World Report

Sam Gulube
CEO of the Universal Service Agency

“ICT will play a major role in empowering the next generation”

he vast majority of South Africans have no access to the benefits of information communications technology (ICT). Seventy percent of the population live in underserviced areas where there are no computers, and although there has been a major advance in terms of mobile phones – around 40 percent of South Africans now have them – many people in rural areas have no access to a telephone at all.

Bridging the digital divide has been highlighted by President Mbeki as a crucial element in the government’s drive towards economic growth and social development. Deployment of telecommunication services in under-serviced areas will create jobs, encourage entrepreneurship and alleviate poverty.

“ICT will play a major role in empowering the next generation and improving the quality of life of South Africans,” says Sam Gulube, Chief Executive Officer of the Universal Service Agency, part of the Ministry of Communications. The agency, which has adopted the slogan ‘Internet for All’ is tasked with promoting the distribution of telecommunication services to households and providing community access points.

That means spreading computer literacy in schools and making the technology available for local communities in remote and rural areas to use.

The agency deploys computer labs in high schools, providing computers and training teachers in the use of information and communications technologies. Areas where teledensity is less than five percent are being provided with telecentres equipped with computers, printers, photocopiers and fax machines.

“We serve as a catalyst for the development of information and communications technologies in the underserviced areas,” Dr Gulube explains. “Our objective is to get to the point whereby people have access to computer technology, telephones, faxes and the internet, photocopiers and other business equipment they might need. The technologies we deploy become a tool to meet the developmental goals of the community.”

The agency also sees itself as a facilitator for creating information and communications technology markets in these areas. “The big multinationals like Hewlett Packard and Microsoft have deployed their technologies in the urban areas where 30 percent of the population live, but 70 percent of the people of South Africa live in the rural and under-serviced areas and the market in these areas is untapped,” says Dr Gulube. “We want to encourage the multinationals out of the urban environment into these underserviced areas.”

The agency works closely with community-based organisations, provincial governments, non-governmental organisations, donor organisations and businesses, and with the national departments of Health, Education and Provincial and Local Government on the provision of tele-medicine, tele-education, e-government and other socio-economic development programmes.

Dr Gulube recently called on service providers in South Africa to do more to help and go an extra mile to empower rural communities.