The winners were announced on Thursday by the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) and the Canada Fund for Africa, which partner in founding the award body.

"TIGA Awards aim to recognise the work of African Governments in the effective use of ICTs for public services delivery as part of ECA’s African Information Society Initiative (AISI) and Canada’s ICTs for development programme," according to TIGA official website.

Ethiopia is one of the award winners for its woredaNet service. WoredaNet is connecting different layers of administration - with focus on local administration - through provision of communications services including Internet in sometimes very challenging conditions, said a brochure made available at the award event.

South Africa and Botswana are also among the award winners for their improved performance of the identity document provision service and connecting communities respectively.

Nigeria, Egypt and Tunisia also received awards in telemedicine pilot project, women healthcare mobile unit project and implementation of data management system respectively while Sudan and Angola won awards for their services in the education sector.

Nigeria, Tunisia and Ethio-market technology received honorary awards on the occasion.

UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of ECA, Abdoulie Janneh, said on the occasion that making use of ICT is significant to address problems in Africa.

Ambassador of Finland to Ethiopia, Kirsti Aarnio and also representative of Canadian government, Therese Priot said ICT was increasingly being employed for social and economic uplifting of the grassroots in Africa.

They said their countries provided assistance to award the institutions as the institutions contributed to the development of the sector.

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