![\"\"](\"http:\/\/edutechdebate.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/Global-map_2011.jpg\" "\\"Global-map_2011\\"")
<\/center>.<\/p>\nNational Research and Education Networks (NRENs) are gaining clout in Africa. At the last count, UbuntuNet reports<\/a> 13 NREN members and 6 NRENs in development in East and Southern Africa, while WACREN reports<\/a> 2 NREN members and 9 NRENs in development. UbuntuNet and WACREN are regional RENs for their respective regions. <\/p>\n This modest success has come with repeated failures, often after multiple attempts at forming an NREN within the same country. Many times, the failure has been the result of competition amongst member institutions or simply the perception that an NREN would favour a particular institution. The indifference of most national governments has also not helped.<\/p>\n Despite the challenges, Africa now has some NRENs to talk about outside of South Africa\u2019s TENET<\/a>. Emerging NRENs like Kenya\u2019s KENET<\/a> or Tanzania\u2019s TERNET<\/a> are already peering with their global counterparts via the UbuntuNet hub in London. The successful efforts emanate from recognition by a few local research and educational institutions that they stand to benefit more from working together, despite their competition, rather than alone as has been the norm in different African countries. <\/p>\n Luckily, early adopters tend to leave the door open for others to join when they come around, in true NREN-spirit. Emerging trends in Africa indicate that when Universities drive NREN formation without government intervention, the tendency is to work together to address a common problem\u2014usually the high cost of bandwidth \u2013 by pooling resources like in the KENET example. Where governments intervene to start an NREN, they tend to provide basic infrastructure to interconnect members like in Sudan\u2019s SUIN<\/a> or even subsidise the cost of bandwidth like in Rwanda\u2019s RwEdNet.<\/p>\n Opportunities and challenges<\/b><\/p>\n As more African countries embrace ICT as a tool that can be leveraged to improve their education systems, a number of opportunities are available for NRENS. Perhaps the biggest role NRENs can play is the development of the necessary technical human expertise to help sustain this drive. Many African countries are working towards getting access to international fibre optic cables in an effort to improve Internet connectivity. <\/p>\n With faster pipes to the Internet, also come digital espionage, hackers, malware and many of the other vices of the Internet realm. NRENs can become a valuable national asset that is independent and knowledgeable, helping nurture the requisite knowledge to not only appropriate the digital realm, but also secure networks in the national interest. <\/p>\n Examples might include coordinating a national Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT), managing critical infrastructure like an Internet eXchange Point (IXP) or even the country code top-level domain (ccTLD) registry. Unfortunately, few if any African NRENs have so far gone down this route.<\/p>\n An NREN can help address various ICT divides that exist within a country. An access-divide might exist between institutions with Internet connectivity and those without because they cannot afford or are simply out of reach. Through the NREN, well-off institutions or even government can help subsidise poor institutions in the national interest. <\/p>\n A geographic-divide might exist between institutions near the capital city that pay much less for connectivity compared to their rural counterparts who pay much higher costs. Usually the NREN guarantees the same bandwidth cost irrespective of distance like the case of KENET in Kenya or TENET in South Africa.<\/p>\n Many more opportunities can emerge from institutions collectively working together through an NREN. These may include:<\/p>\n There are challenges that NRENs have to navigate before they can play a complementary role in the development of many African countries. Key amongst these is the lack of recognition by national governments of the critical role that NRENs could play in national development. <\/p>\n Thus, many have neither created an enabling environment with supportive policies nor provided the necessary funding for NRENs to thrive. Many national regulators do not quite understand the operations of NRENs and have no distinct license that can permit their full range of activities. Hence an NREN has to engage and educate a whole range of players across different levels of government in order to be able to operate.<\/p>\n There is also still a perception amongst some within the private sector, particularly the local telcos or Internet service providers (ISPs), that NRENs are their competition. This makes it harder to argue for special status or funding that is critical to get NRENs off the ground. Often, the commercial sector and indeed regulators argue that this special treatment might distort the local market. <\/p>\n These private sector players are usually more effective lobbyists and can severely hamper a nascent NREN\u2019s activities or even kill it off, in circumstances where NREN members have not convalesced around a common problem. Given that many emerging NRENs do not own infrastructure and have to rely on the private sector, they have to walk a delicate path in the beginning to survive and thrive.<\/p>\n Sustainability of African NRENs is another significant challenge. Even in the rare case that capital costs are born by another party (government or development partner donation), recurrent costs tend to be a problem for most since network spares and maintenance are both costly. Good technical ICT expertise is difficult to nurture, but once developed, the NREN finds itself in competition with the private sector. <\/p>\n NRENs have to devise different motivational schemes to hold onto exceptional talent since they cannot match private sector salaries. Sometimes being on the cutting-edge of network technology can attract talent, but one wonders if African NRENs could collaborate more to attract and retain talent. Information and management systems are still costly, but while becoming increasingly critical for member operations, this is an area worthy of collaboration, but member institutions still seem unready to share despite overlapping functions.<\/p>\n Success factors and barriers to wider dissemination and take up<\/b><\/p>\n There are a number of critical success factors that can help NRENs navigate many of the challenges identified above: Key amongst these include:<\/p>\n There are still few barriers out there that most African NRENs still need to figure out how to mitigate<\/p>\n Reflections<\/b><\/p>\n While NRENs in the developed world focus on next-generation challenges for research and higher education, in Africa NRENs must also worry about this and much more:<\/p>\n This must all happen within the context of increasing student enrolment and dwindling support and investments in education from African governments. Higher education in Africa is becoming commercialised\u2014as government owned institutions receive less funding and increasingly compete with commercial institutions or those funded from other sources.<\/p>\n Recommendations to policy makers, regulators and other stakeholders<\/b><\/p>\n I would like to make the following recommendations to various stakeholders:<\/p>\n\n
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