Cape Town to Cairo:
Connecting Africa
IDRC-supported research helps unleash the potential of Very Small Aperture
Terminal networks, the new generation of satellite-based technologies.
“Bandwidth is the life-blood of
the world’s knowledge economy,
but it is scarcest where it is most
needed — in the developing
nations of Africa.”
– Mike Jensen, communications
consultant
I N T E R N A T I O N A L D E V E L O P M E N T R E S E A R C H C E N T R E
RESEARCH THAT MATTERS
IDRC: H. Hudson
RESEARCH THAT MATTERS
The Development Challenge:
Kick-starting Africa’s digital revolution
Few will deny that Africa remains the poorest
continent. Th e 2006 report on the United
Nation’s Millennium Development Goals
(MDGs) states that 44% of Africans live on less
than US$1 a day — by far the highest percent-
age of any world region.
But there is hope. Th at same MDG report details
the dramatic advances achieved in other world
regions during recent decades. In parts of Asia,
for instance, the ambitious targets for poverty
reduction that the United Nations sought to
achieve by the year 2015 have already been
exceeded.
One reason for this Asian success has been the
rapid spread of low-cost telephone and Internet
service. Improved access to these information
and communication technologies (ICTs) clearly
gives people a better chance of pulling them-
selves out of hunger and destitution. Modern
networking tools supply farmers with market
information, entrepreneurs with access to
microcredit, doctors with disease surveillance
or diagnostic advice, community groups with
links to disaster relief, and students with a
whole world of knowledge.
For many rural or poor Africans, however,
using a computer or even a telephone remains a
dream. Akossi Akossi, Secretary General of the
African Telecommunications Union, describes
the lack of ICT infrastructure throughout the
continent as “cruel.” Several factors are to
blame.
High costs plus the shortage of investment capi-
tal have limited the construction of the r