Project Leader: Steven Huter  and  Ben McGarry

 

Institution: Higher Education South Africa and Holding Tank

 

Region: Sub-Saharan Africa | Africa

 

Start Date: 2005/07

 

 

 

African universities are faced with unsustainably high costs of Internet connection and inadequate bandwidth. The average African university pays 50 times more for its bandwidth than its counterpart in the developed countries, yet accesses bandwidth capacity equivalent to that of a single home user in North America or Europe. Over the past few months IDRC’s Connectivity Africa (CA) has supported several initiatives to promote research and networking in African education and research institutions. This grant will allow the Association of African Universities (AAU) to convene the parallel conference and two workshops on PAREN during the second phase of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Tunis, 14-15 November 2005.

Project Objectives

To support the organisation of the PAREN Conference and related workshops at the WSIS, Tunis, 14-15 November 2005. The conference will focus on the future of tertiary-level academic networks in Africa and what can be done to improve the effectiveness and integration of African research and education networks, including the establishment of a consortium of African universities for effective network and bandwidth management. The conference and its related workshops on strengthening National/Regional Research and Education Networks (NREN) and on alternative models for increasing universities’ access to broadband networks are among several initiatives CA has supported over the last few months to initiate discussions and identify solutions for best ways to promote research and education networking in institutions of higher education and research in Africa.

To broadly disseminate knowledge of existing academic networking initiatives in Africa;

to raise the importance of African research and education networking on the international development agenda;

to discuss alternatives and options for bandwidth management collaboration among African institutions;

to present success stories of national and regional research and education networking initiatives;

to identify regulatory impediments and solutions at the regional and national levels; and

to agree on the establishment of one or more collaborative partnerships to address critical aspects of research and education networking in Africa.