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By 2016, Botswana aspires to triple its 1994 per capita income and to completely diversify its economic base. The Southern African Development Community (SADC) objectives, as spelt out in the SADC Policy document, emphasise the attainment of enhanced development and economic growth, poverty alleviation, and support of the socially disadvantaged through regional integration. Since telecommunications have long been recognised as the engine for economic growth, the aspirations of SADC and Botswana are consistent with the SADC Protocol on Transport, Communications, and Metrology, which aims at developing a reliable, efficient, vibrant, consumer‐driven telecommunications sector. We examine the focus of the World Bank and the International Telecommunications Union, in global telecommunications development. We then discuss the efforts of Botswana and other SADC states in ensuring that they take advantage of the private sector finances to build reliable, sophisticated public telecommunications networks for entry into the Global Information Infrastructure (GII).

According to the declarations of the first World Telecommunications Development Conference in Buenos Aires in 1994, new technological developments in telecommunications and information technologies have the potential to close the development gaps between developing and developed countries. However, it adds, ominously, that telecommunications may also unintentionally perpetuate the development gaps without a more determined, integrated, and strategic approach to the challenges of telecommunications development by governments, the private sector, and international and regional organisations. It adds that liberalisation, private investment, and competition may foster the development of telecommunications. In this paper, an overview is briefly presented of the information infrastructures in the developed world. Then, the status of telecommunications infrastructure and services in Africa are briefly discussed, and the current Internet connectivity within Africa is examined. Finally, possible remedies to the African situation are briefly discussed.