Pan-African initiatives are only way to solve its connectivity conundrum

Connecting the unconnected is an ongoing challenge for anyone in the African telecoms industry, but where do you find the $435 billion to plug the holes?

It might sound like an extraordinary number, but when you consider the size of Africa, 30,37 million km², and the population, 1,216 billion, it starts to look a bit more reasonable. This is a challenge which has been discussed extensively over the last few years, though a viable solution has not been tabled.

This is not to say there is no progress. This week, Liquid Telecom announced it had completed the construction of a new high-capacity fibre link running 2,600-kilometre (km) across the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), while Orange is about to begin work on an international backbone network in West Africa, connecting eight countries. These are promising steps forward, but the monumental scale of the challenge suggests such projects are little more than a drop in the ocean.

With such a significant mountain to climb, new ideas and new approaches need to be considered. Speaking at AfricaCom, Carole Wamuyu Wainaina of Africa50 has called for greater harmonisation between the 54 nations across the continent.

One of the challenges with developing a communications infrastructure to take Africa into the digital era is the moving parts. 54 sovereign states, most of which are not the wealthiest, are moving forward with independent connectivity plans. There is nothing wrong with this, but a common strategy would be significantly more efficient, both in terms of time and money.

This is not necessarily a new idea, Europe relies on the power of many after all, and there are initiatives in place in Africa. Wainaina pointed to some small-scale joint-initiatives to deploy electricity infrastructure as an example, but these are limited in their nature. For success to accelerated, a genuine pan-African approach should be considered. Pooling resources, talent and ideas could realise significant efficiencies.

The last few years have seen an attempt to create some cohesion between the nations, meetings between the ICT Ministers are not uncommon, but this seems to be all they are at the moment; meetings. At some point, the talking will have to stop, and action will have to be taken. Few government officials like to do anything new or innovative, though big challenges require big actions.

The creation of a pan-African deployment plan might be the only way to deploy connectivity infrastructure which spans the width and breadth of the continent, but rhetoric will have to turn into action sooner or later. Politicians like to talk, promise and posture, but that achieves nothing.