Malawi joins other African countries on telecenter projects

Malawi has joined a group of countries in Africa embarking on countrywide telecenter projects to open up rural areas to regional and international communications.

Malawi joins Zambia, Kenya, and Rwanda in setting up telecenters around the country. The Malawian Regulatory Communications Authority (Macra) acting director general Mike Kuntiya said the objective of the telecenters is to enable rural communities to access communication facilities.

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In Zambia, Malawi and Kenya, the telecenters will foster the development of e-health, e-learning and e-commerce.

Macra said it is ready to pay ISPs any amount they require for them to provide services to rural areas for telecenters.

Remote hospitals in Africa have not been attractive to doctors and nurses because opportunities for carrier development are limited. The business community has also not been investing in rural areas because of their distance to the market and lack of market information.

But with online courses and e-commerce now available, remote hospitals may be more attractive to doctors and nurses and it is hoped that the business community will invest in rural areas, which can now access market information and sell products online.

The centers will have Internet, fax machines, telephones and photocopiers.

The Zambian government has already announced that more doctors and other medical staff are now willing to be deployed in remote rural areas.

"Doctors are even shunning coming back to the capital city to do their post graduate courses," Velepi Mtonga, health permanent secretary, told a parliamentary committee on health last week.

The African region still lags behind in information and communication technology (ICT) especially in rural areas where the majority of the people do not how to use a computer. The telecenters will also provide computer lessons to people who do not know how to use a computer.

The Malawi government wants to provide ICT services to all people in rural areas by 2012 while the Zambian government wants to connect the whole country to ICT facilities by 2030.

Poor telecommunication infrastructure is blamed for the slow growth of ICT in many African countries. The major contribution to the health sector will be the ability to deliver health services to remote rural areas through online consultation.

With computer and online connectivity, a doctor can take a photo, scan it and send it to a doctor in a referral hospital for expert opinion. The Zambian government, through the communications Authority of Zambia, the country's telecom sector regulator, has already started distributing funds amounting to nearly $4 million for rural telecom infrastructure development.