Over three thousand delegates drawn from both public and private institutions globally will, from 21st to 25th April 2024, meet in Nairobi to discuss Africa's connectivity matters.
During the five-day event dubbed Connected Africa Summit 2024, African heads of state, first ladies, African ICT ministers, policymakers, global ICT firms, academia, entrepreneurs, investors, and innovators will delve into conversations seeking to develop a roadmap to address the challenges facing the continent through ICT and innovation.
The main focus of the event, according to Kenya's ICT Authority will be on addressing the Africa's digital policy, infrastructure, and investment gaps that continue to widen the digital divide across the continent in line with the African Union's Agenda 2063.
Stanley Kamanguya, CEO of the ICT Authority has noted that Africa has made significant strides in terms of connectivity, but the summit will drive conversations on how to integrate more developments in pursuit of a connected Africa.
"We have made a lot of progress in terms of Connected Africa Summit preparations and this is a pivotal moment for us as Africa to shape the path for digital prosperity and power economy growth using digital technologies. By establishing mechanisms for sharing infrastructure across Africa and establishing mechanisms for us to set up data and interchange exchange points for Africa, we can be able to significantly reduce the cost of data that has to go to other continents and come back to Africa." he said.
"We recently started discussions for us to be able to share the infrastructure that is already laid out in Kenya to assist or to collaborate with some of the countries that don't have undersea cables landing into their countries. And we believe the same will apply across all other African countries so that we can establish intra-country connectivity that is going to go a long way in supporting some of the continental agendas." said Kamanguya.
Africa's internet penetration currently stands at just over 36%, with only 473 Million active internet users. Of these, 278 million users access the internet through their mobile phones. According to the African Union, over 300 million people live 50 KM away from an active fibre optic connection illustrating the continent's large infrastructure gap.
Increased connectivity and access to digital infrastructure are set to drive the growth of the digital economy across the African continent. Of the 38 African countries with access to the sea, 37 have one or more fibre optic cables connecting theme to them to different global sub-sea fibre optic rings. Despite the increased connectivity, African countries still face challenges in access due to a growing infrastructure gap.
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