afrol News, 19 February - The UN experts have urged African states to take advantage of the emerging technologies, blaming the continent's sluggish pace on development on the failure of governments to better utilise the new and emerging technologies to improve service delivery.

Addressing participants at the "Electronic/Mobile Government in Africa" three day workshop in Addis Ababa, Richard Kerby, Inter-regional adviser on E-government for the UN said African citizens have not benefited from new technologies despite the evolution in mobile and information and communications technology.

The workshop aims to among other things analyse how governments in African have put various ICT's and mobile applications to use, with a view of developing partnerships for capacity building.

It will also give the UN an opportunity to further its thinking on the development of the UN Global Knowledge Repository, an online storeroom for local and national governments to access up-to-date information on electronic/mobile governance.

"For African Governments to make the most of emerging technologies, countries need to invest heavily in infrastructure," Aida Opoku-Mensah, Director of the ICT, Science and Technology Division of the UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) said.

She also said Africa needs to capitalise on new and emerging technologies for public service delivery in areas such as health and education services.

The workshop has been organised by UNECA in partnership with the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs.

By staff writer

© afrol News

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