The Smart Africa Alliance confirms its grand design to connect Africans better to the Internet, and at a lower cost. Its member countries will pool the purchase of data spaces. They will finance and facilitate the new tools.
The Smart Africa Alliance held its 9th Board of Directors this week. Its generic theme was “Capitalizing on information and communication technologies to boost sustainable development”. In addition to representatives of international organizations and private groups, no less than 27 countries were represented at the highest level, under the chairmanship of Paul Kagame.
Leaders once again endorsed the overall goal of improving capacity. It aims to six-fold Internet use, and reduce costs by up to 50%. Pooling resources and demand, they find, reduces their prices.
In the data sector, for example, African countries will make group purchases of capacities (locations in Data Centers) in order to resell them at lower prices to end users. An ad hoc structure will be created to make this ambition a reality, from 2021. It will bring together Internet service providers and telecom operators.
“The pandemic has shown that connectivity is not a luxury, but a necessity,” said Paul Kagame, president of Rwanda, quoted The New Times. Daily from Rwanda in which Didier Nkurikiyimfura, director of technology and innovation for Smart Africa, confided that a 50% cost reduction “will help people and countries to obtain better connectivity, to launch products and services. online and to be able to achieve a knowledge-based economy”. In a first phase, he said, seven to ten countries will be mobilized.
Heads of state have approved the launch of the Digital ID Plan for Africa. This initiative, led by Benin, aims to build an interoperable digital identification system across Africa. Digital identification will facilitate the participation of Africans in the digital economy, generating dividends for inclusion and the continent’s overall growth and development.
Tunisia, champion of start-ups!
In addition, the Alliance will launch the Smart Broadband 2025 Blueprint for Africa, a flagship project to increase broadband penetration in Africa from 34% to 50% by 2025. Indeed, studies tell us, better use of broadband promotes growth in per capita GDP. This is why the alliance aims to increase twelve additional countries to more than 20% broadband penetration.
The Internet is also the start-up ecosystem. This is why the Smart Africa alliance supports Tunisia’s initiatives, which are called upon to teach Africa. The program seeks to create the optimal conditions to allow member countries to prosper through project start-up actions. The aim is to strengthen knowledge on the main challenges facing African ICT start-ups and innovators as well as best practices developed around the world.
For its part, Niger will pilot the “Smart Villages” master plan: 59% of the African population lives in rural areas. They face poor infrastructure and a lack of internet connectivity with the world’s worst connectivity rates. Therefore, “Smart Villages” constitute a global and inclusive approach to rural digital transformation; the initiative meets the goals of sustainable development in remote and underserved communities.
For its part, Djibouti will develop Africa’s first ecological data center, announced President Ismail Omar Guelleh. This Data Center will present “the best standards” in terms of operational reliability, physical security, connectivity, modularity and energy performance.
If the president of Djibouti praised an African youth who “acts, creates, innovates”, he recalled the need for Africa to weigh more in the digital space. “It is no longer a question of following the world but of anticipating the realities of the world of tomorrow,” he warned. This is why, in his view, there is a need to invest in infrastructure, improved connectivity, and human capital formation. Finally, the Council confirmed the arrival of Mauritania as the 31st member of the Smart Africa Alliance.
