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Conference opens on use of more languages for better access to information
ECA Press Release No. 145/2011
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia 1 December 2011 – The United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) welcomed participants from across the globe to the Third Action for Global Information Sharing (AGOS’11). AGIS is an annual global event held to promote access to information and sharing for all. According to the organizers, this years theme “Promoting Equality through Language and Cultural Diversity” made it fitting as Africa is the world's most diverse linguistic continent and the birthplace of human language.
Speaking at the opening, Director of ICT, Science and Technology Division, Ms Aida Opoku-Mensah said the event marked a great beginning of a number of exciting tasks ahead. Ms. Opoku-Mensah underscored that the theme of the conference this year was “in line with the emphasis the UN has placed on cultural diversity and the promotion and use of local language in the context of the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) action line.”
Ms Opoku-Mensah added: “as a result, Africa’s national e-strategies are attempting to put greater emphasis on local content, creation and examination of the political, economic and social dimension to support African languages in the information society.”
She highlighted ECA’s role in Africa in promoting language and technology under the African Information Society Initiative (AISI) and recalled how ECA spearheaded the promotion of Free and Open Source Software in Africa, following the resolution by its third Committee on Development Information (CODI III) session in 2003.
“The CODI resolution was widely used as an advocacy tool by member States and partners and prompted the setting up of various regional FOSS networks and initiatives in Africa,” she said.
She also informed participants of ECA’s collaboration with the National Association of Cameroonian Languages committee (NACALCO) for the pilot programme the Electronic Rural Schools in African Languages (ERELA), which resulted in “the development of a model for rural electronic schools in African Languages in Cameroon.” ECA’s support included the computerization of local language learning and teaching from primary to educational systems.
Reinhard Schaler, Director of Localisation Research Center (LRC), Ireland noted that localization is a 31 billion dollar business in the world; indicating the huge business potential for localization activities globally. He thanked UNECA for hosting AGIS'11 and collaborating with LRC on this very crucial issue and hoped for continued collaboration in the future.
For his part, Ethiopia’s Minister of Communications and Information Technology Dr. Debretsion Gebremichael, thanked participants for their commitment to localization and global information sharing, which he said “came at a time when the objectives and priorities of the international community and the business world were “more aligned than ever before.”
He noted the conference was an important opportunity to take partnerships forward and called on all stakeholders including governments, technology experts and linguists to work together and complement one another.
Her Excellency, Ms Sile Maguire, Ambassador of the Republic of Ireland to the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, noted that ICT localization should be seen as a tool in supporting development and alleviating poverty. Promoting equality through local languages and technology is crucial as it has been witnessed in a number of countries including Ireland.
The keynote speaker Mr Hans Fenstermacher, Board Chair, the Globalisation and Localisation Association, on the topic
“Translation = Access: Breaking Down the Last Barrier to Information” underlined that language remains the last barrier to access to global information and of the digital divide.
He said although Africa has 3% of the world’s Internet traffic, the mobile growth is much faster in Africa to address the last mile problem. In this context, he highlighted the increasing global content due to the new social media / networking technologies which generates, among others, 140 million tweets per day, 1.5 billion pieces of facebook content created every day, and 1.6 million blogs posts and 60,000 website created every single day.
He explained that the challenge is how to get this information produced everyday to all people in the language they understand that he referred to it as ‘the last inch problem’. He underlined that translation means access by informing participants that 80 percent of the content produced today is only available in the source language that the content is created.
In conjunction with the Economic Commission for Africa the conference was also organized by The Localisation Research Centre (LRC), The Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), MultiLingual Computing, Inc., ANLoc – African Network for Localisation, CNGL – Centre for Next Generation Localisation, The Internet Society (ISOC), The Rosetta Foundation, GALA – Globalization and Localization Association, Kamusi.
Issued by:
ECA Information and Communication Service P.O. Box 3001
Addis Ababa Ethiopia
Tel: 251 11 5445098 Fax: +251-11-551 03 65 E-mail: ecainfo@uneca.org Web: www.uneca.org
3/31/2014 Article - Conference opens on use of more languages for better access to information
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