FOSS and Software Expenditure in West Africa Posted by Adel Mubarak , Saturday, October 24, 2009 at 12:40 AM, in Labels: ICT4D

The Free Software and Open Source Foundation for Africa (FOSSFA) is a not-for-profit Pan-African organisation whose mission is to promote the use of FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) and the FOSS model in African development and to support the integration of FOSS in national policies. Since its creation in 2003, FOSSFA has become Africa's premier non-governmental FOSS organisation in the continent.

FOSSFA, in collaboration with the Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA), has recently launched “FOSSWAY - FOSS Advocacy in West Africa and Beyond”, a 3 year advocacy project to increase the awareness and use of FOSS in the Western part of the African continent at all levels, including academia, educational institutions, the media, SMEs, and governments. The project will also advocate for consideration of FOSS issues in the formulation of policies and standards in the sub-region. It will establish researched and accurate data on ICT use, software needs and expenditure, FOSS implementation total cost of ownership, opportunity costs, expectations and emerging trends in West African countries.

FOSSFA therefore, within the framework of FOSSWAY, intends to launch a single service contract to provide the appropriate input and researched information to the advocacy project. Taking into account the evolving ICT market, the developmental context and the different economic layers of the sub-region, the study should provide an accurate ICT overview of at least 5 West African countries.