Dr. Tarek Kamel Visits Uganda from 14 to 16 December

In the context of Egyptian trend to support and vitalize relations with the African continent countries, notably those of the Nile Basin, Minister of ICT Dr. Tarek Kamel will pay Kampala, Ugandan capital, a visit from 14 to 16 December 2010 as head of a high profile delegation of MCIT leaders. The visit is intended to discuss means of cooperation between Egypt and Nile Basin countries through setting in motion mechanisms of an Egyptian initiative to develop the IT society in Nile Basin countries.

Such initiative shall be implemented in cooperation with Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of International Cooperation. Moreover, the Egyptian private sector will participate in the official delegation to support areas of Ugandan side which won't be limited only to technical support and training; they will include implementation of communications infrastructure projects.

During the visit, Minister of ICT, Dr. Tarek Kamel is scheduled to meet Ugandan PM, Ugandan minister of communications, and leaders of Ugandan authorities including Uganda Communications Commission, Ugandan Post, the National Information Technology Authority, and Ugandan Communications Company.

Fields of cooperation adopted by the Egyptian initiative focus on many IT-related areas including drawing on Egyptian expertise in terms of establishing a regional training center in two of the Nile Basin countries, one of them English- and the other French-speaking country, and its expertise in terms of establishing miniature models of Smart Village project (smart buildings) in Nile Basin countries, Said Dr. Kamel.

Areas of cooperation shall also encompass developments of investments and regulatory environment, developing human capacities in connection with radio spectrum management, participating in developing regulatory and legislative frameworks of communications regulation policies in Nile Basin countries.
Dr. Tarek Kamel added that "an agreement has been reached on nine letters of intent with Uganda as a result of a visit by a delegation of experts in the ministry of ICT recently to Uganda”.

Such letters will serve as a common framework between the two sides and a layout of implementation mechanisms in the following phase, most importantly Nile Basin Memory project, drawing on Egyptian expertise in terms of establishing technology villages, development of young cadres in relation to radio spectrum management, national centers for communications emergency response, development of regulatory and legislative frameworks for communications regulation polices.

It is worth mentioning that this initiative aims to transfer Egyptian expertise and draw on Egyptian distinguished experience in communications and IT to neighboring African countries in the Nile Basin, open a constant dialogue with these countries, get to know technical problems facing them, help them overcome these problems, as well as take part in bridging the digital gap between Basin countries and the use of communications and IT in social and economic development.

All this is but a realization of the idea of integration with the Nile Basin countries and an indoctrination of the principle of commonweal in this field.