AFRO-NETS> African participation in AFRO-NETS (3)

African participation in AFRO-NETS (3)
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Colleagues,

  I am not at all surprised about the paucity of Africans participating
in AFRO-NETS. Only a few of us have ready access to computers with modems.
Those who do have to battle with telephone lines which are regularly out of
order. The lucky ones whose telephones work have to battle with electric
power cuts. And what of the huge cost of spending one minute on-line when
compared with the meagre monthly take home pay after tax. Even institutions
that have email connections expect their staff to pay for the service
unlike in Europe and America where access is free to not only staff but
also students. Some of us are able to subscribe to email because
International Organisations to which we belong offered to pay for the
service considering that postal communications may take from 3 weeks to 6
months from Europe/America to Africa. I have just retrieved over 200
messages from my inbox because my telephone line was out of order for
almost 2 months due to no fault of mine.

  The solution is to strengthen the capability of Africa based
Afronetters to regularly access your messages by paying their email
connection charges, upgrading their telephones from analogue to digital and
providing them with backup generators so that when there is the usual power
cut (which may sometimes last for 1 or 2 weeks in my part of Africa) they
can still access their local servers. These steps should be part of Afro-
Nets' aggressive drive to increase African participation.

Best regards,

Biola Mabadeje

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Prof. AFB Mabadeje
Departments of Pharmacology and Medicine
Box 191, University of Lagos Post office
Akoka Campus, Lagos, Nigeria
Phone/Fax: +234-1-821501
mailto:biolamab@linkserve.com.ng
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