Title: Broadband in Morocco : Political Will Meets Socio-Economic Reality
Author: Samantha Constant
Pages: 36 pp.
Source: infoDev
Publisher: The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development / The World Bank
Date (published): 27/10/2011
Date (accessed): 18/11/2011
Type of information: report
Language: English
On-line access: yes (pdf)
Abstract:
"Fully one quarter of Moroccan households boast a broadband connection - up from just two percent in 2004. This report seeks to understand Morocco's relatively high broadband adoption while proposing additional areas of focus to move beyond this initial success.

This report presents the broadband landscape in Morocco and the approach by which the country has advanced its ICT sector over the past fifteen years. Despite being constrained by human development challenges and regional political uncertainty in today’s “Arab Spring,” Morocco has emerged as a trailblazer in certain areas with particularly impressive mobile broadband results.
The mobile industry is a big spotlight in Morocco’s broadband achievements. The introduction of third generation wireless technology in 2007 led to substantive growth of overall Internet subscriptions. This however has come at the cost of investment in fixed infrastructure. There is a need to boost fiber deployment in both local access and backbone networks. Understandably, such civil works require financing that will only happen if the private sector is confident it will see a return in its investments.

Going beyond its initial broadband success and making broadband sustainable and transformational will be a challenge for Morocco. Deeping broadband access must find a way to deal with the social and economic reality of a lower-middle-income country. This will require fresh and innovative solutions including more emphasis on bottom-up initiatives."

Title: Open Access and Open knowledge production processes: Lessons from CODESRIA
Author: Francis B. Nyamnjoh
Pages: 6 pp.
ISSN: 2077-7205
e-ISSN: 2077-7213
Source: The African Journal of Information and Communication, Issue No 10 (2009/2010)
Publisher: Learning Information Networking and Knowledge (LINK) Centre, Graduate School of Public and Development Management, University of the Witwatersrand
Date (published): 25/02/2010
Date (accessed): 28/04/2010
Type of information: peer-reviewed article
Language: English
On-line access: yes (pdf)
Abstract:
It is common in discussions of open access to limit the issue to publications and dissemination. This conflates accessibility with recognition and representation, and supposes that competing and conflicting knowledge systems and ideas would be equally available and affordable if room were created for multiple channels of accessibility. Such enthusiasm and euphoria, while understandable, do not adequately account for the prevalent power relations that structure knowledge production into interconnecting hierarchies at local and global levels.
CODESRIA has some lessons to draw on from its experience of the past 37 years – lessons about the need to privilege and prioritise recognition and representation of the perspectives, epistemologies, and contextual and methodological diversity that inform knowledge production globally and locally; and lessons about the need to widen our understanding and discussion of ‘open access’ to go beyond just enabling access to knowledge and research results through a multiplicity of dissemination possibilities. It is important to discuss opening access up to different races, places, spaces, cultures, classes, generations, disciplines and fields of study.
This review presents CODESRIA, and its ever-evolving publications and dissemination policy, as a possible model to inform and inspire institutions interested in a comprehensive idea of open access in an interconnected world of local and global hierarchies, where producing and consuming difference is part and parcel of everyday life.

Title: Reaction to the Gender Findings from Africa’s Access to Knowledge Research
Author: Kathleen Diga
Source: genderIT.org

Date (published): 22/02/2010
Date (accessed): 13/03/2010
Type of information: blog post
Language: English
On-line access: yes (HTML)
Abstract:
GenderIT.org writer and a Research Officer at Canada`s International Development Research Centre, Kathleen Diga tracks the journey of the African Copyright & Access to Knowledge (ACA2K)research network to better understand the nature of African national copyright environments and their impact on equal opportunities for all citizens to access information, particularly in the realm of education. The author argues that the ultimate development goal of copyright law is to afford equal access to educational learning materials regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, disability or age. The law must be flexible in order to recognize existing or potential discrimination against vulnerable groups. For example income constraints are likely to discriminate against women more than men in efforts to access educational materials. It is a follow up to a previous GenderIT.org article, University women struggle for knowledge access in Africa.[1]

ACA2K's development research in eight African countries: South Africa, Mozambique, Kenya, Egypt, Ghana, Uganda, Senegal and Morocco, reflects on empirical evidence in order to find ways to ensure improved and equal opportunities for all citizens to access information, particularly in the realm of education. The project team investigated whether copyright laws in the study countries are designed in a way that is likely to help or hinder access to materials, particularly for university use, and whether in practice such laws are being followed -- or can realistically be followed given the varying contexts African learners face.