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characterizing these systems are organization, content, users,

functionality, quality, policy and architecture. The portal will

be supported by a management team that will provide services

including end-user support, content development, database

maintenance and software development.

The information repository of the portal will include digital

content such as documents, e-books, images, video, audio

recordings, e-learning courses, historical archives and data

files. The ADKP has several advantages including:

• the ability to access the portal from anywhere, at any time

using the Internet

• ease of self-access using advanced online capabilities to

locate content easily and intuitively

• unlimited multiple accesses to the resources by users

from all over the world

• the availability of a user-friendly navigation environment,

touch screens and menu-driven interfaces to search,

locate and retrieve information

• a long-term preservation solution for critical development

knowledge

• knowledge networking capabilities whereby African

researchers, academic and corporate institutions can

collaborate to access development information seamlessly.

Since 2003, the bank has continued to use the Virginia

Tech Library System (VTLS) as a knowledge manage-

ment system for its information management. As such,

an integrated suite of tools developed by VTLS has been

adopted to support the ADKP. These include the Drupal

Management System, a free, open-source content manage-

ment system and content management framework. It is

widely used in personal blogs, corporate, political, and

government portals as well as for knowledge management

and business collaboration. It also incarnates a digital asset

management system that allows AfDB to manage all born

digital or digitized content published by the bank.

Another important feature of the software embedded in

the ADKP will be the media platform (VITAL Media) ,which

provides a solution that enables users to create interactive rich

media content, build digital libraries of that content, and deliver

rich content securely and on demand to their target audience.

Development information, whether it is generated by

AfDB or outsourced from external providers, will become

more readily accessible through the ADKP, thereby contrib-

uting to capacity development and improving Africa’s

involvement in the global knowledge economy. Much of

this will be achieved by improved usability, interactive

capabilities that encourage resource-sharing through other

common social media, and integrated single-search access

to a broad array of resources.

The ADKP is envisaged to be the hub of a continent-wide

network of knowledge portals to enable Africa to harness

its share in the global digital dividend. It is an innovative

methodology to harness ICT to achieve regional economic

integration in the continent. Africa has many faces,

different languages and a diversified cultural heritage. If

cross-border roads and railway projects are considered

to achieve regional economic integration in the physical

sense, modern ICTs are capable of building seamless tech-

nological super-highways to enable knowledge to flow and

grow as a means of sustainable development, and as tool to

enable different African people to coexist.

The ADKP project is currently in its final testing stages, and

implementation is scheduled to start in June 2015.

AfDB has built a huge stock of critical development knowledge that it

pledges to make easily available to its member countries as well as to other

development stakeholders worldwide

AfDB is building strategies to combine knowledge and financial

resources towards developing innovative solutions to Africa’s complex

development challenges

Image: AfDB

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