Research ICT Africa! has recently launched the book entitled Towards an African e-Index which documents a reseach initiative investigating both individual and household ICT access and usage in sub-Sahara Africa.

ICT Africa! encourages others to freely use the publication in their teachings and research by licensing the book under the Creative Commons South Africa Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 licence. This means that users are free to copy and ‘remix’ the material for various purposes.

Steve Esselaar, one of the senior researchers involved with the project, from the LINK Centre, University of the Witwatersrand, describes the reason for the choice of this licence: ‘The research needs to be properly accredited and users of the information need to recognise that the network has put a large investment into the work. The licence that most closely matches these requirements is the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0. … Also, one of the key mechanisms for disseminating the research is via the ResearchICTAfrica.net website and a licence that takes this distribution mechanism into account is vital.’

The high-gloss publication, which has been designed with an ‘ethno-chic’ look, includes key data of 10 African countries, including information about ICT operators within each country, the ’supply side’ of the telecom markets (including mobile and fixed) and the ‘demand side’ which drives these markets.

Editor Alison Gillwald writes: ‘This research seeks to build an African research base to provide the data and analysis necessary for African decision-making to make informed, evidence-based appropriate policies.’

Download the book by chapter now!

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