ICT Sector Leadership in Africa: A Guru’s Point Of View

MR. CRAIG YEATMAN

By Mawutodzi K. Abissath

A Ghanaian proverb reminds us: “Wisdom is like the trunk of a baobab tree – no one person’s arms can embrace it and overlap it.”

It is the considered opinion of this author that the depth of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is such that no IT expert can pretend to possess all knowledge in every department of the technology in such a fashion that when he or she speaks, all must be silent. No! Rather, the best an IT expert can do to advance the course of the industry is to share his or her views, knowledge and experiences with other gurus and neophytes alike in the sector.

Mr. Craig Yeatman is a leadership consultant and Chief Executive of WorldsView, a consulting and product development house based in South Africa. Through the magic of ICT, he granted an online interview to this Blogger right in Accra. Ghana. This article contains excerpts of the interview which, I feel are thought provoking enough to be shared with other African bloggers, leaders of the ICT sector on the continent, the youth and cherished readers of blogs and other related media – both locally and globally.

First, Mr. Yeatman was challenged to tell readers how long he had been handling leadership issues in Africa, with particular focus on the ICT sector on the continent. Hear him: “WorldsView Consulting has been working in the arena of management and leadership development in Africa since 1994.” He speaks on, “Post 2004, our emphasis focused even more tightly on partnering with organisations on transformational change, and developing deep and sustainable leadership competencies in organisations. We have no particular emphasis on any sector of the market – as the leadership issues are, by and large, generic ones,” he explained.

Throwing more light on what his firm does specifically, he expatiates: “Our model is to engage directly in consulting interventions using a small team of specialists. We then have a programmes development team that captures the intellectual Property from those interventions, blends it with the experiences of a wide variety of sources using African traditions as the ‘cooking pot’, and global experiences as the ingredients. He went on, “The outcome is the production of programmes that other people can be taught to deliver – thus democratising what is always old wisdom, but what suffers from being “owned” by specialists locked within educational and consulting institutions.”

Mr. Yeatman disclosed that their first programme was launched in 2006 after almost three years of development, was what was known as “the Nine Conversations in Leadership – a long-term leadership development programme that works with groups to drive leadership competencies at organizational, team and individual levels.” According to him, during 2007, some two hundred experienced the programme, and 82 people had so far been trained to deliver the programme. “As a result, the bookings for 2008 now exceed 1,500 people. We are due to release two further programmes within the next twelve months, as well as an update to the Nine Conversations in Leadership,” the WorldsView Chief Executive disclosed.

Second, to ascertain how far Mr. Yeatman’s brand of knowledge has reached on the continent, he was queried to cite at least five out of the 53 countries in Africa where he might have delivered lectures or talks in leadership in IT, or telecommunications in general. He went straight to the point thus:

“Our consulting interventions in the areas of leadership development and organisational change have taken place in various parts of South Africa, as well as in Senegal, Cameroon and Kenya.” He elaborates, “We have trained people to deliver the Nine Conversations in Leadership from Kenya, Tanzania, Zimbabwe and Malawi (as well as from America, the United Kingdom and the Middle East).

Furthermore, he pointed out that through one of their companies (WorldsView Technologies) they had been engaged in developing a network of businesses across Africa. He then referred this interviewer to see a website www.worldsview.co.za for a complete list of the countries in which they had partners in the WorldsView Technologies stable.

What this author finds very progressive is the revelation that the WorldsView Consulting is seeking agency partners not only in Africa but across the world. This open invitation even goes with somewhat offers to the effect that, “These partners will take our programmes and add them to whatever portfolio of interventions they already carry.” It added, “To date, we have had some interest from Kenya, Tanzania, Zimbabwe and Zambia, but have not yet reached partnership agreements. Our team regularly speak at South African conferences and deliver University classes at MBA level,” it concluded.

Bearing in mind the reality that the majority of Africans, especially in the Sub-Sahara region, are yet to enjoy the fruits of ICT, Mr. Yeatman was asked to pinpoint which areas (rural or urban) on the continent which have been the focus of his leadership messages. He responded frankly that their focus was on organisational leadership, in the sense that they partner with formal organisations, adding that, “To date, this has included non-profit, for profit and governmental clients,” he noted.

The Consultant believes that, “organisations are a powerful force social change, and as Africa re-writes its story it will be organisations that provide the platform for the script to be written.” He states. “Organisations form the belly, or engine room of an emerging nation. Within that setting, the kinds of leadership that emerge at a micro level will aggregate to transform Africa ‘from the belly to the head,” he philosophised.

The next question put to Mr. Yeatman was whether he had any leadership message for the youth of Africa as far as IT was concerned. His response was that IT is an enabler, in the same way that a car helps people travel – IT helps people get a variety of things done. He explains that IT is not an end in itself – it is a means through which lives should be improved; adding, “Technology alone does not do that.”

The expert postulates that IT can just as easily help a community plan its own destruction through conflict and war as it can help a community to heal, grow and emerge as a part of a new African story. “The moral and spiritual choices people make are more important than the technology – and the technology should be used to expose our youth to the whole world of knowledge, choices and values that await them, he advised.

Another interesting challenge thrown to the leadership guru was to share some of his practical experiences with his peers in the industry and to indicate how IT could be deployed to solve the endemic poverty ravaging the African continent. Hear him:

“The obvious areas of deployment are the ICT sectors ability to address health and education issues. These are well documented and don’t need a “leadership person” to build on. It is possible that the less obvious and more natural deployments are the ones that might warrant more attention.” Mr. Yeatman went on, “People look for artifacts to solve problems - that has been the nature of the evolution of technology since time began.” He elaborates, “The reason for the rapid expansion of the ICT sector is that a technology has arrived that helps people to overcome challenges they experience in their daily lives – and the best, most meaningful of these are driven by the communities themselves,” he stressed.

Mr. Yeatman argues that one does need to prescribe, or pre-plan how poor communities must alleviate their poverty. In his view, such communities are already trying everything they can to alleviate their own poverty. Therefore, it is important to endeavour to provide them with the technology at the lowest possible price. He says the communities must be taught how to use the technology and ensure that connections that will allow health workers to connect to each other and to their patients in new ways are put in place for them. Furthermore, educators in deprived communities must also be connected to each other and to their students to facilitate networking through information sharing and knowledge management. He advocates that natural forces that are already at work must be allowed to take advantage of the platform the technology provides.

He points out that planning and regulation should not prescribe connections – it should make connections possible. Thereafter, people should lift their own horizons and make their own journey towards improving their lives and the lives of those around them. This, he says, can be facilitated and monitored, but cannot be prescribed. His view is that every attempt to regulate content (what may be transmitted and why) destroys more than creates, he reasoned.

Finally, the Chief Executive of WorldsView Consulting was asked to share his views on the future of ICT in Africa. Strategically, he thinks that, “ICT is still responding to the rampant demand for their services that is unfolding across Africa. At some point in each local market, that pace of challenge will settle into more mature competitive pressure if natural market forces are allowed to play out, he observed. He says to the extent that the market has been well regulated, the pace of this change will be rapid – as consumers are able to access and apply the technology as fast as it can be deployed. There is no time-lag for adoption of ICT in Africa – there is only a time-lag of deployment, the expert disclosed.

He speculates that the harder question of whether the industry will be able to move through these cycles efficiently will be answered at the local levels by the policy and regulatory responses of governments across Africa. He advises and warns at the same time that, “Attempts to increase competition in a sensible way will be rewarded. Attempts to regulate content and impose license bottlenecks will be punished by delays in deployment.” Such delays, according to the consultant, impact on the poorest people on the continent - as it is only when the market is allowed to move to maximum penetration that prices achieve lowest and most accessible points, he emphasised.

Touching on leadership quality, Mr. Yeatman says - both from the ICT sector and each of the local markets will determine the outcome. He explains that the levels to which people share a vision of “a connected” Africa over-and-above any visions of profit will drive the outcomes over the next few years. He confirms the global view that there is no doubt that the ICT sector is a money-pipeline. “With money comes power contests, and the ability of African leaders to serve their communities will be tested in this helter-skelter scramble for markets and connectivity, he concluded.

For more information on this leadership subject, please log onto www.worldsviewconsulting.com

Putting ICT To Positive Use In Africa

ICT APPLICATIONS

By Mawutodzi K. Abissath
An African proverb says, “Where there is the liver, there, too, one finds the bile.” It simply implies that good and evil move hand in hand.

During the first week of February this year, the entire Information Communication Technology (ICT) world converged in Accra, the capital city of Ghana for the Africa Regional Preparatory Conference for the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS).

That event was of such a high profile that it was opened by no less a personality than the President of the Republic of Ghana, John Agyekum Kufuor and attended by various dignitaries including President Paul Kagame of Rwanda, the Tunisian Prime Minister, Mohamed Ghannouchi, the Secretary General of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), Yoshio Utsumi, the Chief Executive Officer of the Commonwealth Telecommunications Organization (CTO), Dr. Ekwow Spio-Garbrah, and the Executive Secretary the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), Dr. Yao Kofi Amoako, just to mention a few.

As for the general attendance, over 1000 delegates ranging from media practitioners to educationists right down to legal technicians, NGOs, civil society and the youth did not give way at all. But predominantly were ICT gurus with their heavy jackets and flamboyant neck ties to match. And when these ICT engineers mounted the podium, everybody wanted to outclass one another in terms of technological jargon renditions. Some of us ordinary mortals among them could not help but to gap our mouths in wonderment.

The WSIS Accra programme was just what someone described as “John the Baptist”, for “Jesus the Christ” himself will be in Tunisia in November this year. It is hoped that after Tunisia, African ICT gurus will minimize their talking strategies and maximize their efforts towards the implementation of decisions that will help reduce if not eradicate poverty on the African continent through technologies.

Anyway, one session of the Accra WSIS which this author found very crucial from a layman’s point of view was the Workshop on Internet Governance. My imagination was tickled when my eyes inadvertently fell on the topic, Internet Governance. It was not surprising at all that this was one topic that generated heated debate among the gurus at the conference.

One particular bone of contention was who should have the authority over the management of the domain name across Africa. Consequently, a 22-man working group of experts was set up to convene in August (possibly in Nigeria) to resolve the dispute among feuding ICT sector groups. This strategy was indicative of the importance of Internet domain name, which Africa cannot afford to toil with if the continent is to move with times and occupy its right place in the scheme of global information infrastructure so as to be part of the electronic revolution.

It may be of interest to the reader to know that some of the issues raised under this topic included, Internet Resource Management and Technical Coordination; Public Polity Issues and Barriers to Internet Access; Ensuring Effective Public and Stakeholders Participation and above all INTERNET GOVERNANCE AND ITS IMPLICATIONS TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF E-COMMERCE. I have placed emphasis on this topic because , even as a layman ,it has come to my attention that some African ICT experts who think they are smart are abusing or misusing the tool of ICT for negative purpose for their own selfish interest and to the detriment of the whole continent of Africa .

I was shocked when on Monday 21^st February 2005 an ICT expert who is a lecturer at one of the topmost technology universities in America sent me an e-mail message and asked me whether I knew that Ghana had been banned from internet shopping because of the extremely high credit card fraud originating from Ghana?

According to this expert, for more than four years he had predicted that this ban would one day come but some people in the industry thought he was “crazy”. In fact, this ICT tutor warned that if care was not taken Ghana stood a risk of being taken off from the entire web if nothing was done to ensure secure internet connectivity and to trace an individual on the web.

I was alarmed by this revelation. And I wondered whether Ghanaian ICT gurus knew of this problem. If yes, what advice did they give to the Ghana Government? African ICT gurus must be more creative and proactive. It is their duty to advise African governments as to what to do and how. African governments, too, must stop pussy-footing on matters of science and technology on the continent.

At the Accra WSIS conference, Africans did not hesitate to lament about the continent’s lost centuries of Agricultural Revolution and the Industrial Age. They did, however, console themselves of the fact that a whole century of knowledge Economy brought about by the Information Communication Technology lies ahead of them and vow never to stand and stare.

But what will be the future of ICT in Africa if some of the so-called experts are already using the technology for fraudulent deals instead of developing user friendly programmes for the benefit of the rural poor? It is also a common knowledge that, for a very long time, African youth who patronise the services of Cybercafés devote their time browsing the Internet for negative sites such as pornographic scenes instead of e-libraries for online learning.

As the above-quoted proverb indicates, every good thing has its opposite side and ICT is no exception. Nevertheless, African ICT gurus must endeavour to put the technologies to constructive application for the advancement of the Continent.

NB: This article was written in 2005

The Ghanaian Media and the Future of Ghana

GHANAIAN NEWSPAPER
By Mawutodzi K. Abissath
Have you realized the wisdom of African ancestors is beyond compare? This is reflected in their evergreen proverbs which modern scholars are wont to quote and unquote. Listen to this Ghanaian one: “If you cut your own tongue and chew it up, you‘ve not eaten any meat”. This is lucid, isn’t it?

One may be tempted to ask: “Which school did our ancestors attend to acquire such insightful knowledge and wisdom?” And are educated modern Africans creating new proverbs for posterity to quote? I leave the answers to the meditation of the reader. But I will postulate that, if the Ghanaian media set a negative agenda for Ghanaians to use for self-destruction, there will be no Ghana to build as a nation. I will explain presently.

Records show that media work, or journalism in Ghana started in 1822 in Cape Coast. That was when General Sir Charles McCarthy, the first colonial Governor of the then Gold Coast landed in Cape Coast on 27th March that year and within a few days launched an official paper, called the Royal Gold Coast Gazette.(Those who have value for historical facts can read the rest of this story in a book title : A Summary History of the GHANA PRESS, written by Mr. K.A.B. Jonses-Quartey, one time of the Institute of Adult Education, University of Ghana, Legon, Published by the Information Service Department in 1974.)

Based on the preceding fact, therefore, the Ghanaian media, born in 1822 up to today 2005, over 200 years of existence, cannot be described as a neophyte or amateur. And the contribution of the media in Ghana to freedom of thought, freedom of expression, freedom of association and the entire freedoms one can think of including, the fight for self-rule, culminating into independence in 1957, cannot be quantified in real terms.

As a matter of fact, some of the experiences the Ghanaian media went through after independence were even more traumatic than during the colonial era. At some stage of military and civilian rules, for instance, the Ghanaian media operated under some of the most abhorrent laws under the sun. One of such Laws was the ‘late’ Criminal Libel law, which kicked the bucket in 2001, and the obituary of which we are celebrating today with fanfare.

In fact at some points in the media history of this country, media practitioners were treated like common criminals. Every small human error they committed, or were suspected to have committed, even without proof in competent court of law, they were bundled and dumped into jail like accursed armed robbers.

This writer has had his own share of that intolerance and absolute display of misplaced power of authority in May 1999.That was even during a civilian rule, so he knows what he is talking about. It was sad in deed! Such a situation did not allow cross fertilization of ideas. It did not consensus for nation building. That is not how other nations are moving from the ground into the orbit and back with smiles.

Having said all that, it is prudent to sound a note of caution to the Ghanaian media, too. Remember this African proverb which admonishes that, “If you cry for your chicken, you must cry for the hawk, too.” To be frank and blunt, the way some Ghanaian media practitioners are operating today is nothing to write home about at all as far as professionalism goes.

Observers are worried that even though the Ghanaian media are doing tremendous work for the growth of democracy and good governance in the country, some of their actions tend to be causing more harm than good to the image of Ghana, especially on the Internet. It appears some media practitioners take delight in fishing out only negative things to project to the world whilst turning a blind eye to some of the good things the nation is accruing, no matter how modest they may be. One of the consequences of such negativity is the recent heavy fines being imposed on some media houses by the courts in the country. This is very unfortunate. If care is not taken the media may drive the ship of state straight into ditch. The fact is whilst some practitioners are making conscious efforts others have thrown the ethics of the profession to swines.

In April 1994, the media in Rwanda were reported to have been the initiators of that nation’s genocide. Out come, over half a million souls perished in a twinkle of an eye. We in Ghana should not pretend to be angels. We are human beings, and as such, we are treading in the forest of errors. When our fellow human beings commit errors, we must have the courage to correct them and tolerate them. But it is important for the offenders, also to be humble enough to admit their shortcomings and apologize for them. When that is done we must move ahead with our development strategies as a nation. After all perfection is not attained in one incarnation. We must be prepared to agree to disagree as a people.

It has been observed that for few years now, the nation has been moving from the culture of silence to the culture of negativity. And it is unfortunate that it is the media that seem to be setting this agenda and the entire society is being led into a bottomless pit of negative thinking, negative talking and negative actions. The situation has not been helped by the mushrooming of Frequency Modulation (FM) radio stations here and there.

It is indisputable that radio stations in Ghana are making a great deal of impact on the development of the nation in terms of dissemination of information to citizens to know what is happening and how they can contribute their views and ideas to issues of national interest. The impact is even more enormous when the platform is created for listeners to express themselves in their own language. It has been a wonderful experience with the phone-in-programmes.

But, this is exactly where the worse problem of negative is originating from. When a radio presenter or a host of a programme introduces a topic, and some people who do not understand or know the first letter of that topic, pick up their telephones, even now with the advent of mobile phones, wherever they might be, can call into a programme and start contribution out of context. If the host of that particular programme himself or herself is not on top of the issue at stake and callers are allowed not only to display their ignorance, but encouraged to slander, castigate and even assassinate the character of innocent souls.

This happens often if the topics in questions have some semblance to political discussions. In fact, some callers may deliberately all in only to vent their spleen on their perceived opponents for the sake it. They normally have their way and their say by chanting all kinds of unprintable words and go scot free without any apologies fro the shame they deserve.

This is not good enough, especially if the perceived political opponent is not in the studio or on the other side of the line to respond. This is where professionalism in broadcast journalism is called for. If the media practitioner on duty does not know how to cut off or call that particular caller to order, the seed of animosity is sowed not only between that caller and the personality concerned. But the party members of that imaginary opponent, his relatives and all sympathizers who will be listening in to that particular programme at the material time. This is how the entire society is being poisoned like a well of water. The psychological result is that everybody’s mind is being poisoned against one another. And eventually, the collective mind of the nation is programmed as the head of a poisonous snake. Then the people begin to develop the tendencies of “YOU BITE ME, I BITE YOU”. Ghana is greater than any individual or personality, be he a media man or woman, politician, or an ordinary citizen in the street.

In May 1994, on the occasion of that year’s freedom day, Mr. Kofi Annan UN Secretary-General called on the media man and woman throughout the world to practice what he termed as “Preventive Journalism.” He was making reference to what happened in Rwanda the previous month then and pointed out that the genocide in that country could have been prevented if Rwandan journalists had engaged in preventive journalism rather than hatred one
This writer will like to add his voice to that of the UN Boss and appeal to the Ghanaian media to practice a kind of journalism that will guarantee the future socio–economic, political and cultural survival of Ghana. Let's say “NO” to hatred journalism in Ghana.

N/B: This article was first published in 2005.