Swiss work to bridge Africa’s digital divide

Fewer than four out of every 100 Africans have internet access Reuters

Switzerland has backed a project to boost high-speed internet access in Africa to help bridge the digital divide with the rest of the world.

The Connect Africa initiative will officially be launched in Rwanda next month and aims to make internet connectivity widely and cheaply accessible.

Walter Fust, director of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), said “the continent should no longer be marginalised” in its access to the worldwide web.

The head of the SDC made his comments at a presentation in New York on Wednesday, organised together with the United Nation’s Global Alliance for Information and Communication Technology and Development and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).

Fust said a planned Connect Africa summit should keep the issue high on the political agenda. It will also broaden the discussion to innovative financing mechanisms and local content, and support “the mobilising of the doers, not only of the talkers”, he added.

Switzerland has pledged SFr400,000 ($340,000) to the initiative.

Unleashing Africa’s potential

Fust pointed out that the costs of internet and telephone connections in Africa are very high because of the bad state of infrastructure.

Mobile phones overtook fixed lines on the continent six years ago and outnumber them nearly five to one, with 137.2 million subscribers in 2005, the ITU says. In sub-Saharan Africa, nine out of every ten telephone subscribers are using a mobile.

But the shortage of fixed lines has limited internet access, enjoyed by fewer than four out of every 100 Africans. And the cost of internet connectivity in Africa, says the World Bank, is the highest in the world – some $250-300 per month – and out of the reach of most Africans.

Mohsen Khalil, from the World Bank, said the initiative would create an information revolution in Africa.

“When you give access to a human being you unleash the power of human innovation and entrepreneurship. It is really so powerful all they need is access,” he said.

Global tax

Switzerland is a firm supporter of efforts to bridge the digital divide between wealthy and undeveloped nations.

In May 2007 the Swiss communications minister, Moritz Leuenberger, unveiled a proposal for a global tax on “information” at the UN in Geneva.

It is aimed at financing new information and communication technologies in regions where people have little or no access to the internet.

Such a tax would be raised, for example, on paid-for information and computers, while low-cost providers would be exempt.

“Today more than half the world’s population don’t even have a telephone,” he said. “Four out of five people don’t have access to the internet. They are cut off from information and any possibility of exchanging information, training or improving themselves.”

swissinfo with agencies

In brief

Connect Africa is a global multi-stakeholder partnership to mobilize the human, financial and technical resources required to bridge major gaps in information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructure across the continent.

The aim is to support affordable connectivity and applications and services to stimulate economic growth, employment and development throughout Africa.

Connect Africa will be officially launched at a international summit in Kigali, Rwanda on October 30, 2007.

Internet penetration (% population and growth 2000-2007)

North America: 69%.
Australia/Oceania: 54%.
Europe: 40%.
Latin America: 20%.
Asia: 12%.
Middle East: 10%.
Africa: 4%.
Switzerland: 67.8% (139% growth).
United States: 69.7% (115.2% growth).
Britain: 62.3% (144.2% growth).
South Africa: 10.3% (112.5% growth).
Nigeria: 3.1% (2,400% growth).
Democratic Republic of the Congo: 0.2% (28,000% growth).
Ethiopia: 0.2% (1,540% growth).