Com Conference which was also held at Gallagher Estate, it was proposed that this conference extends its activities to include the participation by countries of the continent to benefit the entire Africa. The theme captures the essence of the communications challenges facing our continent, creating higher levels of awareness and sensitivity around the issues. The call for the development of Africa's telecommunications infrastructure was echoed in 1998 at the ITU Africa Telecom by our continent's Ministers responsible for Communications. This Conference is likely to be the first one that addresses the question of African connectivity and infrastructure as the main issue. Many forums and conferences have been held over the past thirty years to discuss infrastructure development.
Numerous studies exist and various infrastructure rollout programmes have been proposed.
All or part of this information has been consolidated on a regional basis to form part of the Africa telecommunications regional database. What needs to happen now is the integration of all the different databases. There has also been a lack of co-ordinated planning between and among countries of the continent. To bridge the so-called digital divide that bars us from being equal citizens in the information society. In February 1998 a meeting of African Telecommunications Ministers was convened to establish an agenda of action for the implementation of a vision for an African Renaissance.