Connecting across Africa

China lends valuable support to continent's push for information and communication technology

Information and communications technology could well be the next sweet spot for investment in Africa, judging by the number of ICT projects announced by African nations recently. ICT's important role in African development was also reiterated last month, when leaders from 10 nations came together in the Rwandan capital Kigali to discuss how it could be used more.

It was the 2007 summit in Kigali that set the ICT ball rolling in Africa. It laid out the ground rules for the entire ICT ecosystem, including broadband infrastructure, access, policy and regulation, skills, and electronic applications, which were later incorporated in the ICT framework of various African nations.

According to a report published by the African Development Bank, Connecting Africa: An Assessment of Progress Toward the Connect Africa Summit Goals, African nations have made considerable progress in all the ICT sectors. China has played a big role in this development, with Chinese companies such as Huawei Technologies Co Ltd and ZTE Corp being an integral part of the African ICT network, experts say.

"The number of mobile SIM cards sold in Africa has risen three-fold from the level in 2007 to 810 million now. This translates into more than 380 million unique subscribers," says Gilbert Mbesherubusa, vice-president of operations, infrastructure, private sector and regional integration at the African Development Bank.

"There has been a substantial increase in the number of mobile broadband users in Africa. Data provided by the GSM Association, an association of mobile operators and related companies supporting the GSM mobile telephone system, show that there are around 116 million mobile broadband subscribers in Africa, representing a penetration rate of about 11 percent of the population compared with just 0.35 percent in 2007."

Mbesherubusa says mobile connectivity has improved considerably because of strong investment in related infrastructure construction such as telecoms towers and deployment of networks across broad areas. For instance, the mobile network coverage in rural areas of Africa has improved from 65 percent in 2007 to the point where every single village in Africa is served by at least one mobile operator.

Favorable national policies and regulations have also helped ICT growth in Africa, with countries that have developed national strategies rising from 32 to 48 between 2007 and 2011, the report says.

Although Internet penetration has more than doubled since 2007, Mbesherubusa says that 80 percent of the African population still remains unconnected, because of availability and affordability.

Most of the ICT achievements in Africa have been down to the improvement of related infrastructure, in which China has contributed greatly, says Andrew Rugege, regional director of the Addis Ababa-based International Telecommunication Union, a United Nations agency that coordinates global use of radio spectrum.