[kictanet] Fwd: [Idlelo2] Urgent Release - FOSSFA urges African governments to paticipate more effectively in Open Standards Debate

[Judy Okite]

FYI

Kind Regards,

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Nnenna <nne75 at yahoo.com>
Date: Mar 21, 2008 4:50 AM
Subject: [Idlelo2] Urgent Release - FOSSFA urges African governments to
paticipate more effectively in Open Standards Debate
To: Fossfa <council at fossfa.net>, FAYE Ibrahima <fayiboul at yahoo.fr>,
fsylla at gmail.com, Ken Lohento <klohento at panos-ao.org>
Cc: ACSIS <africa at wsis-cs.org>, IDLELO <idlelo2 at fossfa.net>, Edward Yeboah <
edwardy at aiti-kace.com.gh>, Samer Azmy <samer.azmy at gmail.com>

Press Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

FOSSFA URGES AFRICAN GOVERNMENTS TO PARTICIPATE MORE EFFECTIVELY IN THE
DEBATE ON OPEN STANDARDS

FOSSFA calls on African governments and Standards bodies to participate more
effectively in the global debate on Open Standards by encouraging public
involvement in the debate at the national level.

DAKAR, SENEGAL – (March 20, 2008)
The Free Software and Open Source Foundation for Africa (FOSSFA) today
called on African governments and Standards bodies to participate more
effectively in the global debate on Open Standards, especially the Open
Office Extended Markup Language (OOXML) standard.

Following a five-day conference in Dakar, Senegal, with a theme, "Making the
Knowledge Economy Work for Africa", participants agreed that open standards
allow for interoperability (e.g. software packages from various sources can
work together), promote innovation and economic growth, and help users avoid
being locked-in to proprietary solutions.

FOSSFA encourages African governments to facilitate the debate on Open
Standards, and involve national experts in decisions regarding technology
standards.  The organization also urged African governments to seek a
collective African voice prior to taking positions on Open Standards
issues.  Recalling that the last Ballot Re-count Meeting had very little
representation from Africa, and that African countries voted in the
affirmative without thorough and more inclusive discussions on the issues,
FOSSFA strongly calls for more active public engagement of the issues in the
future.

Further, FOSSFA believes that governments should pay particular attention to
procurement practices, especially software agreements between it and
software companies.  In this regard, FOSSFA noted that the practice of
binding a sovereign country to agreements based on non-disclosable
memorandums of understanding is not open, contravenes the principles and
values of transparency in public procurement, and must be stopped.

FOSSFA is closely following the open standards debate in Cote d'Ivoire,
Ghana, Kenya, Mauritius, Morocco, South Africa, Tunisia, and Zimbabwe which
have the right to vote in a decision on OOXML on March 29, 2008.  FOSSFA
strongly urges those of them that voted "YES" in the past to abstain in the
next voting session to allow for greater national and continent-wide debate
on the issue.

ABOUT FOSSFA

FOSSFA is the premier African FOSS organization, and was founded under the
auspices of the Bamako Bureau of the African Information Society Initiative
within the mandate given by African Governments in 1995 to the United
Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA).  The Vision of FOSSFA is to
promote the use of FOSS and the FOSS model in African development, and the
organization supports the integration of FOSS in national policies.  FOSSFA
also coordinates, promotes, and adds value to African FOSS initiatives,
creativity, industry, expertise, efforts and activities at all levels.
FOSSFA partners with development organizations who share these goals towards
a participatory and gender-mainstreamed sustainable development and the
attainment of the Millennium Development Goals in Africa.  FOSSFA is
governed by a Council elected during Idlelo, from which the Executive is
chosen.  FOSSFA members may be individuals, organizations, development
agencies or government FOSS bureaus.  The South African Minister of Public
Service and Administration, Ms Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi is a FOSSFA present
Patron.

CONTACT:

secretariat at fossfa.net
nnenna at opensource.org
www.fossfa.net
www.idlelo.org


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-- 
Judy Ann Okite,
+254-721237507,+254-734252336
P.O. BOX 2228 00100,
NAIROBI,KENYA.
'Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. '
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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