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The 14th Annual African Union (AU) Summit has made its way
to our fair city once again. This time it comes
under the auspices of Information and Communication
Technology in Africa: Challenges and Prospects for
Development.
The onset of the summit has been keeping the press and the
African diplomatic core, stationed in the country,
quite busy. The headquarters of the AU, along with
that of the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA),
have been extremely full of activity putting
together the various events and meetings that make
up the summit.
Hotels and restaurants in town are, of course, pleased with
the fact that there are many more customers to cater
to as summits are always good for business.
Indeed, had it not been for the mere fact that many of the
resulting situations of the summit have been a
hassle for the residents, I would have said that the
takeover of our city for the purpose of African
development, supposed democracy, and overall
camaraderie is a great thing.
The summit this year has brought with it many changes
within the structure of the African Union. There is
now a new presidency which is currently being held
by Malawi along with a switch in the line up of the
Security Council and in some other postings as well.
There have been meetings and briefings on climate change,
food security, ratifications of treaties, and the
abuse of the principles of universal jurisdiction
along with, of course, the meeting of the 22nd NEPAD
(New Partnership for African Development) Heads of
State Government Implementation Committee.
The AU also has a new flag. And to be perfectly honest, it
is not exactly what you would call ugly. The list of
events and issues could go on and on, but of course
there is not enough space in this column.
Having addressed the summit itself, I would now like to set
my sights on its ramifications and what having it in
Addis Abeba this year has meant to the residents of
our fair capital. Thanks to the assassination
attempt on the life of Muammar al-Gaddafi in 1993,
driving while heads of state or even other high
ranking diplomats are on the street has become a
thing of the past here in Addis Abeba.
Granted, I fully understand the security precautions that
have to be taken in order to avoid a similar
fiasco yet again, but I do not and will not
understand the extreme measures that are being taken
to implement that security.
It makes some sense to shift traffic, but not to halt it
for 45 minutes with the anticipation that there is
some leader about to make his way to the airport. It
makes sense to move pedestrians in crowded areas of
town. It does not make sense to clear even the
children and the elderly from their path because the
leader of a country that they may never have heard
of just happens to be driving by.
Between the congestion and road construction that is going
on in Addis, driving has already become quite the
hassle. Adding to that hassle just puts more
disgruntled urbanites in the hands of the city
administration and by extension the Federal
Government.
When such events are taking place in the city, there has to
be some coordination with the travel plans of all
high security people so that the five million people
that are residents of the so called Capital of
Africa do not have to stop their lives every time
the landing strip at Bole International Airport
welcomes in another plane.
Have them come in later in the night so you are not
stopping traffic in the middle of the work day. Try
to have more than one come in at the same time, thus
minimising the amount of time the roads have to be
shut down. Pay attention to the details is all I am
saying.
The irony of this whole thing is that the summit is titled
Information and Communication Technology in Africa:
Challenges and Prospects for Development. We live in
perhaps the most technologically backwards capital
of the continent save for maybe a couple others.
Most of the Ethiopian IT world is under the control
of state monopolies and there is no light at the end
of the tunnel when it comes to overall improvement
of the telecom and information services for the end
user.
The horrible state of the Internet in the country has been
made even worse by the simple fact that the summit
is in town. I have had the pleasure of logging in at
21 Kbps this week. I am not sure if that actually
even constitutes being on the Internet in this age
of broadband.
The mobile phone network is on the brink of collapse with
the extended use it has been getting as a result of
the summit. You have to try a minimum of three times
to get a call through. It is not as though we have a
great network to begin with, but having to have
thousands of extra lines dumped on it for a week or
so does not seem to be helping.
The devil is in the details. The residents of the capital
were never once taken into consideration when the
whole thing was being planned, and why? I am not
exactly sure. It is we who have to put up with the
crap being shovelled down our throats, and it is us
that have to have our work days thrown into chaos,
our appointments cancelled, and our pet peeves
rubbed the wrong way as a result of having to deal
with all the guests in town.
Lucky for us, by the time you sit down to read the column
this week, we will have been done with the summit,
our guests will have gone home, and the federal
officers will have been sent back to their
respective camps…I cannot wait! |
