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Internet Development and Internet Governance in Africa Executive summary The global Internet continues to grow at an exponential rate, bringing with it new ways of transacting, communicating, learning, socializing, and transforming just about every aspect of daily life. But the benefits of the Internet are not yet evenly distributed. In Africa, despite a slow start, Internet use is now rapidly accelerating, and its transformative effects are increasingly accessible.
The Internet in Africa is growing fast. Internet penetration levels are about 20% and rising. Mobile subscriptions are just shy of 70%, and mobile broadband access accounts for more than 90% of Internet subscriptions. But the aggregate indicators mask glaring disparities. At the high end of the spectrum, countries such as Morocco enjoy penetration rates above 50%, but at the other end are countries with penetration rates below 2%, and the majority of countries have Internet penetration of less than 10% (well below the 20% threshold that has been found to be critical for countries to reap the economic benefits of broadband investment). Nevertheless, recent years have seen the accumulated efforts of dedicated technologists, businesses, policy makers, civil society, and individuals bear fruit, pointing to improved outcomes and laying the ground for the social and economic benefits that the Internet can bring. In the past five years, submarine cables have brought a twenty-fold increase in international bandwidth. In the same period, the terrestrial infrastructure also doubled. These developments have brought dramatic improvements in many areas. But to make the most of this capacity, more investment is needed in national backbones and cross-border connectivity.
Considerable work is now underway to improve the conditions that currently mean users in Africa pay up to 30 or 40 times more for Internet access than their peers in developed countries. One example is the establishment of Internet exchange points (IXPs) at the local level. Africa now has more than 30 IXPs and is well on the way to achieving the goal of at least one IXP per country. Efforts to establish at least one regional IXP in each of the five geographic regions are also well underway. IXPs can catalyse the build-out of terrestrial infrastructure, which in turn makes access to the Internet cheaper and faster.
Migrating from analogue to digital broadcasting offers more opportunities to increase Internet access by freeing up unused spectrum. However, this opportunity is not yet being grasped – by June 2014, only 19 countries had started their digital transition and by December 2014 only three (Tanzania, Rwanda, Mauritius) had switched off their analogue signals.
Another transition that Africa is not implementing fast enough is that to the new Internet addressing protocol, IPv6. IPv6 is necessary for long term Internet expansion, especially as the Internet of Things (IoT) becomes a reality. To date, South Africa and Egypt registered 97% of the African IPv6 addresses, which means adoption in all the other countries is lagging.
Most national ICT policies and strategies mention capacity building as a priority; however, most countries fall short on implementation. This translates into significant capacity gaps – especially at the level of specialists able to build and maintain infrastructure and services – making Africa overly reliant on external expertise. Africa needs a coherent strategy for capacity development at all levels, and this strategy needs to look first at ICTs as a discipline and secondly as a cross-cutting enabler of other disciplines.
The benefits of increased connectivity and Internet access come with the attendant challenges of cybercrime and privacy concerns. The African Union has developed a Convention on Cybersecurity and Personal Data Protection that would, among other things, commit member states to establish legal frameworks for e-transactions, protection of data, and punishment of violations. But, achieving a secure environment and protecting privacy requires collaboration from all Internet governance actors.
The Arab Spring of 2011, the Snowden revelations of 2013, and other events at the intersection of human rights and cyberspace have galvanized the global community – mainly through the United Nations – to seek common understanding and solutions that ensure respect of fundamental rights online. In 2014, addressing concerns of human rights online, a coalition of organizations launched the African Declaration on Internet Rights and Freedoms, which is aimed at promoting human rights and openness in policy-making and implementation as they relate to Internet development in Africa.
And 2015 holds several significant milestones for Internet governance and development. First, this year marks the end of the Millennium Development Goals, which will now be replaced by Sustainable Development Goals. The African Union has also launched its Agenda 2063, spelling out development aspirations for the next 50 years. Second, it is now ten years since the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) Tunis phase and is thus a time for reflection on progress made, opportunities missed, challenges faced, and the road ahead. And this year, the UN General Assembly will make a determination on whether or not to extend the mandate of the IGF.
As Africa’s infrastructure and user base grows, the need to coordinate and manage Internet growth and development becomes increasingly important. Several institutions and processes have emerged over the last 15 years, each playing a role in strengthening Africa’s Internet ecosystem. Africa has embraced the multistakeholder model of Internet governance which enables policymakers to draw from the expertise of the relevant stakeholders to develop sustainable Internet public policy approaches that can meet the policy challenges of the digital age. Internet governance fora have emerged at continental, regional and national levels and are proving to be an essential part of Africa’s Internet ecosystem.
Africa’s significant growth in mobile communications and steady growth in Internet penetration are in large part attributable to efforts by African governments working in partnership with other stakeholders to create an enabling environment, fostering the development of Internet infrastructure. Africa’s Internet Institutions are driving this development and putting the multistakeholder model of Internet governance into practice. The high growth in Internet and mobile access since 2005 can be attributed in part to the strengthening of existing institutions, the emergence of regional and national IGFs, and the increased commitment of African governments to ICT development. As Africa continues to make further strides in building its Internet economy, the multistakeholder model will continue to be an important element helping Africa to reach a critical mass of access and usage translating into sustained economic benefit.
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Nigerian weather and communications satellites The Nigerian government has commissioned the overseas production and launch of four satellites. Nigeriasat-1
The Nigeriasat-1 was the first satellite to be built under the Nigerian government sponsorship.
NigeriaSat-2
NigComSat-1, a Nigerian satellite built in 2004, was Nigeria's third satellite and Africa's first communication satellite.
NigComSat-1R On 24 March 2009, the Nigerian Federal Ministry of Science and Technology, NigComSat Ltd. and CGWIC signed another contract for the in-orbit delivery of the NigComSat-1R satellite. NigComSat-1R was also a DFH-4 satellite, and the replacement for the failed NigComSat-1 was successfully launched into orbit by China in Xichang on December 19, 2011. The satellite according to Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan which was paid for by the insurance policy on NigComSat-1 which de-orbited in 2009, would have a positive impact on national development in various sectors such as communications, internet services, health, agriculture, environmental protection and national security.
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Unpacking the misconceptions about Africa’s food imports
quote: Sub-Saharan Africa’s spiraling food import bill—which stood at $43 billion in 2019—has attracted mounting attention as a worrisome trend. For years, many pundits have wondered why Africa seems increasingly unable to feed itself, despite having much of the world’s remaining unutilized arable land. This alarming narrative is largely inaccurate. Our research, which disaggregates sub-Saharan Africa’s (SSA) agricultural trade performance by country and type, shows that four countries—Nigeria, Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and Somalia—account for most of SSA’s net agricultural import position. The rest of the countries in the region are actually net agricultural exporters. This is good news not only today, but for Africa’s future economic growth through trade, as we explain below. Three key facts emerge from our analysis.
Sub-Saharan Africa’s food imports are not rising. While the value of SSA food imports rose rapidly during 2005-2011, the annual value of those imports has actually declined slightly and then leveled off since 2011, as shown in Figure 1. While the African Development Bank projected that Africa’s food imports would reach $90 billion by 2030, these projections were based on trends during 2000-2010—a period when global food prices rose rapidly—and do not reflect the more recent 2011-2019 period during which the value of SSA’s food imports has been relatively flat. The fact that—even with rapidly growing demand for food driven by population growth and rising per capita incomes—the value of SSA food imports has not continued to rise over the past decade can be explained by the region’s success in expanding food production. In fact, SSA has recorded the highest rate of agricultural production growth of any region of the world since 2000.
Africa’s agricultural exports are rising too. While SSA imports much more food today than it did two decades ago, it exports much more too (Figure 2). Indeed, the region imported roughly $40 billion per year over the past four years while it exported roughly $35 billion. Moreover, the region’s lower-middle-income countries, led by Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, and Kenya, have become agricultural export powerhouses, with a net agricultural trade surplus of more than $5 billion per year. SSA’s top exports are mainly tropical commodities such as cocoa, coffee, tea, and cotton, while its main food imports are wheat, rice, soybeans, other oilseeds, and frozen meat products.
Four countries account for SSA’s agricultural trade deficit. Two types of countries are responsible for SSA’s net agricultural import situation—countries that export oil and minerals, and conflict-ridden states. These countries are almost fully responsible for the region’s net agricultural trade deficit. Nigeria alone is a net agricultural importer of over $5 billion per year, while Angola, the DRC, and Somalia account for another $5 billion per year combined. The role of rising commodity prices in triggering food imports through the Dutch disease mechanisms is visible in Figures 2 and 3, as food imports in resource-rich countries jumped substantially during the 2007-2012 commodity price upswing, and subsequently fell back down. Most of the region’s fragile states are also net agricultural importers.
AFRICA CAN CAPITALIZE ON ITS RAPIDLY INCREASING DEMAND FOR FOOD THROUGH AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTIVITY GROWTH AND REGIONAL TRADE As the region’s population grows and gets richer, the demand for food, especially high-value crops and livestock products, will continue to grow. Indeed, rapidly rising demand for food within Africa provides considerable untapped potential for intra-African trade. The proportion of African countries’ food imports originating from other African countries is currently very low, consistently averaging about 20 percent over the past several decades, with one country—South Africa—accounting for over a third of this intra-African food trade (Figure 1). Effective implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement will be an important step in enabling African farmers and agribusinesses to increasingly meet the region’s growing demand for food.
To realize these opportunities for intra-African agricultural trade, though, SSA countries will need to focus on improving agricultural productivity to compete effectively against low-cost imports from the international market. To compete at this level requires investments in agricultural R&D and extension services. African states will also have to reduce the costs of trade, by removing tariff and nontariff barriers, streamlining customs procedures and improve regional transport links in order to realize the full potential of the AfCFTA.
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