will be better able to
negotiate with his buyers."
Enonchong said the committee gave companies such as hers "an
opportunity to leverage the credibility and authority of the United
Nations" in discussions with governments.Governments
"We have the know-how, the experience and the ability, but it is
much more difficult for us to interact with governments," she said.
Abrar said state monopolies acted as a brake on development, but
that created opportunities for an international telecommunications
carrier such as Warsun, which employs about 50 people at its
headquarters.
"A lot of carriers don't consider Africa important enough for
them to do business there," she said, but her firm deals with about
10 countries as diverse as Nigeria, Mozambique and the Democratic
Republic of Congo.
AQ Solutions, an offshore software maintenance and development
company which employs 25 people in Accra, has also exploited
trans-Atlantic differences to attract clients including General
Electric and Phoenix Insurance.
Wages in Ghana are between 25 and 60 percent below the United
States, while the five-hour time difference with the US east coast
in effect gives the client an extra working shift without paying
overtime.
The company took off in late 1999 "when many companies found
they were short of resources to tackle the Y2-K Millennium bug
threat," Quaison-Sackey said.
Asked how much impact it had had on the Ghanaian economy, she
replied:
"When you pay wages to one person, you raise the livelihood of
up to 100 others; if we can reach our goal of employing 400 people
in Ghana by 2005, we will benefit thousands." - Sapa-AFP
- SAPA
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