When the subject of innovation in governance crops up, West Africa does not usually spring to mind. Yet Burkina Faso - one of the poorest countries in the World today – is the venue of a groundbreaking pilot project on this subject for policymakers from Burkina Faso, Benin, Mali and Niger. The project will help African policymakers systematically develop and plan ICT policy implementation processes with the aid of two information management tools: the Balanced Scorecard and COBIT (The Control Objectives for Information and Related Technology). The Balanced Scorecard provides a way to translate an organisation’s mission and vision into measurable indicators. It supports the development of a consistent strategy and the subsequent adjustment of company activities. The second, COBIT, is an information management system that can be used to develop and implement a coherent ICT policy and provide a framework for developing the ICT strategy based on planning and organisation, selection and in use namely distribution, support and control/checks. COBIT, and to a lesser extent the Balanced Score Card, are methods that are regularly used in the world of business.

When compared to countries in Europe, most countries in Africa are still at the early stages of   making full use of ICT and telecommunications, despite the fact that there is a growing demand for the latest ICT technology within Africa. It is no surprise therefore that, in many African countries, developing a sound national ICT strategy is high on the government agenda. Particularly as ICT is considered to be one of the main drivers for socio-economic development and strong governance. These countries are supported in this area by the Economic Commission for Africa and the International Telecom Union. 

ICT training and skills development is an important component for the successful application of ICT. This also applies to formulating and implementing a national ICT strategy, which is why the International Institute for Communication and Development (IICD) - a non-profit organisation currently working with nine developing countries to help them develop and implement their own ICT-driven activities in education, health, agriculture and good governance - took the initiative and organised the workshop. The workshop was a joint effort between Inter Access (a Dutch-Belgian IT company), UNECA (the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa) and the Canadian e-Policy Resource Centre (CePRC).

According to François Laureys, Manager of IICD’s Country Programmes in Mali and Burkina Faso “As far back as the end of 2005, the Minister of ICT in Burkina Faso requested support and advice from IICD to help develop ICT strategies for six different sectors in his country. This was a mammoth task and one that IICD could not cope with single-handedly so I began searching for potential partners. I found content-related expertise at Inter Access. In the meantime it turned out that both UNECA and CePRC had already developed their own plans to support policy development in e-commerce and e-governance at the subregional level in West Africa. Therefore, it made sense to bring all five parties together. The most difficult part was identifying the common elements in all our approaches and adjusting our individual approaches to fit in with each other. This took a few months to achieve. Fortunately, not only were all the partners prepared to look for areas in which they could collaborate, they were also very pragmatic in their approach. This made it possible to reach a quick consensus on the training trajectory, which used the Balanced Scorecard and COBIT as the starting point”. 

The content of the workshop was taken care of by Veerle Sas, a consultant from Inter Access. Inter Access and IICD entered into a public-private partnership in 2006 that focused on the areas of training and consultancy. Organising this workshop for different countries from the West African region is one of the activities that resulted from this partnership. According to Veerle Sas: “The original request was to help develop an ICT strategy for six different sectors. This proved really difficult, not only because each sector and each country is different, but also because in order to develop a strategy other factors should already be in place such as access to electricity, a basic level of literacy and funding. There was no way of achieving this, so I focussed instead on developing an Action Plan to set up a strategy for e-commerce, e-governance and e-education. During the workshop, a number of different methodologies were introduced. The participants examined all of them and worked out how far they could be applied in practice”.

Twenty-one participants from Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger and Bénin attended the first workshop. A preliminary assessment revealed that, despite the fact that some of the countries were already quite advanced with developing an ICT policy, most found the different concepts very useful with regard to applying and implementing their operational plans and procedures. However, extra attention should be given to developing a realistic, flexible method to automate everything. All of the workshop participants are being given follow-up support and guidance via email and a web-based discussion platform, after which the training trajectory will be rounded off with a follow-up workshop. An evaluation will be carried out to decide whether the different groups will continue together along the same path. 

Veerle Sas: ”All the participants were highly motivated and driven. They definitely shared a passionate goal to use ICTs to help develop their countries further. I am extremely confident and believe that everyone will continue with the process. It is unique for Inter Access to be able to share its business and ICT knowledge with the public sector in Africa. In so doing, we have been able to make our own small contribution to ‘sustainable development’. The impact of ICT can be compared to the impact of literacy; those who miss the boat will fall seriously behind. Hopefully, the Balanced Scorecard and COBIT will help to make a difference.”