•
To improve the education system through e-learning;
•
To provide better assistance in the health sector through e-medicine;
•
To promote and sustain the national culture and tradition through e-learning and
local content application/software development;
•
To reduce poverty by improving free flow of business opportunity based information
to underprivileged areas and facilitating the growth of small businesses through
innovative solutions;
•
To engage the Diaspora in the development of Sierra Leone through e-interaction;
•
To use ICT tools to bridge the illiteracy divide;
•
To subsidize access for high-speed Internet subscribers in schools and national
education institutions.
3
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
3-1
General Summary
According to the 2003 World Telecommunication Development Report, almost half of the
workforce in developed countries will be employed by industries that are either producers
or intensive users of ICT products and services. In the case of sub-Saharan Africa, the
average teledensity is two lines per 100 inhabitants and only 0.6 percent of Internet users
worldwide are on the African continent. Despite the growth of mobile telephones, Sierra
Leone is ranked as one of the least connected countries (170th out of 178 economies) on the
Digital Access Index (DAI) (with an index of 0.10), which measures the overall ability of
citizens to access and use ICTs.
3-2
Post-conflict context
Since the formal conclusion of the war in 2002, Sierra Leone has re-established security and
the country’s economic growth rate has jumped to a healthy 7.4 percent. This growth, while
positive, is more reflective of the fact that economic activity was halted during the war and
current economic activity has been heavily reliant on donor contributions.
Notably, a consequence of the war resulted in the missed opportunity of Sierra Leone
obtaining fibre optic landing from the main SAT 3 connection along the coast of West Africa.
This missed opportunity has meant that Sierra Leone relies on satellites as its primary access
medium for wireless technology, resulting in high costs and insufficient access and
distribution.
On a positive note, the need to communicate, bolstered initially by very low licensing fees
and the lack of a central regulator has resulted in the significant growth of mobile telephone
operators in the market. Nonetheless, despite such growth, penetration levels remain low,
with much market opportunity remaining, especially in the area of rural telephony.
ICT Policy of Sierra Leone
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