“This will facilitate an increase in Internet penetration, a reduction in cost, and an improvement in the quality of service,” notes Michel Rogy, World Bank ICT policy adviser and team leader of Gabon’s Central African Backbone (CAB) project, “and will therefore lead to the next step of the strategic plan—making Gabon a regional hub for the digital communications economy.”
According to Rogy, the three most promising sectors for “e-development” are health, education, and agriculture. The World Bank will help Gabon’s government to implement the e-health component of its e-government project, in particular by computerizing the Ministry of Health, hospitals, and health centers as well as enabling data transfer and consultation of medical files over this digital infrastructure. “The project will, however, also have a ripple effect on a broad spectrum of health services, content, and applications,” Rogy adds.
To encourage entrepreneurship, the project provides for the creation of ICT incubator sites in the three major cities with fiber optic coverage—Franceville, Port-Gentil, and Libreville¾and for the implementation of policy to support innovative digital uses, services, and content. “This will mean creating an environment favorable to the creation of jobs and activities from the development of the e-health sector, which can then be replicated in other sectors such as e-education or e-agriculture,” says Rogy. Another innovative feature: The Gabonese authorities are conferring with the World Bank on aid for ICT learning in local languages, with the aim of making e-development accessible to the entire Gabonese population.
At the Broadband Summit organized in Geneva in 2011 by the International Telecommunications Union, the United Nations agency for development of information and communication technologies, Gabon’s president promised “all Gabonese citizens the inalienable right to the megabyte,” meaning high-speed Internet access.