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Sub-saharan Africa
This
page considers digital divides in sub-saharan Africa.
It covers -
- orientation
- questions about African divides
- measures
- some key statistics of development and connectivity
- issues
- studies
- major academic, NGO and government studies about African
connectivity and its social underpinnings
orientation
Digital divides in subsaharan Africa reflect infrastructure
challenges and broader problems with economic and cultural
development. In 2007 the World Bank highlighted international
connectivity as the 'missing link', noting that the region
accounts for less than one percent of the world’s
bandwidth capacity. The Bank reported that twenty countries
"lack direct terrestrial access" to the GII (equated
with international fibre cable) and as a result were forced
to rely on expensive satellite connectivity for links with
each other and the rest of the world. That
translates
into some of the highest communications costs in the world.
International wholesale bandwidth prices are 20 to 40
times higher than in the United States, and international
calls are on average 10 to 20 times more than in other
developing countries.
In
late 2001 the International Telecommunications Union announced
that there are now more than twice as many telephone lines
in Africa as in Tokyo, questioning the claim
that "Tokyo has more telephones than the whole of the African
continent".
That was reinforced by a 2005 World Bank report
claiming that there were 59 million fixed-line or mobile
phones in Africa in 2002, contradicting the claim by Senegalese
President Abdoulaye Wade at a 2004 UN news conference that
there were more telephones in Manhattan than in all of Africa.
The report sniffed that
Unless
New Yorkers and their commuter friends have 12 phones
each, Africa now has many more telephones than Manhattan.
This site questions what is a very crude measure of teledensity:
the ITU counts lines but does not identify whether they
are working, who is using them and how much the traffic
costs. Ten lines to urban villas of the kleptocrats, for
example, have a different value to ten lines in regular
use by poor farmers in a remote village.
The distribution of those lines is even more problematical,
since independent research suggests that Capetown and Johannesburg
for example account for a large proportion of the continent's
lines.
The ITU, discussed in the Networks & GII guide,
argues that mobiles will come to the rescue, claiming that
by the end of 2001 more people in Africa will use mobile
telephony than fixed-line connections and that there will
be three times as many mobile users in Africa than fixed-line
users by 2003, climbing to 98 million while fixed line use
increases to 32 million. As of June 2004 there were 18.7
million registered mobile phone subscribers in South Africa
out of a population of 46 million, with wide use by low
income groups for receiving calls and text messages (free
with a basic service plan).
Between 1970 and 2002 the sub-Saharan states received over
US$294 billion in aid, repaying US$268 billion. Residual
debt after interest, malfeasance and ineptitude amounted
to US$210 billion
measures
As of 2004 population and GDP (US$ billion purchasing power
parity) for selected states in sub-saharan Africa was -
state
Angola
Benin
Botswana
Burkina Faso
Burundi
Cameroon
Chad
Cote d'Ivoire
Ethiopia
Gabon
Gambia
Ghana
Kenya
Lesotho
Liberia
Madagascar
Malawi
Mali
Mauritius
Mozambique
Namibia
Niger
Nigeria
Rwanda
Senegal
Sierre Leone
South Africa
Sudan
Swaziland
Tanzania
Togo
Uganda
Zambia
Zimbabwe |
Population
13.5
6.70
1.70
12.2
7.20
16.0
8.50
16.8
68.6
1.30
1.40
20.0
31.9
1.80
3.30
16.8
10.9
11.6
1.20
18.8
2.00
11.7
135
8.20
10.0
5.30
45.3
33.5
1.10
35.8
4.80
25.2
10.4
13.1 |
GDP
31
7
14
14
4
33
10
24
49
8
2
45
33
4
13
6
11
13
21
12
9
138
10
17
3
475
68
5
21
7
37
9
30 |
The
GDP figure for Australia and New Zealand was US$571 billion
and US$85 billion respectively.
An ITU report for 2003 identifies 'main' landlines and aggregate
subscribers (landline and mobile) -
| state |
lines
per 100 people |
total
subscribers (m) |
Angola
Benin
Botswana
Burkina Faso
Burundi
Cameroon
Chad
Cote d'Ivoire
Ethiopia
Gabon
Gambia
Ghana
Kenya
Lesotho
Madagascar
Malawi
Mali
Mauritius
Mozambique
Namibia
Niger
Nigeria
Rwanda
Senegal
Sierre Leone
South Africa
Sudan
Swaziland
Tanzania
Togo
Uganda
Zambia
Zimbabwe |
0.67
0.95
8.28
0.53
0.34
0.70
0.15
1.97
0.63
2.87
2.89
1.35
1.04
1.32
0.36
0.81
0.53
28.5
0.46
6.62
0.19
0.69
0.28
2.21
0.48
10.7
2.70
4.43
0.42
1.21
0.24
0.79
2.56
|
0.21
0.30
0.57
0.29
0.08
0.81
0.04
1.56
0.52
0.33
0.13
1.10
1.91
0.12
0.33
0.22
0.10
0.81
0.34
0.35
0.04
4.00
0.13
0.80
0.09
18.4
1.55
0.13
1.01
0.28
0.83
0.33
0.68 |
and
internet hosts (per 10,000 inhabitants) and personal computers
(per 100 inhabitants) -
state
Angola
Benin
Botswana
Burkina Faso
Burundi
Cameroon
Chad
Cote d'Ivoire
Ethiopia
Gabon
Gambia
Ghana
Kenya
Lesotho
Madagascar
Malawi
Mali
Mauritius
Mozambique
Namibia
Niger
Nigeria
Rwanda
Senegal
Seychelles
Sierre Leone
South Africa
Sudan
Swaziland
Tanzania
Togo
Uganda
Zambia
Zimbabwe |
hosts
0.01
1.22
10.9
0.36
0.03
0.29
0.01
2.28
2.12
4.16
0.17
2.63
0.55
0.47
0.02
0.17
32.6
1.73
16.4
0.11
0.09
1.78
0.65
33.0
0.56
62.6
13.4
1.57
0.16
1.00
1.68
3.83
|
PCs
0.19
0.37
4.07
0.21
0.18
0.57
0.17
0.93
0.22
2.24
1.43
0.38
0.65
0.49
0.15
0.14
14.8
0.45
9.93
0.06
0.71
2.12
16.0
7.26
0.61
2.87
0.57
3.20
0.40
0.85
5.37 |
The
percentage of people online, for how long and for what is
unknown, given the paucity of comprehensive academic studies
and the indifference of commercial metrics specialists.
Estimates of the number
of personal computers (shipped and, more problematically,
in use) should be treated with caution.
The
Transparency International 2004 Corruption Perceptions
Index ranked
selected African states as follows (with New Zealand, Sweden,
Australia and Canada at 2, 6, 9 and 12 respectively) -
state
Botswana
South Africa
Mauritius
Namibia
Ghana
Gabon
Benin
Mali
Madagascar
Senegal
Gambia
Malawi
Mozambique
Tanzania
Uganda
Zambia
Ethiopia
Sierra Leone
Zimbabwe
Niger
Sudan
Cameroon
Kenya
Angola
Cote d'Ivoire
Chad
Nigeria |
rank
31
44
54
54
64
74
77
77
82
85
90
90
90
90
102
102
114
114
114
122
122
129
129
133
133
142
144 |
The
UNDP report
for 2004 suggested that life expectancy at birth and adult
literacy (%, ages 15 plus) was -
state
Angola
Benin
Botswana
Burkina Faso
Burundi
Cameroon
Chad
Cote d'Ivoire
Ethiopia
Gabon
Gambia
Ghana
Kenya
Lesotho
Madagascar
Malawi
Mali
Mauritius
Mozambique
Namibia
Niger
Nigeria
Rwanda
Senegal
Seychelles
Sierre Leone
South Africa
Sudan
Swaziland
Tanzania
Togo
Uganda
Zambia
Zimbabwe |
expectancy
40
50
41
45
40
46
44
41
45
56
53
57
45
36
53
37
48
71
38
46
46
51
38
52
72
34
48
55
35
43
49
45
32
33
|
literacy
42
39
76
12
50
67
45
49
41
71
37
73
84
81
67
61
19
84
46
82
17
66
69
39
91
36
86
59
80
77
59
68
79
90 |
issues
[under development]
studies
The most substantial report on African digital divides is
the SANGONeT report
on The Status of the Internet in Africa.
For gender issues see the 266 page International Development
Research Centre report
edited by Eva Rathgeber & Edith Ofwona Adera on Gender
and the Information Revolution in Africa (2000).
The US National Research Council's report Bridge Builders:
African Experiences with Information and Communication Technology,
(Washington: National Academy Press 1996) and Beyond
Boundaries: Cyberspace in Africa (Portsmouth: Heinemann
2002) by Melinda Robins & Robert Hilliard are of value.
Telecommunications Politics: Ownership & Control
of the Information Highway in Developing Countries (Hillsdale:
Erlbaum 1995) edited by Bella Mody & Johannes Bauer
discusses infrastructure investment challenges.
As background we recommend Exporting Communication Technology
to Developing Countries (New York: Universities Press
of America 1999) by Emmanuel Ngwainmbi, Information Technology
in Context: Studies from the Perspective of Developing Countries
(Aldershot: Ashgate 2001) edited by Chrisanthi Avgerou
& Geoff Walsham, India's Communication Revolution:
From Bullock Carts to Cyber Marts (New Delhi: Sage 2001)
by Arvind Singhal & Everett Rogers, Development
& Communication in Africa (Lanham: Rowman &
Littlefield 2004) edited by Charles Okigbo & Festus
Eribo and Information Resources & Technology Transfer
Management in Developing Countries (London: Routledge
1997) by Richard Ouma-Onyango.
Fred Kofi de Heer-Menlah's succinct 2002 ACM article
on Internet Access for African Countries regarding
factors that hinder/help development of internet access
in Africa offered the following wish list for governments
(and donors) -
- the
numerous controls imposed by governments continue to retard
the development of net access
-
governments should develop a well-planned scalable telecommunication
infrastructure capable of utilising new technologies as
they arise
- the
infrastructure must be maintained and constantly upgraded
in line with modern technology
-
web presence should be promoted with the use of the ccTLD,
with ccTLD management as a public service charging a minimal
fee for domain name registrations so that private companies
act as registrars and value-added sellers.
- the
need for a policy for every player in the hi-tech industry
and related fields that a certain quota of their services
be offered to the rural community and another quota towards
education in the rural community for each year.
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