"While ICT cannot address all of [Africa's] problems, they can do much to place Africa on a firmer industrial footing... and strengthen the continent's human resources, with training that leads to sustainable livelihoods." Kofi Annan, United Nations Secretary-General (20.11.2002)

Supported by the European Commission under FP6 and FP7, IST-Africa (Regional Impact of Information Society Technologies in Africa) is a multi-stakeholder Initiative focused on:

- Training to reduce the Digital Divide

- Skills Transfer to support research capacity building & awareness

- Community building to support EU-African Research Cooperation

Over the past three years (2005 - 2007) with European Commission funding under the IST Programme of Framework Programme 6 (FP6), IST-Africa has trained over 1,000 government officials and researchers in Botswana, South Africa, Mozambique and Tanzania (in key areas including eGovernment, eHealth, eLearning) and organised two very successful international research conferences in Africa; IST-Africa 2006 (304 delegates from 38 countries) hosted by the Government of South Africa through the Department of Science & Technology, and IST-Africa 2007 (over 470 delegates from 51 countries) hosted by the Government of Mozambique through the Ministry of Science & Technology.

IST-Africa (Regional Impact of Information Society Technologies in Africa) is a collaborative Initiative between IIMC (Ireland, Coordinator), Ministry of Communications, Science and Technology (Botswana), Ministry of Communications, Science and Technology (Lesotho), Commonwealth Network of Information Technology for Development (Malta), ICT Policy Implementation Technical Unit (Mozambique), Ministry of Education (Namibia), Wits Commercial Enterprise (Pty) Ltd (South Africa), COSTECH - Tanzania Commission for Science and Technology, and Uganda National Council for Science and Technology.

Over the next two years, IST-Africa will focus on raising wider awareness of African research capacity, promote participation of African organizations in the ICT Theme of FP7 (FP7-ICT) and identify co-operation opportunities in fields of mutual interest. The goal is to increase visibility of mutual RTD potential and network relevant European and African stakeholders.

The European Commission has published the ACP-Information and Communication Technologies [@CP-ICT] Programme under its 9th European Development Fund. The Contracting Authority is the ACP Secretariat. The deadline for submission of proposals is 16 September. Click here for more information and to download relevant documentation.

The Department of Science and Technology South Africa is organising a FP7 Financial Guidelines Training Workshop in association with ESASTAP and IST-Africa in Johannesburg on 15 - 17 July '08. Click here for more information.

IST-Africa organised a series of FP7 Training Workshops in Botswana, Kenya, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda between 26 November and 19 December 2007 in relation to Call 3 of FP7-ICT (FP7-ICT-2007-3).

The IST-Africa 2008 Conference took place in Windhoek Namibia, 10 - 12 May. It was very successful attracting over 450 delegates from Europe and Africa. Plenary speakers included Director Generals from DG Information Society and Media and DG Research of the European Commission and DST South Africa, Directors from the African Union Commission, United Nations Economic Commission for Africa and SADC Secretariat and Ministers of Science and Technology from Namibia, Uganda, Tanzania and Kenya. A high-level Round Table on the Implementation of the Africa-EU Partnership on Science, Information Society and Space took place during the Opening Plenary session, which was highly successful.