By Wallace Mawire.
Harare, Zimbabwe. (News of The South) – The government of Zimbabwe is working on a project to digitize rural communities by bringing broadband access to marginalized communities under the National Digital Village Project, according to Cosmas Chigwamba, Principal Director in the Ministry of ICT, Postal and Courier Services.
“The project will facilitate use of VSAT Ka Band, WiMax and WiFi technologies and seeks to empower communities to meaningfully contribute to the national development agenda,” Chigwamba said.
Chigwamba said that the project will help bridge the digital divide as well as act as a vehicle for enabling access to e-services such as e-learning, e-health, e-agriculture and e-government services.
He said that the first digital village is set for launch in one of Zimbabwe’s remote districts in 2015.
It is also understood that as part of the national e-strategy for digital inclusion, the government through state owned enterprises i partnership with academic institutions such as primary, secondary, vocational and tertiary is successfully implementing a programme to establish ICT facilities and have all academic institutions connected.
“All 15 universities of the country, eight polytechnics and 13 teacher training colleges have functional internet connectivity,” Chigwamba said.
He added that major projects in this field include the establishment of ab ICT lab per school and connect a school connect a community programmes.
“In addition the country has a strategic objective in line with regional and international programmes to optimize information networks by establishing a national internet exchange point (IXP) as an approach to improve quality, reduce delays, reduce costs for internet traffic, add value and create new growth and development opportunities” Chigwamba added.
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