IfG.CC -
Institute for eGovernment

The projects are designed to spearhead the development of e-health, e-learning and e-commerce in rural areas.

The African Smart Cities Investment Summit in Kigali which had over one thousand delegates, over eighty speakers, twenty-five sessions and over forty-nine sessions brought to the fore the importance and the necessity for African Smart Cities. The speakers from their own varied perspectives stated and alluded to the fact that cities cannot be built the way cities used to be conceptualised, developed and built. Cities need to be attuned with the realities of the 21st century. A smart city uses technology and data-driven solutions to improve the quality of life for its residents, enhance sustainability and maximise urban services. It was also stated that second and third cities have to be developed and built as smart cities.

Parliament on April 20 ratified the Smart Africa Alliance agreement, which aims to transform Africa into a digital single market and promote the use of technology and innovation across the African continent by 2030.

The move was presented by the Minister of ICT and Innovation Paula Ingabire, and was highly welcomed by the plenary sitting of the Chamber of Deputies, after 20 member countries ratified the agreement during the 10th Smart Africa Board Meeting on November 10, 2021.

The three elements of the Sway4edu project are helping to run elections, educate teachers and improve radio programming.

Satellite terminals provide Internet connectivity, with solar panels and batteries (where needed), laptops, tablets, a projector with screen, and loudspeakers.

Africa’s population is expected to double to 2,4-billion people by 2050. In the next 20 years the number of cities in Africa with more than 10-million inhabitants will also double.

Remote areas are pulling African economies down

Today, over 300-million Africans live more than 50km from the nearest fibre or cable broadband connection – 400-million people have no internet access at all.

Nur vier Prozent der afrikanischen Bevölkerung hat Zugang zum Internet, die Mehrheit davon lebt in Nordafrika oder in der Republik Südafrika. Schuld daran ist zum Teil die fehlende Infrastruktur, die den Preis für Hochgeschwindigkeits-Internet über Kabel in die Höhe treibt, berichtet die New York Times. 75 Prozent des afrikanischen Internet-Traffics wird über Großbritannien oder die USA geroutet. Dieser Umweg kostet afrikanische Staaten jährlich Milliarden an US-Dollar, die nicht anfallen würden, gäbe es eine adäquate Infrastruktur. E-Mails, die aus Afrika über Kabel gesendet werden, laufen alle durch ein und dieselbe Glasfaserkabelleitung, die vor der afrikanischen Westküste verläuft.

Going by the tagline “Building the African Internet,” the company is mainly known for launching Africa’s first broadband submarine cable system along the eastern and southern coastlines in 2009. This year’s initiatives revolve mainly around ICT and social development. Community projects across Africa are being carried out in an effort to further the company’s social investment programme in the name of Foundation Day.

The ICT sector has possibly the most to gain in an African economic boom, as ICTs underpin every development initiative in every industry. Connectivity in particular, is crucial for development. From agriculture and education to enterprise development, ICT is a crucial factor in modernising and optimising every sector.

And because nobody understands Africa like Africa itself, African ICT companies should be expanding across borders to deliver relevant solutions that support overall social and economic growth and development. Yet, we are seeing many African ICT players slow off the mark, hesitant to expand into neighbouring countries and losing the ICT market share race to major international players.

The recommendation follows a round-table discussion, attended by high-level politicians and leaders from Africa and Europe, during the fifth EU-Africa Business Forum, which took place in Brussels last week.

Christine Leurquin, VP, institutional relations, SES, chaired the panel, "Creating partnerships to bring e-schools to rural Africa: Offering incubator-backed seed and early-stage funding", which discussed how a lack of connectivity in Africa remains a key bottleneck to development.

"There is still an ongoing process to identify personnel to be trained and work with the Indians (engineers) noting that they are only supporting the project for five years in terms of equipment and human resource," said Health and Sanitation Minister Sheku Tejan Koroma last week while briefing journalists on the current state of the Telemedicine Project -- the part of the broader pan-African plan in which Sierra Leone is participating.

The progress in smart city development highlights the immense potential for African cities to become global leaders in urban innovation.

This is according to an industry executive following the inclusion of Algiers (Algeria), Cairo (Egypt), Cape Town (South Africa), Rabat (Morocco) and the Tunisian capital, Tunis, in the 2023 edition of the IMD Smart City Index.

“They’re putting Africa on the global map of smart city innovation,” said Marcel Bruyns, Sales Manager for Africa at Axis Communications.

Africa has joined the fray with Nairobi, Cairo, Pretoria, Kinshasa, Accra, Kigali and Lagos embracing a range of smart applications in traffic management, parking, cashless payments,

Smart cities use data and technology to create efficiencies, improve sustainability, enhance quality of life and promote economic growth and development.

Africa’s urban population is booming. At 3.5% per year, the continent’s urban growth rate is the highest in the developing world over the last twenty years. Within the next twenty, research suggests that every second person in Africa will live in a town or a city, bringing the urban population to around 926 million people.

Within the decade, it is also predicted that six of the world’s 41 megacities (cities with a population of over 10 million people), will be on African soil, including Cairo, Lagos, and Kinshasa, soon to be joined by Johannesburg, Luanda, and Dar es Salaam.

Mastercard, technology company in the global payments industry, continues to champion the fundamental role of smart cities in enabling a more connected and inclusive future for Africa. The company reaffirmed its commitment to supporting the development of smart cities through meaningful partnerships with both the public and private sector at the recent World Cities Summit in Singapore, where Mastercard was a patron sponsor.

In recent years, the African continent has been quietly but resolutely advancing a new narrative in urban growth—one where Smart Cities are no longer just futuristic buzzwords, but practical, tangible transformations unfolding across the continent. Equipped with sensors, big‑data, artificial intelligence and renewable energy systems, cities from Lagos to Kigali are leveraging technology to reshape how people live, move, work and play.

The development of smart cities in Africa is on the rise. This is a result of the acceleration of urbanization across the continent through the emergence of growing economies that are advancing the African renaissance dream.

These smart cities are integrating technology within urban planning, infrastructure development and the overall governance system to enhance efficiency, sustainability and quality of life for all civilizations.

The rate of Urbanization in Africa rose from fifteen percent in 1960 to forty percent in 2010, it is even expected to reach sixty percent by 2050. In this context, Africans are discussing how smart cities technologies can be involved to facilitate and improve living conditions. Countries across the continent are aiming at developing smart cities to use greener energy in their daily routine.

Laying the scene for smart cities

Our continent has the most rural areas on earth, with only 40% of its population living in cities. However, the continent is expected to be the fastest urbanized continent by the year of 2020. How will this be possible without robust infrastructure?