By Stanley Senya
Accra, May 18, GNA – Mr. Prince Ofosu Sefah, the Administrator of Ghana Investment Fund for Electronic Communications (GIFEC), has emphasised the need to enhance collaboration with stakeholders and adopt more Public-Private Partnerships.
He said the collaborations and partnerships would help address challenges hampering meaningful connectivity in Rural Ghana.
Mr Sefah said this during his recent presentation to the International Telecommunications Union Study Group 1 Meeting, on the topic “Meaningful Connectivity: Projects and Impact”, with the objective of looking into ITU-led projects geared towards achieving Meaningful Connectivity, with country-level impact.
A statement issued in Accra by the Fund said the presentation was on the topic “Digital Transformation Centres for Digital Skills to attain Meaningful Connectivity”, focusing on interventions by GIFEC to ensure meaningful connectivity in Ghana.
He said for GIFEC to address meaningful connectivity meant that “ensuring that everyone, everywhere has access to affordable and reliable connectivity of sufficient quality, that enables them to fully participate in the digital economy and society.”
He said GIFEC’s ICT capacity building programme was designed to provide requisite digital skills to Ghanaians, especially those in marginalised communities, to maximise the use of ICT equipment and services, thereby ensuring inclusion for all persons.
Mr Sefah said the Digital Transformation Centers (DTC) Project, was being implemented by the Fund in partnership with the ITU and Cisco, with funding from the Norwegian Agency for Development Corporation to narrow the digital skills divide.
The project, has said since its inception in 2021, trained 14,500 citizens, about 70 per cent of whom are female.
Mr Sefah said other programme GIFEC was employing to achieve meaningful connectivity in Ghana, such as the Rural Connectivity Programme, sought to provide telephony network and internet connectivity to underserved and unserved communities.
“The Fund is leading the implementation of Government’s biggest investment in connectivity, through the Ghana Rural Telephony and Digital Inclusion Project (GRT&DIP), which aims to connect 2,016 communities in about three years,” he added.
He said GIFEC had also established 281 Community ICT Centres across the country, to improve access to ICT equipment in Underserved and Unserved Communities.
Mr. Sefah called on stakeholders in the ICT ecosystem to partner GIFEC, to ensure that more communities in Ghana had access to meaningful connectivity.
GNA