Call for Projects: Forum of African Local Authorities on the Information Society

Forum of African Local Authorities on the Information Society will be held in Nouakchott, Mauritania from 8 to 10July 2020.

The Forum will be organized by the State Secretariat in Charge of New Technologies, Mauritania, the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR), and the Executive Secretariat of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) with the sponsorship of the Basque Region (Spain). It will bring together territorial authorities (municipalities, cities, districts, regions) from all over Africa, national officials in charge of NICTs, project managers, private businesses, civil society and NGOs, and international partners for development.

The objective of the Forum is to showcase

local and regional African projects on e-governance, e-health, e-education, e-inclusion and e-economy, to bring to the fore

African experiences in these fields and further promote the development and use of NICTs throughout urban and/or rural communities in Africa. The forum will allow the preparation of a declaration, and a concrete Plan of Action to be read at the World Summit for cities and local authorities on Information Society to be held at Lyon early December followed-up by the

World Summit Information on Information Society to be held at Geneva later December 2020. A full implantation in the framework of NEPAD is expected to take place in 2020.

In order to showcase the most relevant and valuable experiences on the African continent, the Forum organizers are launching a Call for Projects on the above topics. The projects to be presented in the Nouakchott Forum should necessarily be territorial initiatives.

Such projects should involve local actors and demonstrate the gains achieved through the use of NICTs for community development. The Forum organizers seek your help to identify 50 projects from all over Africa, that could be presented in the Nouakchott Forum.. If you know of such projects, or work yourself on initiatives that answer the above requirements, please send a brief outline Guidelines for presentations are being attached (including the list of partners involved in the implementation) to:

Mauritanian Gov: Housseynou Hamady BA [email protected] (Nouakchott, Mauritania)

UNITAR: Elisabeth Vosloo [email protected] (Pretoria, South Africa) WSIS: Liliane Ursache [email protected] (Geneva, Switzerland)