ITU’s workshop has called for the vital need for promoting human resource development in the African telecom sector in order to boost growth and technological development.
Speakers at the workshop organized by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) in Zambia stated that African countries are promoting human resource development in the African telecommunication sector to improve growth, reported itnewsafrica.
Currently, Africa alone has more than 265 Million mobile connections and the world’s highest ratio of cellular subscribers, with cell phones comprising nearly 90% of all connections. Also, ITU disclosed that 65 Million new phone subscribers were included in Africa’s overall subscriber base in 2007.
Though the telecom sector of Africa has grown at a rapid pace in past but now the dearth of HRD due to lack of training and capacity building in the ICT industry is hampering the seamless growth of the industry. Moreover, the search for finding a lucrative market and benchmarking of the strategies adopted by the African telecommunication sector against regional and global standards are still not up to mark.
Besides, human capacity building is crucial to the African telecom sector’s growth. Though several developing nations have switched their human resources towards the telecom sector to enhance efficiency and boosting their economies, but it is impossible for telecom infrastructure alone to foster economic growth.
Furthermore, Africa’s rural connectivity plans, involving collaboration between public and private sectors and regulatory agencies are also poor, resulting in inadequate technological development of the African telecom sector accompanied with dwindling growth prospects and operators in the continent.
But most of the developing countries have now started paying attention to these problems and industry operators are incorporating these areas also in their business plans. However, there’s need to encourage an environment that endorse organizational shifts and enhance employees’ performance, since human resources are vital to the African telecom sector’s growth.
As per a Research Analyst at RNCOS, “The telecom sector of Africa lacks human resources due to inadequate resources and training. Thus, it is imperative for African nations to concentrate on human and capital resources to reap better gains from investments in the telecom sector. Telecom players, with strategically right approach to product/service development and differentiation, and challenges to reach estimated growth objectives, can reinforce regional collaborations, strategic move towards technological development and mergers resulting in product growth and segregation.”
Related Market Research Reports:
Middle East ICT Market Analysis
Global Mobile TV Forecast to 2010
3G Market Forecast to 2010
