VICI - The Village Information and Communication Infrastructure Plans

To further deepen and democratize the policy-maiking, ECA is taking the process to the village level with village information and communication infrastructure (VICI), plans that ensures effective implmentation of national e-strategies, particularly in rural areas of African countries. This way urgent consideration as a result of the national policy process can also be considered and implemented at the low level - there by democratizing access by rural dwellers to the information society. What is VICI Advantages of VICIs Developed to decentralize the NICI process after the formulation of the national policy as a way of democratizing access under the AISI framework and philosophy. Introduced to give a chance to the majority of the African people living in the rural areas and that constitute approximately 60-70 per cent of the national populations to become actors and identify their ICT needs. Envisaged advantages of introducing VICIs: Allows more people living across the country to have an input to the information society building process; Buy-in of the process at the local government level, sharing and spreading the responsibilities of policy-making across the political ladder; Provides the opportunities for ‘champions’ at the regional/local levels in ICTs; Enables effective faster implementation of the policy if regional and local governments are involved; Democratization of the policy process spreads further knowledge of the role of ICTs in development throughout the country Offers opportunities of scaling up and implementation of universal access goals.