Attaining MDGs through broadband penetration

Affordable broadband connectivity, services and applications are essential to modern society, offering widely recognized social and economic benefits. ADEYEMI ADEPETUN, in this report, examines, its importance to Nigeria’s meeting the Millenium Development Goals. Excerpts.
IN the year 2000, when the Millenium Development Goals (MDGs) were established, broadband was in its infancy, and little tangible evidence existed with regard to how broadband would impact social and economic development.
   Today, Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) have grown considerably, more and more people are connected, and broadband is improving people’s lives, expanding their choices, and accelerating progress towards achieving the MDGs.
    Indeed, in developed economies, broadband is seen to have helped deliver a wide range of services, from services directly related to the MDGs, to those in support of broader citizen participation (such as e-government), or services leveraged across different sectors to bring more people into the formal economy, or earn money from different sources/abroad (such as m-money and m-commerce).
     For emphasis, the MDGs are eight international development goals that were established following the Millennium Summit of the United Nations in 2000, following the adoption of the United Nations Millennium Declaration.
     Recalled that all 189 United Nations member states at the time (there are 193 currently) and at least 23 international organizations committed to help achieve the MDGs by 2015, which include: to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger; achieve universal primary education; promote gender equality and empowering women; reduce child mortality rates; to improve maternal health; combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases; ensure environmental sustainability and develop a global partnership for development.
     Today, like in other developing economies, Nigeria inclusive, the challenge of poverty; gender inequality; environmental degradations; high child mortality rate; increased scourge of malaria reign unabated.
     In fact, the World Health Organisation estimated shortage of almost 4.3 million medical staff worldwide — the most severe shortages being in the poorest countries.
     But to bridge most of these challenges, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) noted that broadband should become universal, stressing that it has potential to among other things enrich and improved the education sector and create better healthcare services to the benefits the economy, as well as society.
    ITU said broadband can enable a range of services, from finding and exchanging medical information via basic e-mail and web browsing, to real-time high-definition video transmissions of medical procedures for diagnostic and training purposes, stressing that these health services can contribute to achieving many of the MDGs.
    According to ITU Secretary General, Hamadoune Toure, broadband is the next tipping point, the next truly transformational technology, stressing that it can generate jobs, drive growth and productivity, and underpin long-term economic competitiveness. “It is also the most powerful tool we have at our disposal in our race to meet the MDGs, which are now very close.”
    In the area of education, One of ITU’s report on Uruguay showed that every child has been provided with a laptop and Internet access at school. The total expense of the project, according to ITU came to less than five per cent of the country’s education budget — but the “connected” children are likely to reap tremendous educational rewards.
    Besides, recent research suggested that positive returns can be expected from investment in broadband infrastructure. For example, an analysis for the European Commission estimates that broadband can create more than two million jobs in Europe by 2015, and an increase in gross domestic product (GDP) of at least EUR 636 billion.
    In Germany, research carried out early in 2010 predicts that the construction of broadband networks will create almost a million jobs over the next decade. Meanwhile, a study in Brazil has revealed that broadband added up to 1.4 per cent to the employment growth rate. In China, every 10 per cent increase in broadband penetration is seen as contributing an additional 2.5 per cent to GDP growth. 
     ITU believes that, in a world of “digital opportunity”, the burning issue is what price will be paid by those who fail to make the global, regional, national and local choices for broadband inclusion for all — choices which must be made sooner rather than later? This is a stark warning in the light of huge disparities in broadband affordability worldwide.
    For Nigeria to deliver its broadband promise to the people and meet part of the MDGs in another two years, ITU said Nigeria must solve the lingering power crisis, stressing that this is crucial to the success of current efforts aimed at increasing the delivery of broadband across the nation.
   In its report entitled “Strategies for the Promotion of Broadband Services and Infrastructure: a Case Study of Nigeria”, the ITU highlighted strategies currently underway in Nigeria to enhance broadband penetration in Africa’s largest nation, and urged the government to partner with other stakeholders to ensure power supply does not become a major stumbling block in improving broadband access nationwide.
   “Efforts to deliver broadband across Nigeria will be a mirage unless the key problem of power is addressed by government in partnership with stakeholders across the ecosystem,” the ITU said.
    It also decried the incessant cable cuts resulting from road repair and construction projects and other civil activities. Other challenges it identified were cable theft and acts of vandalism.
“Road repairs and other civil activity usually result in network breakage, while criminal theft of cables with the hope of selling them is another common form of vandalism. These are undermining efforts by broadband investors to seamlessly deliver high speed internet services,” it said.
     It called for adequate coordination during civil works such as road construction to prevent prolonged periods of service disruption, and advised the government to become active in solving the various problems it has identified.
     “The government needs to spot emerging problems like vandalism and be quick to help rather than waiting to see what happens,” the ITU said.
     The global body also stressed the need for the Nigerian Communications Commission to provide regular and timely public access to information on the country’s Internet service subscriptions.
   “Whilst NCC is exemplary in terms of the data it produces covering mobile voice, there is significantly less publicly available data on fixed and mobile broadband,” ITU said.
    Going forward, the United Nations specialised agency that coordinates the global ICT industry, noted that the Nigerian telecoms industry regulator needed to regularly provide information that are up-to-date on subscriber numbers for both fixed and mobile Internet in the country. 
    Already, minister of Communications Technology Omobola Johnson has said that if Nigeria achieves its targets of a five-fold increase in broadband penetration by 2017, the ICT could increase the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by three per cent.
   Currently at eight per cent, Johnson said that 11 per cent can be achieved if the targets are met.   “Today the ICT sector contributes just over eight per cent to GDP. If we achieve our targets of a five-fold increase in broadband penetration by 2017, from six per cent to 30 per cent, we will deliver through broadband, a phenomenal three per cent increase in GDP,” she explained.
    Like the ITU recommended that countries should have a National Broadband Plan, Johnson highlighted that the National Broadband Strategy and Roadmap detailed exactly how the country planned to achieve the increase in broadband penetration. “The National Broadband Strategy and Roadmap will articulate how we will deliver these broadband targets local government by local government and state by state.”
    In a plight to achieve the targets set out, she asked that state governors work together with telecommunications operators. “I am glad that state governors will host the ICT infrastructure that will deliver fast broadband rollout, but they must be ready to support telecoms operators to achieve the goals of the National Broadband Policy that was approved and released last year.”
    “She explained that if state governors allow telecoms infrastructure to be built quickly at reduced cost in their states, it would help deliver all the benefits of broadband in the country  before 2017. The demand on existing infrastructure has reached breaking point because the private sector is not investing quickly enough”.
     But challenges are due to crop up, and Johnson vowed to resolve them as quickly as possible. “As a responsible government and an effective regulator, we must intervene in issues that tend to drag speedy rollout of broadband infrastructure in the country,” she concluded.
     Like other stakeholders, meeting the MDGs will require firm and speedy execution of the strategy document, which has been said, could contribute about N190 billion to the country’s GDP in 2015.
   The Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of Airtel Nigeria, Segun Ogunsanya, described the issuance of the broadband plan as a right step in the right direction, saying there was the need for strategic partnerships to implement the plan and facilitate broadband realisation for Nigeria and in support of the transformation agenda of the government.
     He also called on the government to focus on driving broadband adoption and utilisation, noting that government’s patronage of readily available local applications and solutions would be a great boost just as partnerships with telecoms operators, ICT players and development partners will also help to drive utilisation

Source Nigeria Guardian online