AFRO-NETS> African participation in AFRO-NETS (6)

African participation in AFRO-NETS (6)
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Hello colleagues,

The moderator wrote......

I fully agree with you that more participation from our African
colleagues in the AFRO-NETS conference is desirable but how to achieve
this 'aggressively' needs to be discussed.

I wish to add that our (SatelLife - HealthNet) experience in trying to pro-
mote the use of e-mail in health sector in Africa for the last half a dec-
ade show that the usage of this medium for communication has been slow due
the following reasons above what you mentioned:- lack of appropriate hard-
ware (modems and computers); poor computer literacy among health workers;
lack of clear policies on the application of ICTs in health; restrictions
to the use of internet by individuals working in public sector and lately
the high cost of internet access imposed by commercial internet service
providers.

Being aggressive in improving participation means addressing ALL these is-
sues. Some efforts are being made, though slowly!

Dr. Fred Bukachi
SatelLife/HealthNet Coordinator for Africa
mailto:fbukachi@ken.healthnet.org

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