GAID Africa was formally launched on 23 March 2007 a meeting hosted by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) in Addis-Ababa, with support from Organisation International de la Francophonie, NGOCONGO, African Union Commission and NEPAD. A Steering Committee was apointed to lead the activities of the network and it adopted a Structure and Initiatives Framework in consultation with the African ICT for Development stakeholders community. UNECA serves as the institutional host for the network.

Mission

The GAID-Africa Structure and Initiatives Implementation Framework is designed to provide a light-weight framework to provide the requisite and easily implementable mechanisms, modalities and suitable structures for ensuring Africa’s effective participation in the GAID process.

It also provides a suitable framework for developing and implementing suitable rules and mode of engagement of Africa players in the GAID process and for identifying and implementing Africa-specific and initiated flagship initiatives, advocacy initiatives and other stakeholder activities and initiatives.

The expectation is that by implementing the proposed framework, Africa working through its constituencies: governments, private sector, civil society and academia will play an effective and active role in the GAID process including:

• mainstreaming GAID’s activities and initiatives into on-going ICT4D initiatives on the continent including the AISI initiatives and the Africa Regional Action Plan on the Knowledge Economy [ARAPKE]
• identify and implement Africa specific initiatives (including flagship initiatives) in the 4 priority areas of GAID: education, health, entrepreneurship and governance and
• contributing to the overall GAID policy-dialogue process on advancing the global ICT4D agenda.