IfG.CC -
Institute for eGovernment

Many African countries have made significant progress toward creating an Internet sector, with broad sector reforms and focus on increasing broadband availability. However, there is still much work to be done to strengthen the Internet sector and to create an Internet economy in Africa.

This is according to a report by Internet Society titled “Promoting the African Internet Economy” which looks at Internet adoption and usage by companies and governments throughout Africa.

Increasing broadband services should improve Africa's telecom sector as more African countries move to implement e-governance, e-learning and e-health programs, which have been hindered by the region's insufficient broadband infrastructure and capacity.

Africa’s progress and economic growth is being realised in part due to the role that information and communication technologies are playing, President Paul Kagame said.

He was addressing participants attending the Viva Technology Conference, known as “VivaTech” in Paris, France.

Mwale Medical and Technology City (MMTC) is finalizing the shipment of new construction equipment for new smart cities in Congo, Botswana and Sierra Leone that will begin in January 2024.

The construction will follow MMTC's inaugural Marathon scheduled to take place on December 16th, 2023, at MMTC in Butere Sub County Kakamega County.

The city's architectural design integrates solar power, rainwater collection and utilisation into its infrastructure.

Africa is increasingly positioning itself as an attractive investment destination in the global tech landscape.

With a population of over one billion and a substantial talent pool, the continent represents a significant financial opportunity for investors.

The survey by the research firm CPS international, sponsored by the Pan African Education Trust, found East African universities to be increasingly embracing ICT in teaching and learning and comparing favourably with international universities in the use of technology.

Recently, there was a lot of excitement stirred up when Safaricom, Kenya’s largest mobile operator, released the Application Program Interface (API) for its mobile money service M-PESA to local and international developers.

The value in this release lies in the opportunities for integration to mobile money which developers of applications and solutions now possess. In its announcement, Safaricom took the time to spell out some of the opportunities that this move was introducing to the app development space and it pledged to organise workshops where issues around the integration would be explored.

Nic Rudnick, CEO of The Liquid Telecom Group, has outlined the company’s expansion of its fibre network in South Africa and announced that CrashPlan, its backup and restore service, is now available to businesses across Africa.

Liquid Telecom will be investing around R250 million (US$ 17.5 million) in laying new fibre in South Africa’s northern provinces, providing connectivity to the major cities and towns. Wholesale capacity will be available to mobile and fixed-line operators, other service providers and businesses of all sizes.

This technological and indeed digital revolution is increasingly leaving no area uninfluenced by its radical transformation.

"From health to education, mobile technology is changing the way all sectors of society do business," Pule said at the Second e-Skills Summit 2012 and Global ICT Forum on Human Capital Development in Cape Town this week.

Pule said a recent PricewaterhouseCoopers survey indicated that South Africa and Kenya were leading in mobile health deployments on the continent.

Having built an ecosystem to provide voice calls, cellular networks are ideally suited to provide the next wave of digital services and financial inclusion. "Mobile will be at the center of driving digital inclusion and connectivity," says Rob Shuter, Group CEO of MTN, the largest mobile operator in Africa.

It seems like a logical thing for the chief executive of a network to say but his point is well made that the vast ecosystem created by mobile operators is arguably better suited to financial inclusion than any other service provider.

Mobile communications help create virtuous circle in Africa Closing the digital divide in Africa is a primary goal for stakeholders from operators to governments to NGOs. Ensuring its more than 1 billion citizens can participate in the global economy and raise living standards across the region will require commitment and time, but can create a virtuous circle that will benefit all.

On the supply side, public/private partnerships and the many national broadband plans have help spur investment, and dramatically increase the availability of telecom services in Africa. This access is helping to bring many out of the informal or shadow economy. Business benefits from this access by becoming more productive, while governments benefit from the additional tax revenues—which can help fund additional infrastructure investment. For example, if a farmer can get a text to tell him which location will give him the best price for his goods, can save valuable time and increase his income. Given that large swaths of Africans make their living in agriculture, the multiplier effect can be profound.

Experts gathered for Africa's first mobile health summit on Tuesday hailed the use of phone technology as a new frontier in improving patient care in poor countries. But a government minister in South Africa, which is hosting the summit, called for caution over issues of regulation, confidentiality and cost to patients.

The debate came as the World Health Organisation released a major report (pdf) charting the worldwide use of mobile phone technology in healthcare. It finds that 83% out of 122 countries surveyed use mobile phone technology for services that include free emergency calls, text messaging with pill reminders and health information and transmission of tests and lab results.

It is said that passengers who travel on Ethiopian Airlines often ask airline staff if there will be any food available on the flight because of the lingering images of Live Aid and the 1985 drought.

The reality is that Ethiopia is a country full of food and while the threat of famine is only one failed harvest away, the story underscores how little Africa is understood by people who have never been there and are unlikely ever to go.

There’s a more specific area called M-health, which employs mobile technology to provide medical services.

For example, patient data can now be accessed remotely by doctors. But m-health also encompasses mobile apps and interactive mobile sites for patients to follow a diet or fitness regimen.

Traditional definitions of broadband have a narrow focus on bandwidth and speed. This paper uses a wider definition, as broadband policy needs to consider the entire ‘eco-system’ of internet and data services from both a demand and supply-side perspective.

Over the past six years, we have seen a great deal of activity in Africa's telecom market as providers have invested in infrastructure such as carrier-neutral data centers, open peering internet exchange points, national and regional fibre links and submarine cables. The next step will be to host more content within Africa, rather than in Europe and the U.S. - 90% of African internet content is hosted outside the continent today. We'd like to see that figure reversed so that 80 or 90% of content is hosted within Africa.

Hausiku said this during a recent speech at a workshop titled?"Leadership Capacity-Development for Improved Delivery of Public Services in Africa Using ICT" held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia from July 23 to 25, Namibia Press Agency reported.

The workshop was aimed at seeking ways in which African Union's Public or Civil Services Ministers could apply modern technologies to reinvent and re-engineer the service delivery systems to meet the expectations of citizens.

The programme would involve using VSATs, which are “very small aperture terminals.” These are earthbound stations used in satellite communications.

After failing to secure support for a US$2 billion broadband project to connect all African countries, the New Partnership for Africa's Development (Nepad) is now setting up an Internet service linking parliaments on the continent.

The African Union Pan-African parliament network was officially opened last week by South African President Jacob Zuma, with the aim of speeding up regional integration to enhance scientific development and technological innovation across the continent.