UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA - AFRICAN STUDIES CENTER
5. FACTORS IN AFRICAN CAPACITY BUILDING FOR USING IT TO PROMOTE ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY

5. FACTORS IN AFRICAN CAPACITY BUILDING FOR USING IT TO PROMOTE ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY

5.1 The Africa Region comprises 53 independent states (including South Africa) with a wide range of socio-political arrangements and divergent levels of economic atta inment and potential. In such context, the factors of capacity building in any area of human endeavour can be expected to vary significantly over space and time. And yet, there are clearly commonalities that can and should be explored from a global perspec tive, such as the GEF's, as a basis for policy formulation whose implementation must necessarily take account of local (national and sub-regional) realities.

5.2 Three broad groupings of factors are identified in the study: Political and Economic Action; The Institutional Environment; and Regional Initiatives- The topics and sub-topic5 are by no means exhaustive. The view is strongly canvassed, however, that the most important factors are captured in one or more Of the groupings, and that policy and action on African capacity building for using IT to promote environmental concerns, from whatever perspective, will benefit from a careful consideration of the issues raised and discussed in the ensuing paragraphs. In addition, they constitute a useful input for continuing dialogue, research and action on a subject that increases with urgency and importance with every passing day

Political and Economic Action

5.3 Political and economic considerations are at the heart of most human activities. In Africa. and specifically in regard to policy and action to promote or enhance capacity building for IT use in the context of GEF concerns, politics plays a critical rol e, at least initially. Six sub-topics are identified and discussed in the following order: Political Le adership; The Telecommunications Infrastructure; An Indigenous Technological Base; Professionalization of Careers in IT; Job Mobility; and Investible Funds. Both enabling and constraining factors are discussed together.

5.4 Political Leadership. A strong and committed political leadership that recognizes knowledge in general. and IT in particular, as a vital factor of African development. is a fundamental factor of African capacity building for using IT to help ensure a s ound

environment . The success sto ries of Japan and South Korea, in a larger context. environment . The success stories of Japan and South Korea. in a larger context. offer a valuable example that several African countries are in a relative position of advantage to adopt or adapt. The spec ific case of Japan has been often quoted in the literature, and it does not seem to require repetition in the present context. The question is: Which African countries are in a position (relatively stable politically an strong economically) to play Japan experimentally, in the Region's quest for environmental quality ? The feeling is inescapable that the positive leadership stance of such countries will have the desired knock on effect throughout the Region.

5.5 The Telecommunications Infrastructure. Two of several assumptions that are frequently made about the nature of information in the context of development appear, particularly relevant in the context of the present study. They are as follows: . Informat ion is an instrument of power; and . Information is a strategic resource that is critical to all levels, sectors and endeavours of society, including development.

However, political and economic action aimed at harnessing information for development must recognize that an effective and efficient information and IT environment requires substantial investments in human, physical, financial and technological infrastruc tures. In particular, African political and economic leaders must come to grips with the realization that effective access to, and eff ective utilization of, public domain information resources is a function of an efficient and reliable telecommunications infrastructure. African capacity building for using IT to improve prove environmental quality will not have the desired impact without a definitive programme of action to update much of the Region's weak telecommunications infrastructure.

An Indigenous Technological Base

5.6 All African countries, with the significant exception of South Africa a. depend entirely on imported Components to launch and sustain their IT infrastructure Capacity building is frustrated in a situation in which routine replace ment of malfunctioning IT Components is totally devoid of local inputs. At least two r reasons may be given why such a situation simply cannot continue for much longer:9 hard currencies are increasingly difficult to source and the high rate of obsolescence of information technologies, And yet, the economics of scale consideration alone ensures that only a few African countries are yet i n a position to embark upon the full- scale production of even a limited proportion of what it takes to indigenize9el the technological base for an IT capacity.

5.7 Most African countries cannot. and should not, attempt to launch on all fronts a technological base in s pport of an IT infrastructure. The examples of Brazil and India do not present a clear-cut formula for Africa of the appropriate mix of an import/ build ratio in the hardware sector, nor do they convincing9 demonstrates the practical import ance for sustainable development, of local expertise in software design. While these important issues must be addressed in the context of long term African development and its sustainability, they do not appear critical to immediate GEF concerns in Africa. Much more serious and urgent is the ubiquitous need for trained IT applications skills and related issues which are addressed elsewhere in this report.

Professionalization of Careers in IT

5 8 Technologists and technicians are generally recognized by Af rican leaders as professionals in their own right who are trained to complement the work of engineers and scientists of varying specialisms. Thus, for example, Laboratory technologists are specifically trained to support specific experimental and applied s ciences.

5.9 Curiously, however, neither technicians nor technologists are being trained specifically in support of IT which is one of Africa s fastest growth areas. African capability building for using IT to address environmental concerns must address t he present unsatisfactory arrangement whereby African technologists who are trained to work in cognate specializations (typically, physics with electronics) may be handling computers for the first time in their capacity as information technolo9ists Assumi ng that most categories of African technicians and technologists might have used computers at some point during their training. very few. it any. of them would have had cause to learn, let alone apply the basics of computer architecture. for example.

5.10 African leaders should be encouraged to appreciate that professionalization, of IT in the Region also makes sense from the purely economic point of view. In 1986, it was observed that there were more telephones in Tokyo than on the whole continent of Afri ca. Two years later, a report described the situation more graphically as follows:

Africa, in fact has 0.7 telephones per 100 Africans, one hundredth the ratio found in the United States, and 30-40 percent of these telephones are estimated to be out of service at any one time. (Elkington and Shopley, 1988:5)

We may assume that the situation has not improved significantly today, while it may have become worse in several countries. Professionalization in the context of building a virile African capacity for IT use generally must be promoted and sustained simulta neously as an important means of creating new jobs and with a determination to increase substantially, Africa's share of the huge and growing market for IT products and services, including those which can be used for promoting GEF concerns in the Region.

Job Mobility

5.11 Every African government devotes a large proportion of its Gross National Product to building and supporting public education at all levels. In many African countries, education is virtually free at primary and secondary levels; several countries prov ide free tertiary level education as well. African governments had reaped appropriate dividends from their huge investments in education by owning and controlling most of the employmen t outlets in their countries The private sector had remained relatively small and had never posed a serious threat to the public sector despite the better remuneration packages offered to every cadre of employees in the former.

5.12 All of that has begun to undergo a radical change since the introduction of Structural Adjustment Programmes in the economies of African countries. In the process, African governments have been forced to sell most of the equity shares that had guarant eed their control of public enterprises A major manifestation of this change in political direction is a significant reversal of labour movement; considerable skilled labour, especially at the managerial level, now flows from the public to the private sector in major African economi es. Clearly, this development Would have serious implications for capacity building initiatives for IT use in the Region.

5.13 Appropriately timed, and preferably concerted, political action would have to be worked out to deal with the situation by the Af rican countries involved. The continuing outflow of experienced research and technical skills from universities, research institutes, and other public institutions into the more lucrative private sector where support infrastructures are generally more effi cient than in the public sector, poses a serious challenge to African political leaders on a wider scale. The extent to which they succeed in stabilizing this phenomenon may also determine the degree of success attained in arresting the ubiquitous African Brain Drain to Europe and North America. Clearly, investments in African capacity building for using IT to address environmental issues would not be worthwhile if beneficiaries merely ended up depleting the public sector of much-needed leadership and direc tion or, worse still, if it encouraged migration to developed countries to practice their skills.

5.14 The use of IT and networks can also help to reverse the negative impact of the brain drain on the effective management of GEF-related concerns in the Re gion. This would involve linking. electronically, African professionals who have migrated abroad with their home countries to help build up indigenous capacity on environmental issues. In this manner, a significant and continuous proportion of the losses f rom the brain drain might be recaptured for the sustainable development of Africa.

SAP, Sustainable Development, and IT Use

5.15 The effective implementation of Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) is information-intensive This arises from the need to closely monitor the performance of the economy at shorter time intervals than occurred previously. Also. efficient management of the economy is information-intensive. Thus, the adoption of SAP has exerted strong pressures on African governments to use IT to cope with the emerging information challenges. This development has aided the process of institutionalizing IT in decision making, especially in the public sector. Since the adoption of SAP, the number of African public- servants exposed to the use of I T has grown appreciably This trend should have a positive spill-over effect on the use of IT in environmental management and the incorporation of GEF concerns in economic planning and sustainable development in the Region.

5.16 The adoption of the concept of sustainable development could be seized as a unique opportunity to incorporate GEF concerns and inculcate IT use in national development planning, monitoring. and implementation programmes. Prior to Earth Summit '92, su ch concerns were negligible in m ost African countries . Now, every African country is required to learn and appreciate the development implication s of: the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development; Making Decisions for Sustainable Development and Creating the Capacity for Sustain able Development. Protecting the Atmosphere; Conservation of Biological Diversity ; Protecting and Managing the Oceans; and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climatic Change, among many other pertinent environmental issues (Keating, 1993). The use of appropriate information and network technologies to leverage environmental decisions could be an important factor in significantly raising and sustaining the level of environmental consciousness in the Region.

Investible Funds

5.17 IT infrastructure is capital-intensive anywhere and, once installed, its maintenance is not cheap either. Few African countries are in a position to generate, from their internal resources, the huge sums of money required for long-term investments in IT infrastructure and i ts maintenance. The major reasons for the current scarcity of investible domestic funds in Africa are fairly well known. Among them, the following stand out: . the high cost of funds; . grappling with survivalist issues, such as the provision of food, shelter, education, and health care delivery; . the crippling debt burden: and . the vulnerability of export commodities to fluctuating consumer prices. Africa, therefore requires major external help to provide the infrastructural base for a capacity bu ilding programme in the use of IT to promote the Region s sustainable development in a sound environment.

5.18 It is important, however, to present capacity building for IT use in a wider context as potentially a revenue-generating proposition. Earlier on in this report. the case for the professionalization of IT was made; the demonstration of possibilities of successful careers in IT especially in the private sector, would serve as a major advertisement for building and retaining an appropriate indigenous capacity for the industry. It should then not be too difficult for African governments to work out appropriate means of ploughing back into the industry most of the accrued revenues from corporate and personal taxation.

The Institutional Environment

5.19 Capacity building thrives or dies in an institution which, typically, takes the form of a school, a university, a research institute, some specialized centre devoted to a programme, etc. An individual's brain wave is killed or nurtured to fruition in th e context of an institutional environment. Most visibly, institutions offer the setting for formal and informal educational and training programmes which promise specific outcomes that are recognizable as necessary building blocks for certain human activit ies. An institution also inculcates, in those who pass through it, specific mores, es and several visible and invisible!e attributes which. to a considerable extent, determine the quality of their lives after graduation. In our view, therefore, the institu tional environment presents a veritable ground for the identification and nurturing of important aspects of African capacity building for IT u e to promote environmental quality. Five areas are briefly discussed in this report, in the following order: Enco uraging Individual Initiative; Inculcating an Equipment Maintenance Culture; Promoting Centres of Excellence; Educating and Training Programmes for IT; and Developing Effective Twinning Packages.

Encouraging Individual Initiative

5.20 Individuals with f oresight and perseverance some times s succeed in attracting African capacity building programmes into their institutions. if the institutional environment were positive and challenging. The recent examples of the Yaba College of Technology and the Centre for Econometric and Allied Research at the University of Ibadan - both in Nigeria - illustrate the point. In both institutions, IT use is being successfully internalized as a result of the dedication of individuals whose institutions are enthusiastic and s upportive. A systematic analysis of such African success stories should produce broad patterns of individual and group behaviour, within an institutional setting, that could be adapted to the process of evolving, monitoring, and evaluating African capacity building programmes for IT use in specific institutions. It should then not be too difficult to adapt the results to addressing specific environmental concerns.

5.21 In some institutions, individual foresight and perseverance could be stifled by leaders who cannot or will not see the merits of innovation (in the form of IT use) to enhance efficiency and productivity in their institutions . Such situations require considerable patience and understanding on the part of committed advocates of IT use. In some cases, time may be a most valued ally in breaking such institutional resistance to change; in others, the demonstration effect of success stories elsewhere in the Region may well do the trick.

Inculcating an Equipment Maintenance Culture

5.22 It is sad ly true that Africa, generally, has a poor maintenance culture. However, the situation varies enormously from institution to institution, and there is no reason at all why, say. an African university should not evolve and sustain a sound maintenance progra mme for its infrastructure and equipment. Capacity building for IT use in most of Africa will be difficult to sustain in an environment of unserviced or unserviceable computers and peripherals. of malfunctioning telephone lines and modems, of creaky air co nditioners. Increasingly, it is being appreciated that special skills are required to perform such vital maintenance functions.

5.23 Inculcating and sustaining an indigenous equipment maintenance culture should have an important spin-off which cuts across all aspects of African capacity building initiatives. Professional staff, whose effectiveness depends heavily on the use of equ ipment, would experience a substantial boost in morale if they can be guaranteed an institutional environment in which such equ ipment are not permanently out of order. Moreover, the chances of further motivating and retaining skilled, technical local personnel would be significantly enhanced as a result.

Promoting Centres of Excellence

5.24 An undesirable feature of tertiary level education in many African countries is the inefficient duplication of identical course offerings. Nevertheless, centres of excellence have evolved, such as Makerere University and the University of Ibadan, in E nglish-speaking Africa and elsewhere Attempts to 'designate' such centres of excellence have not always been as successful essentially because the primary motive was more political than qualitative.

5.25 The indications are that centres of excellence for African capacity building for IT use in environmental affairs may not evolve quickly enough unless they are actively promoted. Several African institutions already have the basic academic infrastructu re that would facilitate such an exercise For example, the presence of schools of communications, electrical/electronics engineering, and information science in the same institution would constitute an appropriate infrastructure Other institutions have an excellent national and institutional telecommunications infrastructure with relatively weak progra mmes in the relevant disciplines A set of criteria would have to be carefully worked out to determine the most cost-effective African institutions for launching and sustaining an African capacity building programme for IT use to promote environmental conce rns. And if such centres of excellence were to be promoted as part of the regional initiatives discussed later on in this chapter, the expected multiplier effects in the Region might make the proposition even more attractive.

Education and Training Programmes for IT Use

5.26 One consequence of the professionalization of IT in Africa would be the legitimate demand for education and training programmes in IT that are commensurate with the status of a profession. Increasingly, in Africa, education for the p rofessions - banking, business, information, law. - is university-based and at the master's level. Although information science is relatively new among the professions in Africa, the strong and continuing demand for graduates in the field suggests that it might be one of the fastest growth areas in the Region. Typically, courses in IT, telecommunications and information networking take a small but significant proportion of master's level programmes in information science, but they are not always compulsory.

5.27 Serious consideration should be given to mounting at least one Africa-based master's level programme in information technology whose twin objectives would be : (a) to Complement the growing number of Master of Information Science degree programmes in the Region; and (b) to encourage technologists in relevant fields to specialize in IT. The second objective is particularly persuasive because graduates of such a professional master's degree programmes would not be eligible for admission to research deg ree programmes in IT and would be strong candidates to provide the much needed leadership and stability in this vital area of African development.

5.28 In the alternative, the IT component of existing African master's degree programmes in information science could be strengthened, simultaneously with taking adequate measures to ensure that graduates would have taken at least one course in the area of 'Environmental Information Systems and Technologies' which emphasizes the use of electronic networks to sha re environmental information across the continent The three 'pioneer African schools of information science -- ARCIS, ESI and SISA --- could, perhaps in collaboration with UNEP, use emerging African electronic networks to promote the teaching, learning, a nd sharing of environmental information, either in their respective catchment areas, or throughout the Region, under the auspices of the fledgling CASIS.

5.29 The need for formal IT education at lower levels -- bachelor's degrees in universities, higher a nd ordinary diploma programmes in polytechnics and technical colleges -- is even more pressing. Most African countries already have a fair compliment of such institutions. What is generally lacking is appropriate equipment and other teaching materials as w ell as qualified staff, to deliver quality programmes. African capacity building efforts for IT use generally and specifically to promote environmental concerns might record relatively inexpensive but significant impact in a short period by focusing more a ttention at this level.

5.30 Above all, the training and retraining of users at every level needs to be accorded top priority in all educational and training programmes for IT, The vast majority of Africans who play vital roles in the policy formulation- decision making- manageme nt chain in environmental affairs, especially in the public sector. need to b formally exposed to the exciting possibilities of IT applications in their job situations. The capabilities of those who already use IT in this manner need to be regularly reinforced and updated to cope with changes and developments in IT applications.

5.31 Continuing education programmes,in the form of workshops and seminars, are the proven means of delivering such training and retraining objectives. Two or three- month courses may also be mounted to deliver specific aspects of IT use to enhance the qua lity of the African environment which require longer and interactive practical hands on experience. Most African institutions have gained valuable experi ence in mounting workshops and seminars in several IT-related disciplines. Given appropriate support, there is no reason at all why such institutions should not succeed in the delivery of IT- specific training and retraining packages, with particular emphas is on GEF concerns as well.

Developing Effective Twinning Packages

5.32 Finally, an African capacity building initiative for IT use to promote environmental issues would benefit, in both the short and long term, by carefully working out the conditions f or linking a selected number of appropriate African institutions with an equal number of institutions in developed countries. The primary focus would be the systematic transfer of specific IT skills to staff in the African institutions. to enable them moun t workshops, seminars and courses on IT use to promote GEF concerns for the benefit of different levels and categories of African communities. Heavy emphasis would be placed on practical hands on experience, initially in the developed institutions as the h uman and material IT resources of the African institutions are systematically upgraded.

5.33 Meanwhile. the modalities for using electronic networking for "twinning" African institutions and peoples engaged in tertiary level education and research on environmental topics should be actively explored. Such institutions and peoples might constit ute the primary focus of initiatives o promote GEF concerns on the continent, as well as gradually evolve into a reservoir of African expertise in the effective combination of IT use and effectively addressing African environmental issues.

5.34 Another dimension of "twinning" is to link, electronically, African public policy analysts and decision makers who are working on environmental topics, to create a virtual "workspace" for their efficient and effective sharing of relevant information. Also, a student working on environment-related research, say, in Cameroon, but whose supervisor is not strong in a specific IT-related technique required for the study, could link u p with another supervisor in Ethiopia or Nigeria, via electronic networking.

Regional Initiatives

5.35 The immediate post-independence era in Africa saw the dismantling of many regional and sub- regional economic and political structures that had served their constituencies rather well. Inefficient and largely unsustainable national structures sprang up everywhere to replace them and, as several studies have shown, the new structures have contributed in no small measure to the continuing impoverishment of the Region.

5.36 Now, however regional cooperation and even ultimate integration is, once more, in fashion, especially in economic affairs. The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) the East and Central Africa Development Community. the Southern African D evelopment Coordination Council (SADC) and even the newly ratified African Economic Council -- all point to the resurgence of sub-regional and regional economic groupings. The major reasons for this welcome development are well known; they ma y, however, have been accelerated by poorly planned and/or poorly implemented Structural Adjustment Programmes. It is becoming increasingly clear that a major strategy of African development should be the strengthening of existing regional programmes to fu lfill their mandates, or the creation of new ones to address specific development issues that appear best suited to the regional approach. African capacity building for IT use to promote GEF concerns in Africa is considered appropriate in this context from at least three perspectives: Initiating Specific Projects; Patronizing Existing Regional Facilities; and Promoting More Effective Use of Available Human Resources.

Initiating Specific Projects

5.37 The deplorable state of information technologies across most African countries requires definitive action . Pious exhortations in the form of resolutions at the political leadership level have not been very helpful; the magnitude of the task is far beyond the resources of most African countries; and, above a ll, the skills required to implement and sustain an Africa-wide IT use capacity even at a low technological level is simply not there. That is why almost any type of help would be welcome; it explains why the current PADIS/IDRC initiative graphically illus trates the kind of initiative required to build an African capacity for using IT to address environmental concerns.

5.38 The Capacity Building in Electronic Communications for Africa (CABECA) project was launched only last year. It is funded by Canada's I nternational Development Research Centre (IDRC) and based at the Pan African Development Information System (PADIS) of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UN-ECA) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. CABECA involves promoting low-cost global telecommun ications for IT among some 25 countries in Eastern, Southern and Western Africa. It utilizes existing infrastructures and technologies, such as FIDO and UUCP, to link national users from academic, private and government institutions, as well as NGOs, to th e international community. CABECA works closely with other projects. such as RINAF, and with specific institutions which have a capability for running specified communications technologies and with an open policy to cover all kinds of users in their countr ies.

5.39 Users subscribe to the national node for CABECA and sustain their national network through regular contributions of information, resources and skills. The ultimate objective of the project is to develop the infrastructure (user base, skills and, technologies) in each participating country to permit effective connectivity with INTERNET. In addition, for every five or six countries, one of the national nodes will be identified as a sub-regional resource centre to provide training, troubleshooting, software support, network management, and research functions for the needs in the respective sub-region (Balson, 1993).

5.40 Each of the 25 countries covered by the project, is expected to designate a National Node for CABECA. A PADIS trainer, who is an e xpert in UNIX and FIDO based systems, will visit the national node in order to help: . develop a working plan for the national node; . train local staff on how to operationalize the national node; . evolve a national networking plan which will involve a study of the current networking situation in the country; . elaborate a phased plan for the improvement of a national electronics network, leading ultimately to low-cost INTERNET connectivity; and . organize a one-day workshop for potential users in the country.

5.41 Significant progress in the implementation of CABECA is being reported in the Eastern and Southern African countries participating in CABECA (Adam, 1 9g3). There is little doubt that the successful completion of this project would mark a significant i mprovement in Africa's capacity to use IT as well as improve its capacity to train several categories and levels of IT users in Africa.

5.42 Full advantage can and should be taken of the location of the CABECA Project t in PADIS to promot e the objectives of the GEF mandate in Africa. A relatively small grant, perhaps by the GEF, would enable PADIS to build and effectively service an 'African Environment Database', very much as it has already developed specialized databases to help improve the impact of several aspects of African socioeconomic development efforts. The location of UNEP in Africa can also be used to maxim m advantage: UNEP should take on the regional responsibility, in collaboration with PADIS, for animating the GEF objectives in the Region, using available or planned IT and networking technologies.

Patronizing Existing Regional Facilities

5.43 The evidence is strong all over Africa that several existing regional facilities for capacity building in various areas of development are underutilized, Although none exists at present specifically in the field of IT, the experience of regional train ing programmes in information science -- ARCIS, ESI and SISA -- is that patronage could be considerably improved. While the relative yo uth of ARCIS and SISA may be a contributing factor, the experience of ESI which is much older than ARCIS and SISA. suggests that African individuals, institutions, and even governments still exhibit an, occasional distinct preference for similar institutio ns in Europe and North America even when local resources are demonstrably superior. Much more would have to be done to persuade Africans at all levels that African training institutions, if given maximum support to fulfill their mandates, will serve Africa 's developmental better than foreign-based ones. Indeed. the master's level programme in IT discussed earlier on in this report might best be mounted at ARCIS or ESI or SISA or any similar regional facility in Africa.

5.44 A relatively little explored advantage in patronizing African regional facilities in capacity building for other disciplines may well prove productive in the area of IT use to promote GEF programmes in Africa. Large numbers of Africans continue to pur sue outside the Region, education and training programmes whose relevance and adaptability to local conditions may be questionable. Desirable multiplier effects can be achieved by sending far fewer numbers of such Africans to appropriate African n regional institutions. On their return home, they would constitute most and cost-effective 'trainers of trainees' in IT use, especially at the lower echelons of the public sector.

5.45 The 'train the trainer' packages required for the success of such programmes call for considerable skill a nd time, if they must be properly constructed. In order to enhance the relevance and effectiveness of such packages to address African environmental concerns, substantial technical inputs would be required from PADIS which already has a proven training cap ability to promote the use of appropriate information and IT in African development programmes. And there is no reason at all why PADIS inputs cannot be combined with the specialized inputs of UNEP to promote specific African environmental concerns in all aspects of development planning and implementation throughout the continent.

5.46 More specifically, the GEF could fund an annual 'training of trainers' course on Environmental Information Systems and Technologies at INFOTERRA (UNEP) or PADIS. The participants should include computer-literate environmental scientists as well as co mputer/information scientists who are sensitive to environmental issues. In addition, the GEF could encourage the participants to share the knowledge acquired more widely by subs idizing sub-regional and national workshops, organized by the trainees who attended the 'training of trainers' course.

Promoting More Effective Use of Available Resources

5.47 One of the continuing ironies of tertiary level education in Africa is that expensive human and material resources are often underutilized. Human resources constitute the most valuable asset of developing countries, and African human capacity in IT, t hough small, is quite substantial and could be put to more effective use in the de velopment of the Region. Expensive equipment and related physical resources lie idle for much of the calendar year instead of being used, collaboratively, to mount continuing education programmes during the slack periods of programmes that lay primary clai m to them.

5.48 The objectives of the recently launched Consortium of African Schools of Information Science (CASIS) may provide a model that could be adopted or adapted for promoting IT use to enhance the quality of the African environment. It is instructive

to note that one of the six "specific problems identified as the reasons for launching CASIS was stated as follows:

Information technologies are still at an infancy in the Africa Region and there is a recurring need for information technologists to assist in acquiring pertinent and up-to-date information (Personal Communication)

ARCIS, ESI and SISA are three of the four co-founding members of CASIS; there is no reason why their mandates or, indeed. the mandate of CASIS. could not be expanded to acc ommodate the specific concerns of African capacity building for IT use generally, and to promote GEF concerns in particular.

Editor: aadinar@sas.upenn.edu