Broadband: Pushing access frontiers in Africa
Many African countries have experienced impressive economic growth in the past decades, particularly in the last five years or so.
Advertisement
Specifically, many African countries, even in their developing status, have recorded far better annual economic growths in comparison to many developed countries.
Foreign Direct Investment inflows to the continent have increased. Trade between Africa and the rest of the world is growing in, particularly, Asia with China taking the lead.
Conditions for private capital investment are more favourable today, compared to twenty years ago as most economies have been opened up and the investment climate has improved.
This has resulted in significant continental, regional and local investment flows in all key sectors, notably Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs), finance, transport, health, education, among others.
The future is bright
In today’s world, there is a wide range of new technologies available for increasing the productivity and diversity of African economies. The stock of knowledge and related innovations available to African countries are growing.
Technological diversity and convergence make it relatively easy and cheaper to access and apply knowledge to add value to Africa’s natural resources. Technology is breaking barriers to capital access and movement.
Technological developments associated with mobile telephony make it possible to move or transfer capital to rural areas and across most parts of Africa in seconds.
The drivers of notable growths may be many.
However, the single most important driver that stands out is that of access to and use of ICTs on the continent. Indeed, the correlation between the introduction and use of ICTs and the impressive economic growth cannot be doubted.
ICTs have been the bedrock upon which all key sectors have thrived: capital flows now move at the ‘speed of light’, payments for services and goods are now made at the speed of light, security and general law and order is now coordinated at the speed of light, medical service delivery is now coordinated at the speed of light, while education is now accessible at the speed of light and much more importantly, governments (legislature, judiciary and executives) are now ‘governing’ at the speed of light.
On the social front, people of all statuses, gender, location and so on are now socialising at the speed of light via social media. Access to news and information for that crucial informed decision is now at the speed of light.
The list is endless.
Despite the above outlined access to and use of ICTs as a crucial driver for socio-economic growth, evidently, more needs to be done. While voice and basic text (SMS) connectivity is at appreciable levels in Africa, broadband and, in particular, mobile broadband is far too low. If there is an access frontier which needs to be pushed, then it is the mobile broadband frontier.
In recognition of this, Africa pushed for the second digital dividend at the 2012 World Radiocommunication Conference so as to have the requisite radio spectrum resource for mobile broadband in Africa.
One of Africa’s regional initiative as adopted at the World Telecommunication Development Conference of 2010 (WTDC-10) include the harmonisation in the use of the digital dividend spectrum to improve broadband connectivity, and the African Telecommunications Union (ATU) has been very active in enhancing its consultative, coordinative and harmonisation approach in the continental spectrum management.
There are, however, many others steps Africa is undertaking to push the mobile broadband frontier.
Governments are no longer the main or sole agents of economic activities. There is also growth in numbers and diversity of knowledge, financial and technical institutions in the continent.
There is a growing determination by many African countries to improve and/or develop their institutions for scientific research and promote technological innovation.
This is manifested in the ongoing efforts by countries to restructure their organisations, formulate new science and technology policies, and, in many cases, develop science and technology strategies.
Some of these efforts are receiving international support in the form of funding and technical assistance.
Furthermore, there has been a renewed focus on accelerating regional economic and political integration. African countries have been able to integrate their economies through institutional arrangements such as the Regional Economic Communities (RECs).
Regional economic integration makes it possible for African countries to pool their economic diversities and assets together to build bigger markets, as well as trading blocs.
It is also an important mechanism for assembling resources for the production of regional public goods. The ???EAC??? has established Community Broadband Information Infrastructure (EAC-BIN).
Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) has established a desk dedicated to science and technology, and has finalised a protocol to establish a Community Information Infrastructure.
ECOWAS, on the other hand, has designed a framework for regional broadband initiative.
Central Africa has a project on broadband connectivity and ICT development. These are indicative of what countries can do through regional economic integration to foster technological innovation.
Global target
Many African leaders and the international community are increasingly recognising that science, technology and innovation (STI) are critical for the transformation of economies, reduction of poverty, attainment of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and integration of the continent into the global knowledge economy.
For example in January 2007, African leaders dedicated their African Union (AU) Summit to discussing ways to promote the development and application of science and technology for development.
Through the AU and the NEPAD, a high-level council of ministers of science and technology was established in 2003, and since then, a number of framework programmes have been developed.
Development agencies such as the AfDB and international institutions such as the World Bank and UNESCO have designed frameworks to guide their support to Africa’s scientific and technological development.
These efforts have increased financial resources for research and innovation activities in Africa.
The World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) of Tunis, 2005, while reaffirming its commitment to best possible benefits from the capacities and the potential of the ICT, invited all governments to adopt the ICT for sustainable development, while strengthening national, regional and international cooperation.
The African Union, in pursuit of this commitment in 2011, launched, for the first time, the African ICT week dedicated to the improvement of life conditions in Africa and its integration in the knowledge society so as to fulfil the Millennium Development Goals.
Technological readiness measures the ability with which an economy adopts existing technologies to enhance the productivity of its industries. It is an assessment of a country’s preparedness to procure, absorb and use technology.
Technological readiness is determined based on factors such as firm-level technology absorption, laws relating to information and communication technologies, Foreign Direct Investment and technology transfer, personal computers per 100 inhabitants and Internet users and mobile phone subscribers.
It is separate from innovation capacity which is about the ability of a country to expand the frontiers of knowledge and create new technology through innovative products and services.
Technological innovation is important for countries with diminishing possibilities of adopting and using existing technologies. In these circumstances, firms cannot increase their productivity by relying on or using existing technologies or by merely undertaking incremental innovations.
They must push the frontiers of knowledge and create cutting-edge products and processes in order to be competitive. This has enhanced the firm’s participation in the ever-evolving technology.
Given the evident correlation between economic growth and access and use of ICTs, many African countries, regionally and as a continent, are pushing the access frontier to ICTs, particularly mobile broadband.
It is hoped that with the renewed drive in this quest, mobile broadband will soon be at appreciable levels as the case is with voice and basic text for even greater socio-economic growth, inclusion and wellbeing.
ATU, as the continental body in the area of telecommunications, continues to play a vital role in the integration of regional markets by fostering policy and regulatory harmonisation to create larger common markets from ICT based on regional economic communities.
The writer is the Secretary General of African Telecommunications Union (ATU) since January, 2011.