African leaders, experts urged to use ICT for development

Minister of Communication Technology Mrs. Omobola Johnson said internet should be used to develop African economy because a report predicts that the internet can contribute up to $300 billion to Africa’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), by 2025, from an estimated $18 billion in 2013.Mrs Johnson said that internet could be used to expand any economy, […]

Minister of Communication Technology Mrs. Omobola Johnson said internet should be used to develop African economy because a report predicts that the internet can contribute up to $300 billion to Africa’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), by 2025, from an estimated $18 billion in 2013.
Mrs Johnson said that internet could be used to expand any economy, while increasing the scale of developmental outcomes.
She spoke in Abuja on Friday at the 2014 Africa Internet Governance Forum, with the Theme: Connecting Continents for Enhanced Multi Stakeholder Internet Governance
She said: “For a region that lags behind the world in almost every economic indicator, this translates directly to opportunities to generate income, to create wealth, jobs, new business opportunities, and economic expansion. “The very opportunities African governments are looking for and need to transform their economies and economic lives of their population.”
“Sub Saharan Africa are forecasted to exceed 635 million by the end of 2014 and to rise to around 930 million by the end of 2019. Such growth means that Africa is rapidly closing in on the global mobile penetration rate, which was around 92 percent at the end of 2013.”
Africa, the Minister said, has also seen improvements in the deployment of other technologies, adding that the number of undersea fibre-optic cables landing in Africa has increased from two active cables in 2001 to around 16 by the end of last year.
She said the catalytic effect of internet can be seen in the area of finance where the internet and related technologies are helping to reduce the exclusion of vast segments of African populations from formal financial services and products.
Convener of the programme, Mrs. Mary Uduma, said the agency hopes to register 1 million .ng domain names registration before 2020. She said:  “For me Nigeria is losing billions of naira in the internet economy, simply because we have not fully exploited the activation of our domain names. Internet businesses have been growing so with other countries taking due advantage of us.