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ICT and those without; however, many factors besides physical access, such as lack of

appropriate products, cost, education, language, human resources and lack of robust

regulatory framework for ICT contribute significantly in the disparities that exits between

countries.

According to Thomas (2006) in the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology

in the Postnote publication, the sharing of electronic and ICT devices is common in the

contemporary African nations. The Open Source Software (OSS) is another expanding area in

information sourcing and sharing means. The proposal in 2007 to establish One-Laptop Per

Child (OLPC) in various African countries by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

(MIT), with assistance from corporate members such as Google and NewsCorp, was a

modality set in motion to positively restructure the academic system in Africa.

In Ethiopia, the growth in mobile phone subscribers is encouraging. About 60 percent

of telephones and 94 percent of the 6,000 internet accounts are concentrated in the capital,

Addis Ababa (Thomas, 2006). A recent poll shows that the government attitude to ICT may

have changed with the establishment of an Ethiopian ICT Development Authority and

changes in management of the two key telecommunications agencies. In Egypt, a dynamic

Ministry of Communications and Information Technology

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has played a strong role in catalyzing ICT development in collaboration with the private