Information technology experts have urged SADC countries to narrow the digital divide in the region and place Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) at the centre of programmes to fight poverty and disease.

"...ICTs should be seen as tools of attaining some of the basic services that are required by the majority poor in Africa, " said experts from five SADC states who met in Lusaka, Zambia, in April.

Participants from Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe, noted that SADC countries are lagging behind in policy implementation and are also affected by a huge digital divide.

ICTs experts say the tools of communication should be the commanding drives to disseminate information on diseases such as HIV and AIDS, to fight poverty and to inform public policy on measures that underpin economic development processes in the region.

Experts drew attention to SADC’s Regional Indicative Strategic Development Plan (RISDP), which has been adopted as the blueprint for development, as well as continental and global initiatives such as the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), all of which presuppose an enabling environment.

Organised by One World Africa, the workshop stressed that policy implementation is vital. "A number of countries in the SADC region are behind in as far as the ICTs policy implementation is concerned," said Fackson Banda, director of PANOS Institute- Southern Africa.

South Africa has the most advanced ICTs accessibility, surpassing by far, the other 13 SADC members. Experts advised that this digital divide within SADC ought to be narrowed to harness development in the region.

Increased accessibility of ICTs in southern Africa is seen as a step towards creating a well-informed society that can promptly respond to development issues.

Other problem areas in policy-making in developing countries include operational ones such as the lack of technical efficiency of power plants, the low quality of the electricity network and the inaccessibility of transmission channels such as satellites.

The workshop noted that civil society groups dealing with ICTs in southern Africa have failed to form associations in order to speak with one voice on policy implementation.

A clear interface thus exists between the lack of ICTs and the high levels of poverty in SADC because the poor continue to have limited access to tools that can help them to engage their society.

"It is not surprising therefore that most ICTs policy-making initiatives are strongly linked to the attainment of the MDGs," Banda said.

SADC countries, it was noted, like many others in the developing world, have been called to a realisation that existing traditional telecommunications policies need to be expanded to bring them in line with the emerging new media environment.

The new media include mobile telephony, the Internet, convergence between communications, computer information processing and broadcasting among others.

But Banda cautioned that ICTs should not be used as an end in themselves but as means by the majority poor to improve access to market information, health care, education and other social services.

"ICTs therefore must be tamed to serve the most basic needs of communities. ICTs must not be allowed to drive development, rather, the needs of communities must drive the adoption of technologies," he said.

Experts noted that governments and civil society groups faced challenges in putting their ICTs efforts together to help the vulnerable groups in communities across SADC. .