Corporate Africa Telecom Growth Strategy Report 2011

Africa CORPORATE

Issue 54 Vol 2 Number 888 2011

w w w. c o r p o r a t e a f r i c a h e a l t h f o u n d a t i o n . o r g

Africa GROWTH STRATEGY REPORT

ITU Telecom World 2011 Africa Building Digital Cities In Africa Broadband Enables Development Across Africa

AFRICA GROWTH STRATEGY REPORT

By Dr. Hamadoun Toure, Secretary-General of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU)

Building Digital Cities In Africa

On the 40th anniversary of the first ITU World event Dr. Hamadoun Toure, SecretaryGeneral of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) examine the prospects for telecom and ICT development in Africa’s developing cities.

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he ITU Telecom World 2011 in October will be dedicated to Digital Cities, amassing leading stakeholders in city development including mayors, digital innovators, industry CEOs, connected technology pioneers, and experts in utilities, technologies, city planning, and transport. It is evident that as half of the world’s citizens live in urban areas, the need to better connect cities is more crucial than ever.

As the ICT sector continues to expand in future, offering extraordinary new opportunities and challenges, particularly for the least developed countries of Africa, ICT and broadband will have an exceptional potential to drive social and economic progress across the continent, although broadband access to the internet will remain a challenge and necessitate making broadband and internet access a high priority. Accordingly broadband access is one of the ITU’s major concerns, and is the reason for the ITU joining UNESCO to create the Broadband Commission for Digital Development in May 2010. This is a unique platform, an online database and an interactive resource to support the development of broadband.

Smartphone subscriptions are also expected to make a fourfold increase from a current level of 500 million to 2 billion by 2015, meaning that operators are increasing competition to keep up with the demand. This situation also presents an exceptional opportunity to develop winwin collaborations between the wireless industry, governments, and service providers to respond to populations’ social needs through new applications and innovative approaches.

The true value of the explosion in use of ICT is best exemplified by the spectacular technological innovations and progress in connecting the world in the last four years. Cellular phone subscriptions have increased from 3 billion in 2007 to well over 5 billion today. Mobile subscriptions nearly tripled in Africa and Asia Pacific.

There are over 2 billion internet users, with about one billion current mobile broadband subscriptions, compared to 160 million in 2007. Social net working’s expansion has been so vast that it has almost represents an industry in its own right. The current scale of ICT confirms that these powerful tools are no longer a luxury, but a real driver for social and economic change, being very evident in 4

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Africa, where ICT growth has been faster than anywhere else in the world.

The miracle of the mobile revolution can undoubtedly make a dramatic difference to people’s lives in the world’s poorest countries, with multiple examples being evident from international case studies that show the potential of ICT to reduce poverty and empower local people. Not only does the mobile phone help to improve literacy and healthcare, but it can also enhance social inclusion. Increasingly, farmers, fisherman, and micro-entrepreneurs, are using mobile phones to improve communications with their suppliers and customers, and to access information on market prices,

weather forecast, and soil specifications.

This connectivity and information allows them to improve their productivity and income. In addition, ICT allow people in rural areas to change their lives by creating new opportunities to make a living, selling airtime, and providing mobile money services. Africa is a great potential market where these mobile services can expand, boosting local economies, and empowering its citizens, especially women and children.

The ITU is very committed to help Africans better exploit ICT, with many initiatives aimed at meeting their needs; including policy advice, research and analysis, identifying emerging trends and anticipating

The ITU is very involved in support of these strategies for Africa, the multi-stakeholder approach being required to help African countries overcome their barriers, such as the cost of technology, lack of infrastructure, limited human capital, and weak public and private sectors.

AFRICA GROWTH STRATEGY REPORT their implications, and developing training for regulators. The ITU’s activities are oriented to the unconnected communities.

In this objective, when the ITU allocates a global radio spectrum and satellite orbits or when the ITU develops technical standards, it ensures that these networks and technologies seamlessly interconnect. The ITU also assists these countries in bridging the digital divide by advancing the use of ICTbased networks, services, and applications, and promoting cybersecurity. The ITU’s guidance also includes environmental issues, using ICT standards to build a green economy. Overall, African governments and regulators have been very proactive in participating in all the ITU’s activities, implementing policies and regulations and establishing their solutions.

However in order to help African countries better exploit ICTs and enhance development, the ITU needs to reinforce their capacity building. Ideally, international partners will assist to meet this need. “Connect the World” is an initiative to mobilize the human and technical resources required to extend the use of ICT. ITU encourages technology transfers and investments in infrastructure and services to move forward. If mobile technology has contributed to reduce the digital divide, efforts still need to be made, especially in rural areas. Apart from policy and regulation, countries are also willing to create new jobs through the ICT sector and impact their local economies. Accordingly it is a good policy to always invite African partners to get involved and play an active role in all projects to ensure sustainability and local buy-in.

The economic downturn has had an impact on increasing the broadband gap between developed and developing countries, but not as acute as would have been expected partly due to the ongoing growth of the ICT sector worldwide. The pressure to achieve the Millennium Development Goals by 2015 is an additional incentive for all players to make the best of ICT potential.

Furthermore there are still great incentives and there is a good business case for investors in ICT development, as they have also been attracted by the involvement of African governments who have been very proactive in developing appropriate policies and regulations. The expansion of the broadband network is a crucial element of any African economic stimulus plan because of its tremendous impact on economic growth and the creation of jobs.

In order for broadband to fully provide Corporate Africa 2011

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AFRICA GROWTH STRATEGY REPORT results however, it should be accompanied with efforts on capacity building and improvements on the supply side, this being crucial for health sectors, mobile payments, and e-commerce, and many other areas.

The ITU plays a major role in facilitating Public-Private Partnerships in Africa to increase investments for profitable wireless projects and overcoming current challenges, fostering these relationships through developing a business case for each player. As the ICT sector contributes to job creation, productivity, and long term economic competitiveness it can provide the potential for developing win-win collaboration for both governments and the industry. However, the ITU still needs to conduct more research on business models regarding infrastructure and services, stressing broad band’s economic impact across all sectors, as well as its social impact and finding innovative financing mechanisms at international and national levels to fuel the growth of the ICT sector.

The ITU is very involved in support of these strategies for Africa, the multi-stakeholder approach being required to help African countries overcome their barriers, such as the cost of technology, lack of infrastructure, limited human capital, and weak public and private sectors.

The issue of interoperability is fundamental to the ITU’s activities, and regulation and data standard are major incentives for making this happen. ICT data collection, dissemination, and analysis are also crucial for benchmarking the digital divide. The ITU makes recommendations and encourages all players involved to collaborate in the standards-development process, focusing on an increased participation of developing countries. Concerning eHealth, for instance standardized electronic health records are crucial to the scaling up of such an initiative.

In this sector, there are still challenges that can be addressed in technical standards to cope with privacy concerns, security, and patients’ identification. In doing so, data standards create the necessary interoperability among healthcare systems, reducing the cost of market competition through scale-up savings. mHealth has great potential in terms of helping African countries face their health crisis; the shortage of qualified health personnel, the lack of reliable data, and the geographical and financial barriers to health and is one of the most promising applications of the wireless industry. The mobile phone is not only a powerful and 6

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cost-effective tool, but it is also widely available, even in remote areas. Multiple mHealth projects provide evidence of their successful impact in improving access to healthcare and prevention, to train health personnel, and to facilitate their medical decisions, or to improve patients’ compliance to treatments in HIV/AIDS, TB, or diabetes.

As far as health is concerned, ICTs will also help the UN Commission on Accountability for Women and Children’s Health, in which the ITU partnered with the WHO in the first half of 2011 to improve the monitoring and delivery of health services, using ICTs as a tool to collect, share, and analyze health data. Both organizations will collaborate to create a modular eHealth toolkit to help countries develop and implement scalable and sustainable programs for integrating ICTs into national health strategies. This commission which organized its first meeting in 2011 should play a key role in advancing mHealth and the MDGs related to women and children’s health.

The issue of monitoring and prevention is of great concern to the ITU due to governments, individual, and companies’ vulnerability to cyber-criminality. The role of the ITU is fundamental in coordinating international efforts in the field of cyber-security, and building confidence and security in the use of ICT. At the WSIS and the 2010 ITU Plenipotentiary Conference, Heads of States and world leaders entrusted ITU to lead this mission. With this objective, the ITU launched the Global Cybersecurity Agenda (GCA), a framework for international cooperation aimed at enhancing confidence and security in the information society.

One way to progress in this area is through child protection, especially as stakeholders are more likely to agree on issues involving children, it being the best arena in which they can start to work together. Therefore, the ITU launched the ITU Child Online Protection initiative to tackle cybersecurity holistically, including legal, technical, organizational and procedural issues, as well as capacity building and international cooperation. In this new digital world, everyone is responsible for ensuring the safety and security of young people online as well as offline.

The ITU has also signed an agreement with the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) to pool their resources to help countries combat the growing threats from cyber hackers and information thieves. Among the ITU’s partners, the Symantec Corporation is playing a key role in helping increase an

understanding of cybersecurity risks and help interested member states develop their own response systems. Cyber-criminality is a very sensitive issue, and a world treaty on international levels could play a key role in targeting cyber criminals, and as such a treaty would probably take around ten years to develop, it provides a very pressing case as to why immediate action should be taken in this area.

Dr. Hamadoun Touré has led the ITU as Secretary General since January 2007, and was re-elected for a second four-year term in October 2010. Dr. Touré is a great advocate for the use of ICT to achieve the Millennium Development Goals. As Director of ITU’s Telecommunication Development Bureau (BDT) from 1998-2006, he reinforced his conviction that ICT are a great driver of social and economic development. Within the ITU Dr. Touré has focused on concrete projects based on partnerships between international organizations, governments, the private sector, and civil society. In line with the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) and with the ITU’s mission of connecting the world, these partnership strategies have been shown and are set to be very successful in future.

The role of ITU

The ITU is the UN’s specialized agency for ICT. It was founded in Paris in 1865 as the International Telegraph Union, and was renamed the ITU in 1934. In 1947, it became a specialized agency of the UN. Its first area of expertise was the telegraph. To keep up with everadvancing technology, the ITU has been a part of the worldwide ICT explosion, and has diversified its activities from digital broadcasting to the Internet and from mobile technologies to 3D TV. Born from a public- private partnership, the ITU continues to operate through the cooperation between governments (member states) and the private sector (sector members, associates and academia). Its approach, based on a consensus between all stakeholders on the key ICT issues, has led to its immense success on local and global levels.

The ITU is a membership organization with 192 member countries and about 700 private-sector entities.

Headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, it has 12 regional and area offices around the world.

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Ultimately ITU Telecom World 2011 will provide a platform to showcase how ICT can facilitate faster development of social and economic sectors in any country; leading to equal opportunities for all humankind.

Africa leads the pack at ITU Telecom World 2011 A unique opportunity to network, share visions and bring about change.

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his year’s forthcoming ITU Telecom World 2011, taking place in Geneva from 24th to 27th October, presents a unique opportunity for the global ICT community. For the gathering African nations, this year’s show provides a platform to convene, network and build consensus around topics that directly address their populations.

As ICTs continue to evolve at rapid rates, this evolution has had a significant impact across the world.

African nations in particular are benefiting from this trend as digital technologies have remapped the globe, transcending physical distance to connect diverse communities and converging previously insulated spheres.

Ultimately ITU Telecom World 2011 will provide a platform to showcase how ICT can

facilitate faster development of social and economic sectors in any country; leading to equal opportunities for all humankind.

Africa is already well represented at the event; National Pavilions have been requested by Algeria, Ghana, Malawi, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania and Zambia. This show-floor presence will provide delegations with an opportunity to participate in top-level networking, directly Corporate Africa 2011

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AFRICA GROWTH STRATEGY REPORT internet users has been in Africa. At ITU Telecom World 2011, this trend will be discussed from a number of perspectives; whether it be bridging the digital divide, assisting countries to effectively manage the radio spectrum, promoting access to broadband, convergence and the enabling environment, collecting and disseminating quality indicators and statistics that measure and provide comparative analysis of the use and adoption of ICT to support developing economies, continued innovation in mobile technologies or in capacity building.

Thanks to its influential audience and the rich debates before and during the event, ITU Telecom World 2011 will persuade world leaders to invest more into connectivity. input into industry defining discussions and ultimately do business on the World stage.

Attending the event will be Heads of State and Government from established and developing nations, as well as Mayors from leading cities around the world. Alongside them will be the CEOs and key influencers from big business, including manufacturers, operators and applications providers, as well as regulators, policy advisers and key media players. ITU Telecom World 2011 is designed to fully leverage all networking by creating key opportunities that encourage people to connect, reconnect and do business during the event.

“As the leading UN agency for ICT issues, ITU is uniquely positioned in being able to bring the public and private sectors together for ITU Telecom World 2011, opening doors for African nations that would otherwise remain shut, stimulating debates that 8

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without it would remain silenced and creating networks of industry peers who together can drive real global change,” said ITU Secretary-General Dr Hamadoun Touré.

The global focal point for governments and the private sector in developing networks and services, ITU is bringing together what it sees as the right mix of global ICT leaders to discuss and debate the key issues facing the industry. Pointing to some of today’s key challenges, including climate, population and resource issues, ITU aims to exploit the industry’s potential to define communities and advance societies.

World 2011 facilitates and encourages engagement in the right discussions to generate real action and deliver tangible results.”

The networking opportunities offered

by ITU Telecom World 2011 for African delegates are numerous and include toplevel bilateral meetings, a concierge service to facilitate meetings, online matchmaking and networking tools. ITU is also building structured programs such as the Digital Cities Conference, a dedicated one day conference focusing on the contribution ICTs can make towards the challenges of urbanisation. There will also be workshops on a wide range of core industry themes such as innovation, the business of spectrum, broadband access and cyber security, a Technical Symposium, roundtables, and social networking events such as lunches and cocktail receptions.

These industry themes resonate within the African community. The majority of growth in the number of connected devices and

Celebrating 40 years of ITU Telecom, this anniversary year will reflect the changing times through shifting its focus to deliver a fully participatory networking event that will engage strategic debate. Of particular interest to African attendees is the convention of an international ecosystem of players from public, private, third sector and research to come together to share vision and knowledge, make the decisions that will map the future of the industry and pinpoint how connected technologies can truly help solve real world challenges.

This year, the event will also engage the digital entrepreneurs, influencers and disrupters that are revolutionising the communications industry, on the social platforms they choose to inhabit. These networked individuals will support and amplify the debate; democratising the event and allowing individuals from across Africa to participate in the debate.

Thanks to its influential audience and the rich debates before and during the event, ITU Telecom World 2011 will persuade world leaders to invest more into connectivity. It will inform relevant global policy that will lead to a more successful, equitable and sustainable world; of direct benefit for Africa.

“We are very excited about World 2011 and the opportunities it will provide for our African participants to not only talk and share knowledge, but to make decision that will result in real action.” explains Blaise Judja-Sato, ITU Telecom’s Executive Manager, “The African ICT community wants to play its part in bringing about change for good, and the ITU’s role in that is to connect the right people and catalyse that change. World 2011 pledges to be a forum for change.”

To learn more about ITU Telecom World 2011, visit the website www.itu.int/ world2011.

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AfriNIC is a not-for-profit, membership-based organization that serves as the regional registry for Internet number resources for the African Community. Its mission is ‘’to serve the African community by providing professional and efficient management of internet Number Resources, supporting Internet technology usage and development, and promoting a participative and multi-stakeholder approach to internet self -governance as well as increase training and awareness in the region on internet IP technology.’’

AfriNIC operates in a bottom-up, self-governance structure, meaning that the process of policy formulation and other organizational functions is developed and managed by and through the African community.

With over 600 members in 48 countries, AfriNIC has set up a number of outreach projects and initiatives designed for capacity building training on topics such as IPv6 transition and management of internet resources. Through these initiatives, over 100 training sessions have been conducted all over the region since AfriNIC’s establishment in 2005.

Training self-representation has been a key factor in the huge increase of internet resource allocations in the region, over the past six years: • Allocated IPv4 address space increased from 10 million to 40 million addresses.

• IPv6 space jumped from 4.3 billion to 773 billion addresses • Autonomous system numbers (ASNs) increased from 149 to 718. With the increase in ASNs Africa’s networks embraced technologies like Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) that made the African networks more resilient and easier to maintain.

AfriNIC’s support to the African community extends beyond managing internet numbers to deploying critical internet resources like DNS root servers within the region and

supporting African country domain names.

As the Internet continues its rapid growth in Africa, the need of effective coordination of anticyber warfare increased dramatically, AfriNIC is actively involved with the creation of an African Computer Emergency Response Team to address such issues.

AfriNIC has also launched the Resource Public Key Infrastructure (RPKI) which is a security framework for verifying the association between internet number resources and their rightful holders, and aims to add a verifiable form of a holder’s current right to use those resources over the Internet.

There are still numerous internet-related issues and challenges for the African region, which can only be addressed through open dialogue, cooperation and synergies between the African Society and the Internet Community.

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By Brahima Sanou, Director of the ITU Telecom Development Bureau (BDT).

Championing the Power of Connectivity in Africa

Investment in rolling out a broadband network, whether fixed or mobile, brings in itself enormous economic benefits.

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f all the challenges facing Africa, it may seem at first glance that implementing broadband access for all is less pressing, given the evident need for improvements in more immediate services such as sanitation, preventative medicine, clean water supplies, transport, and power infrastructures.

Ensuring the combined provision of voice, data and video simultaneously through highcapacity, always-on Internet access could appear neither relevant nor appropriate to many parts of Africa, a luxury in the face of so many more urgent priorities, counterintuitive in the search for solutions to drive social and economic development.

But broadband offers exactly that: a major enabler of social and economic change, a key driver of development from the technological top right down to an individual level, an efficient and proven force in increasing GDP per capita throughout the world. Three principal factors are driving this change: the measurable, surprisingly unheralded, economic growth resulting from the implementation of broadband infrastructure in itself, the empowerment of populations to become active users of broadband and the myriad of social, cultural, financial, and administrative

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AFRICA GROWTH STRATEGY REPORT benefits provided by broadband-powered content and applications.

Investment in rolling out a broadband network, whether fixed or mobile, brings in itself enormous economic benefits.

This direct correlation between increased broadband penetration and economic growth has been the subject of much analysis.

As cited by the ITU/UNESCO Broadband Commission’s latest report (Broadband: A Platform for Progress, June 2011), the European Commission, for example, estimates an increase in GDP of at least EUR 636bn (US$ 915 billion) and the creation of over two million jobs in Europe by 2015; in China, an additional 2.5 per cent GDP growth has been observed for every 10 per cent increase in broadband penetration; in Brazil, broadband has boosted employment growth by 1.4 per cent ; and a study by international management consultancy McKinsey & Company concludes that “a 10% per cent increase in broadband household penetration delivers a boost to a country’s GDP that ranges from 0.1 per cent to 1.4 per cent.” For much of Africa, and in developing countries as a whole, the broadband boost to GDP calculated by the World Bank is 1.38 per cent, at the very upper end of this scale. This depth and breadth of existing analysis – which is expanding continually as the world catches on to connectivity as a driver of economic growth – provides indisputable evidence that investment in broadband infrastructure at a national level is not a nice-to-have or high-tech luxury, but an economic imperative.

The second major impetus to social and economic development is the range of content and applications enabled by broadband and its simultaneous, always-on provision of voice, data, and video services.

Here, we stand on the edge of a service revolution with the power to alter much of our daily experience in ways we cannot yet totally envisage. Broadband technologies enable the “Internet of Things”, a spacey soubriquet for the ability of inanimate objects to communicate with one another and people, bringing hitherto unimagined and unknown forms of collaboration and communication; a .host of new video-based services, such as VoIP and video-on-demand, which are reshaping the competitive ICT landscape; and revolutionary new approaches to scientific research on a major scale. Broadband technology is behind grid computing, enabling thousands of small computers to jointly analyse huge volumes of data; it powers smart grids to control electricity supplies more accurately, and

it enables climate monitoring to provide advance warning of natural disasters such as floods or famines.

Such broadband-driven applications focus on streamlining coordination and increasing efficiency to reduce running costs and allow funding to be re-diverted according to need.

This is of as great a relevance to Africa as elsewhere around the globe, in particular at government level where there is still room for improvement in communication both between departments and between government and citizens. For these citizens themselves, the benefits of, say, Internet banking over mobile devices are only likely to continue with the growth of broadband, opening up services traditionally denied to millions.

Empowering these “millions” to use ICTs to enhance their own socio-economic wellbeing

Providing high-speed, always-on digital networks across Africa is indisputably crucial to the continent’s socio-economic development and a rich source of investment opportunities.

is one major way in which the benefits of broadband can be extended globally. Indeed, having access to broadband-powered services such as m-payments or m-health can prove truly life-changing to individuals, opening up a wealth of possibilities for doing business, gaining improved access to healthcare, education, and more. It is in the interest of governments to do all they can to ensure their populations become both connected and empowered, as a connected, ICT-aware populace may not only have better access to vital services and business opportunities but can also dramatically boost their countries’ revenues. ICTs are about individual, communities, and society at large. This is why the crucial concept of empowerment is high on the agenda of ITU’s BDT (Telecom Development Sector), which will shortly launch a major global initiative - “m-powering people”- focused on driving this issue.

Once services are available and individuals ready and able to use them, the might of broadband should reach across Africa – in particular, the key areas of health and education. Telemedicine offers medical advice, monitoring, diagnosis and training through broadband, delivered to the remotest regions over wireless networks, sensitive to specific local needs and immediate crises and opening up Africa to a welcome increase in the provision of basic medical services. Broadband is also essential in training medical staff and education professionals, reaching numbers that have proved unobtainable by traditional methods. E-education covers basic primary schooling through all levels

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Leapfrogging slower, traditional development models and fixed-line networks, broadband provides investment, development, and socioeconomic opportunities on an unprecedented scale. enable the implementation of universal e-education over broadband.

to teacher training and academic research, with enormous potential for geographic reach and return on investment for Africa now and in the digital future.

Providing high-speed, always-on digital networks across Africa is indisputably crucial to the continent’s socio-economic development and a rich source of investment opportunities. The challenges of rolling out broadband across the continent are not to be underestimated, however: the extreme geography and climate, vast distances, lack of funding, and other factors that have hampered the extension of more traditional infrastructure such as roads or electricity, and, of course, the need for an educated, computer-literate, empowered body of users throughout each country..

To face these challenges and champion connectivity as a key force for social and economic growth, the Broadband Commission was established by ITU and UNESCO in May 2010. Comprising government leaders from around the world and the highest level representatives of relevant industries, international agencies and development organisations , the Commission is unique in its ability to coordinate a trans-sectoral approach across government, industry, administration, and the economy. This focus avoids the inefficiency of isolated or duplicated projects, sharing infrastructure to 12

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build synergies among the applications using it, and providing major multiplier benefits in education, healthcare, energy efficiency, environmental protection, civic participation, and economic growth.

Co-chaired by Paul Kagame (President of Rwanda) and Carlos Slim Helu (honorary lifetime chairman of Grupo Carso), the Broadband Commission actively promotes broadband on a country-wide, co-ordinated basis, driving facilities-based competition to provide equitable, fair-market access to all. The Commission’s third meeting, focusing on policy frameworks and education for all, will form a key component of ITU Telecom World 2011, an influential networking and knowledge-sharing event for the ICT community taking place in Geneva from 24th to the 27th October 2011. Developing policy frameworks are crucial to support the creation of a level playing field for users, content providers, and network developments alike, meeting the goal of equitable access for all. Avoiding a deepening of the existing digital divide between developed and developing nations, or the creation of a new knowledge divide, is paramount. The Broadband Commission’s Education for All initiative focuses on both sides of the educational coin: accelerating growth and development nationally through inclusive, universal education, and the development of human capacity through media literacy and technology training to

Aside from discussing progress in these areas, the Broadband Commission will be able to explore a range of the newest applications and prospects for broadband, which will be showcased and discussed in depth during ITU Telecom World 2011. Concrete case studies and digital developments from around the world will be presented and debated in parallel to the Broadband Commission meetings as further direct evidence of the importance of establishing broadband as a highlyadvanced infrastructure fundamental to modern society. Africa will be very much present throughout the event, through national pavilions from Algeria, Angola, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, and Zambia showcasing the direct impact of ICT on their populations. African heads of state, government, and international organizations, industry CEOs, mayors of top cities, thought leaders, innovators, and researchers will join their international counterparts in leading policy-defining discussions at the highest level on this unique world stage.

Broadband is not an infrastructure that Africa should have to wait for. Leapfrogging slower, traditional development models and fixed-line networks, broadband provides investment, development, and socioeconomic opportunities on an unprecedented scale. Supported by the Broadband Commission, and m-powered, Africa can reap the benefit of broadband infrastructure and its content and applications to reach a new, connected future, allowing technology to propel developing nations forward in a leap, not a crawl – and turning a profit in the process.

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Liquid Telecom-

The Missing Link!

Y ou have heard about the arrival of new submarine cable systems in Southern Africa and will be aware of the expectations this has created.

Expectations include plentiful, lower cost bandwidth, direct fast access to the internet, connections for international businesses and more. These cables have been touted as the solution to the sub-continent’s communications problems. Why is this important development as yet, not realising the expected benefits in the sub-continent?

The answer is clear: the sub-continent lacks sufficient high quality terrestrial infrastructure to deliver these services cost

effectively to the end user. In some cases the costs to back-haul the services from the submarine cable landing point to the point of demand is significantly higher than the associated submarine link. The situation for land-locked countries is particularly difficult as the countries with direct access to the submarine cables are focussing on serving their own markets first. As a result, the number of connections between these land-locked countries and the cable landing points is quite limited and in many cases no protection links are available. This results in challenges for operators and businesses that want no-nonsense reliable managed connectivity solutions.

In Southern Africa the predominant technology has been satellite with the attendant high costs and outages due to sun and rain activity, not to mention the high latency.

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Liquid is rolling out a fibre to the business and home access network in Zimbabwe based on the GPON technology, aimed at small business and residential consumers.

Liquid is actively working on developing network expansion projects in several countries in Southern Africa. This will progressively reduce the reliance on third party operators.

Business customers: If you are expanding your business operations in Africa you need reliable no-nonsense information and telecoms services. You operate in Africa and will therefore be familiar with the challenges of establishing and maintaining a reliable ICT network and protecting your mission critical data. You are also aware that demand for bandwidth is growing exponentially driven by modern business applications and you are probably thinking about how limited bandwidth and poor availability will impact your business in the near future. You are also aware that network technology is changing fast. In Southern Africa the predominant technology has been satellite with the attendant high costs and outages due to sun and rain activity, not to mention the high latency. You are probably already using or considering some satellite links supplemented with higher bandwidth terrestrial links from the various operators for your main sites in the different countries.

You will also understand the challenges involved in obtaining and managing service level commitments across a multi-operator network. You are familiar with long outages on critical services with no recourse other than to change suppliers and try again.

Network Operators: If you are a network operator or an Internet service provider in Southern Africa you will face many of the same challenges as businesses. The limited choice of licensed backhaul providers has 14

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resulted in high prices and questionable service levels. You too will understand the challenges to be faced when establishing and maintaining service levels across networks run by different operators.

Whether you are a business looking for a reliable solution or a network operator looking for quality connectivity, you most likely dream of a one stop shop that takes care of your network across multiple countries with a reliable redundant network that offers a single point of contact for reporting and ordering, guaranteeing service levels, and offering a single consolidated SLA report that highlights performance against agreed KPIs.

If this is true for you, then Liquid Telecom Operations is your answer. With operations in UK, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Botswana, and South Africa, Liquid Telecom is able to integrate services across the subcontinent. Liquid Telecom’s fibre network is operational in Zimbabwe, South Africa, Zambia, and Botswana. In addition, Liquid Telecom VSAT has a footprint directly or through licensed resellers and subsidiaries in Lesotho, Swaziland, South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Zambia and Burundi. Other countries are covered by back-to-back agreements with local operators, these relationships being established and managed by Liquid on behalf of the customer.

Inevitably, satellite, in the form of VSAT, will be an integral part of many ICT solutions for the foreseeable future. Liquid is in a strong position to integrate VSAT and fibre based networks seamlessly and to enable a smooth transition from VSAT to fibre based services once the fibre network reaches the customer VSAT sites. This dual network capability can be used effectively to provide high reliability in areas where full fibre redundancy is not yet available, by providing backup on satellite. This type of service is based on shared satellite spectrum with the attendant economies.

Other services offered by Liquid Telecom include internet access, virtual private networks based on MPLS, international private leased circuits, point-to-point links for GSM backhaul (fibre and VSAT) and disaster recovery links, including network management with SLAs.

Liquid is rolling out a fibre to the business and home access network in Zimbabwe based on the GPON technology, aimed at small business and residential consumers.

When proven, the GPON will be extended to the main cities in the Liquid Southern African footprint. GPON has opened up the retail space, further driving demand for higher bandwidth services. Liquid services are managed, and are offered with SLAs where required. Liquid Telecom has established network operations centre in Harare with a full backup facility in London.

This arrangement ensures continuity of service delivery.

Always something new out of Africa from Liquid Telecom.

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By Roy Padayachie, Minister of Communications, South Africa.

The ICT Sector in

Job Creation and Sustainable Rural Development

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outh Africa’s President Jacob Zuma recently convened a national summit of government and business to further discussions on the creation of jobs across all sectors of South Africa’s economy, and confirmed the South African government’s endeavour to engage with all stakeholders, business, labor, and civil society to ensure that the ICT sector plays an important role in economic growth and development in South Africa, a new trajectory that includes sustainable employment creation. This will necessitate facilitating a new growth trajectory that allows for the creation of sustainable jobs across sectors, necessitating that the ICT sector contribute to this effort.

Job Creation in the ICT Sector

The National Economic Development and Labour Council (NEDLAC) in their research paper titled “Research to explore Job Creation in the ICT Sector,” dated September 1994, outlined obstacles facing the ICT sector which are still relevant today, with regard to job opportunities as being: • The cost of education and the access to education in proportion to the social status that most South Africans find themselves in; • The ever increasing cost of labour and retaining highly skilled professionals; • The absence of knowledge sharing and the inability of different areas of the ICT

sector, both in the private and public sector, to talk to each other; • Encouraging youth including those with skills to seek areas of opportunity within South Africa’s borders and not to look overseas where the “big money” is; • Handling the influx of foreign innovation and how to integrate new technologies and ideas into South African markets without skipping the important stages of development; • How to implement “home grown” ideas successfully to complement current structures and trends in South Africa.

Accordingly in 2011 the South African government in 2011 is now embarking on a campaign to create five million jobs and Corporate Africa 2011

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AFRICA GROWTH STRATEGY REPORT reduce unemployment from 25 per cent to 15 per cent over the next ten years. The President announced the establishment of R9billion (US$ 1.3 billion) Jobs Fund over the next three years; as well as the R10 billion (US$ 1.4 billion) set aside by the Industrial Development Corporation over the next five years for investment in high job potential economic activities, which the ICT industry is part of . The President also announced R20 billion (US$ 2.9 billion) in tax breaks which is also an opportunity for ICT companies investing in job creation.

The New Growth Path Framework

The New Growth Path (NGP) framework targets 100,000 jobs by 2020 in the knowledge intensive sectors of ICT, higher education, healthcare, miningrelated technologies, pharmaceuticals and biotechnologies. In this regard, the ICT sector contribution will be in the following four identified areas: 1. Public employment and recycling interventions geared toward greening the economy; 2. Effective programs, institutions and systems to diffuse new technologies to

SMEs and households; 3. Significant support for Research and Development, education and training linked to developing South Africa as the higher education hub for the continent; and 4. Continuous effort to reduce the cost of infrastructure and services thus increasing access and usage of broadband services. The NGP targets broadband infrastructure development as one of the main areas to fast track economic development, including job creation.

The DOC and Job Creation

The DOC has set up a departmental task team on job creation, whose responsibility it is to coordinate the various efforts of the department as well as the entire ICT industry in order to report on the progress.

The DOC will also endeavour to establish an ICT industry wide working group on job creation whose purpose will be to facilitate the identification of priority areas which will create jobs, this group inviting input from industry companies to propose priorities and make commitments to job creation targets, and report to the Minister on progress being made. Taking advantage

The President also announced R20 billion (US$ 2.9 billion) in tax breaks which is also an opportunity for ICT companies investing in job creation. of the Jobs Fund announced by the President in February 2011, the DOC must exploit these resources for the betterment of the lives of South Africa’s poor communities.

Accordingly the South African Government will play a leading role in the creation of the necessary environment to allow the private sector and civil society to create jobs thereby contributing toward sustainable development. Interventions will be needed across the value chain of the ICT sector, including but not limited to: • Broadband infrastructure, encompassing the implementation of projects on

AFRICA GROWTH STRATEGY REPORT connectivity to schools, further education and training centers, traditional institutions, clinics and health centers; • Creative Industries innovations such as animation and content digitization; • Electronics manufacturing with an intention to create more than 24 million jobs through the digital terrestrial television set-to-box manufacturing scheme; • ICT SMME development including business incubation and e-cooperatives growth targeting the unemployed; • Business Process Outsourcing; and • Postal services sector including the rollout of Post bank in areas in the country.

The ICT Rural Development Strategic Framework

The DOC has already developed an ICT Rural Development Strategic Framework which will act as a guide when investing resources to achieve the national strategic goals of sustainable development and job creation.

This Strategy also seeks to align the DOC’s work with the overall government strategic outcomes as contained in the Medium Term Strategic Framework. The ICT Rural Development Strategy will anchor around attracting capital investment in broadband infrastructure and services in rural and urban areas. This will be linked to spectrum licensing to ensure that government uses the radio frequency spectrum resource to direct investments in rural areas.

This new strategic thrust is also supported by a Steering Committee comprising the Departments of Rural Development and Land Reform, Public Works, and Arts and Culture, Science and Technology and the state agencies, the Universal Service and Access Agency of South Africa (USAASA), and the National Electronic Media Institute of South Africa (NEMISA).

The ICT Rural Development Strategic Framework seeks to achieve the following strategic outcomes as indicated in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and WSIS discussions: universal access and connectivity in the rural areas, and the use of technology to meet the social and economic needs of South Africans, and universal access to quality and affordable services as being central to the role of ICTs in facilitating sustainable development of rural communities. The Strategy is accordingly developed within the context of the empowerment of rural communities and has to include programs that would encourage civil society, to promote the uptake and

Overall the DOC believes that the ICT sector has a potential to create more than 150 million jobs over the medium-to-long term. usage of ICT services and infrastructure.

Effective access and utilization of ICTs by civil society will also help deepen the DOC’s hard earned democratic dispensation as well as foster social cohesion.

The Strategy is also aligned to the New Growth Path targets particularly the Government’s commitment to create 100,000 jobs by 2020 in the development sectors such as ICTs, higher education, healthcare, mining-related technologies, pharmaceuticals and biotechnology. Overall the DOC believes that the ICT sector has a potential to create more than 150 million jobs over the medium-to-long term. This will also increase the contribution of the ICT sector to South Africa’s GDP

The ICT Rural Development Strategy can be summed up in terms of ten key priorities dealing with several areas that are likely to yield high impact: 1. Creation of Economic Opportunities – aiming at ensuring that the ICT’s infrastructure and services rollout, create and generate chances for poor individuals, households, and communities to earn improved incomes through jobs created and self employment where possible;

2. Investment in Human Capital – ICTs should be able to create a platform for the provision of education and training needed by rural communities to engage in the economy;

3. Provision of Income Security – Provision of safety nets through ICTs for the most vulnerable, to ensure that vulnerability associated with disability, age, and illness does not send poor individual, households and communities into destitution; 4. Enabling the Provision of Basic Services – The ability to pay for services or the lack thereof should not deter the poor from getting basic services, particularly

of information dissemination in nature, therefore supporting the revival of PITs, cyber-labs, and an evenly spreading community radio and television broadcasting services;

5. Improving Healthcare – ICTs Rural Development Strategy has to ensure that poor children grow up healthy by providing relevant content either through radio, cyber-labs, and PITs, to ascertain that all individuals and communities are provided with healthcare information through these platforms;

6. Ensuring Access to ICT Centers/Assets – Community radio and television, cyber-labs, PITs, and tele-centers infrastructure roll-out to communities should be viewed as pubic infrastructure and assets belonging to communities, both to improve economic and social security, including providing the basis for economic engagement n the long run; 7. Social Inclusion and Social Capital Initiatives – The focus in this instance is on strengthening social capital, especially for the poor to expand their networks and ensure that they have access to information;

8. The Investment and Returns Strategy seeks to combine programs and projects to ensure a more inclusive and integrated society, based on the development of more integrated community structures and engagements across class and race, including visible solidarity in such communities and society at large;

9. Environmental Sustainability – This would require a program that will through ICTs help link increasing economic opportunities for the poor to the provision of radio programs that inform communities to protect and rehabilitate ecosystems, reverse environmental degradation, promote eco-tourism, empower the poor and the rich to extract from the environment sustainably and to facilitate equitable access to the planet’s economic resources such as land and water; and 10. Creation of Good Governance Structures – This will ensure proper use of public funds, and encourage growth of the ICT’s sector to promote effective and efficient delivery of public services, inclusive of establishing and protecting the rule of law.

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AFRICA GROWTH STRATEGY REPORT

Corporate Africa speaks to CEO, Pinky Moholi, about how Telkom is becoming Africa’s preferred ICT service provider for connectivity for 2030 and beyond.

Telkom

Takes the Lead Connecting Africa As of 31st March 2011, we had approximately 4.2 million telephone access lines in service and 99.9 per cent of our telephone access lines were connected to digital exchanges.

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hat contribution is Telkom making to further development of ICT and telecoms in South Africa?

Telkom is one of the largest communication services providers in Africa, with value proposition including a range of offerings to the mobile telephone environment. We are determined to expand our broadband penetration by increasing differentiation in broadband offerings, and introduce converged digital media and various devices to enable a “digital home.” In the business market, we aim to become the provider of choice for connectivity - the technology backbone of Telkom is our Next Generation Network.

Telkom’s connectivity enables most of the networks, communications, and transactions that people and companies rely on every day, including bank ATMs and the links that enable South Africa 18

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to broadcast major sporting events to an international audience. As a National Supporter, Telkom connected all the World Cup stadia countrywide in 2010 to FIFA’s International Broadcast Centre at Johannesburg, from where the football action was broadcast to the world.

The Electoral Commission (IEC) entrusted Telkom to provide one of the most essential services required to enable free and fair elections. In addition to the primary solution that catered for the IEC’s needs, Telkom also fulfilled the request of broadcasters and media channels so that the country and the world were kept informed at every step of the voting and counting process, a part of the democratic process since 1994.

The solution required access for the IEC’s Wide Area Network (WAN) through Telkom’s Virtual Private Network Services (VPNS) platform that uses multiple access mediums including VSAT technology,

Diginet/Martis, ATM, Metro LAN, Telkom’s ADSL and ISDN (Primary and Basic Rate) architecture. Telkom’s extensive national footprint, ubiquitous network, and the depth of skills and expertise within the organization facilitated the customer specific requirements of the IEC. Cybernest, Telkom’s Data Centre Operation, at the heart of the IEC’s Disaster Recovery (DR) measure, worked as a mirror image of the IEC’s Head Office where all data activities at the IEC HQ were replicated at Telkom’s Data Centre in real time. In addition Telkom also provided a 24 hour call centre operational over the entire election period.

Can you tell us about Telkom’s services in terms of 3G, 4G and latest mobile services, mobile and fixed lines, Windows and internet etc?

As of 31st March 2011, we had approximately 4.2 million telephone access lines in service and 99.9 per cent of

AFRICA GROWTH STRATEGY REPORT We launched our mobile brand 8ta towards the end of 2OlO. 8ta has constructed 970 base stations across the country, and is working through an order to build a further 2,000 base stations. The services have been built on an end-to-end all-IP 2G and 3G network, which is easily upgradeable to LTE (4G). A new call centre and new IT systems have also been implemented.

We continue to invest in 8ta. Apart from being a growth driver in its own right, 8ta is also a key component of our strategy to be a major player in fixed-mobile convergence by combining the quality and reliability of fixed-line technology with the flexibility and convenience of mobile.

How is the executive leadership of Telkom helping to improve services in South Africa?

Telkom hosts the Southern Africa Telecom Networks and Applications Conference (SATNAC) an annual networking event and platform for the telecoms industry. SATNAC provides Telkom with the opportunity to partner with key players in the global telecoms industry, and acts as a forum for postgraduate students.

Telkom has over the past 14 years made significant investments in the development of Centers of Excellence (CoEs), focused research centers at tertiary education institutions staffed by masters and PhD students. our telephone access lines were connected to digital exchanges. We offer business, residential, and payphone customers a wide range of services and products, including:

• Fixed-line voice services; subscriptions and connections services, local, long distance, fixed-to-other operators and international voice services, interconnection services which includes hubbing communications services and international voice over internet protocol services, subscription based value-added voice services, and customer premises equipment rental and sales; • Data and internet services, including domestic and international data transmission services, such as point to point leased lines, ADSL services,

managed packet-based services, managed data networking services, and internet access and related information technology services; • Mobile communication services, including voice services, data services and handset sales through its 8ta mobile brand; • Fixed, mobile, data and international communications services in Nigeria through our Multi-Links subsidiary; and • Other services including directory services, through Trudon (Proprietary) Limited, wireless data services, through Swiftnet (Proprietary) Limited, internet services outside South Africa, through iWayAfrica and provision of management services to ICT through Telkom Management Services.

Telkom also participates in numerous industry bodies globally in standards setting for the telecoms industry.

Telkom has over the last 14 years, made significant investments in the development of Centers of Excellence (CoEs), focused research centers at tertiary education institutions staffed by masters and PhD students. It is a collaborative effort between Telkom, the telecoms industry, academia, and government, with enormous benefits.

Since the first Telkom CoE was launched in 1997, the program has grown to become the largest coordinated ICT research effort in SA, encompassing 16 universities. Since inception more than 1,800 post graduate degrees have been awarded, 268 directly to Telkom, with 59 bursary holders currently being supported.

What is Telkom’s agenda for investors and CSR program pertaining to Broad Based Black Economic Empowerment (BBBEE)?

The company’s BBBEE verified results have resulted in the following highlights: • ‘In ownership, after allowable exclusions, Telkom’s black shareholders’ percentage stands at 8.53 per cent. In management control, Telkom was ranked the 54th Corporate Africa 2011

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AFRICA GROWTH STRATEGY REPORT most empowered company by the 2010 Financial Mail Top Companies Survey and 7th out of 10 participating ICT companies.

• Our Preferential Procurement continues to be recognized as a champion in driving economic transformation among JSE-Listed companies, state-owned enterprises, and in the ICT sector.

Procurement from BBBEE accredited suppliers amounted to R9.7 billion (US$ 1.4 billion) out of a total procurement spend of R13.2 billion (US$ 1.9 billion).

Within this spend range, Telkom directed R825 million (US$121 million) to Qualifying Small Enterprises (QSEs) and Exempt Micro Enterprises (EMEs; R4.0 billion (US$ 591 million) to blackowned businesses and R930 million (US$ 137 million) to black women-owned businesses. Telkom exceeds three of the four preferential procurement targets from the Codes of Good Practice. To increase participation from black QSE/ EME suppliers, Telkom offer skills training and assistance to them.

• We have an initiative underway to pay for verification certificates for the black suppliers who fall within the category of EMEs to ensure that these suppliers comply with the BBBEE codes • Telkom increased the points achieved for the Enterprise Development element from 5.60 to 15 out of possible 15 points.

How is the executive leadership of the company leading Telkom toward sustainability across South Africa’s telecom landscape?

Our core strategy of defending and growing profitable revenue, while aggressively managing costs, is non- negotiable, as is our focus on transforming the business from a basic voice and data operation into a fully converged solutions business that integrates voice, data, content, and internet services.

The transformation has mammoth implications for the design of our operating systems, product portfolio, customer-facing segments, and workforce processes and thus it needs to be approached systematically and analytically. To this end we have employed world-class consultants to help us achieve our objectives.

How is Telkom helping to develop a positive impact in South Africa?

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The Telkom Foundation, which runs and funds all our corporate social investment initiatives, continues to be recognized by other corporate companies and non-government organizations (NGOs) as one of South Africa’s leading CSI investors.

The Telkom Foundation, which runs and funds all our corporate social investment initiatives, continues to be recognized by other corporate companies and nongovernment organizations (NGOs) as one of South Africa’s leading CSI investors.

As a leading telecoms group, many of our CSI projects are directed at mobile libraries, science laboratories, and ICT projects which are managed by the Molteno Institute of Language and Literacy.

The mobile libraries, referred to as ‘Willie Wagons’, provide books to learners from Grade R to 7 and are geared towards creating a reading culture amongst these learners.

The laboratories provide training courses for teachers in mathematics, physical science, technology, and entrepreneurship.

The ICT schools project is an integrated socioeconomic development program designed to address escalating poverty levels and under development. Its primary focus is on quality improvement in primary and secondary education and providing better access to ICT to schools.

How does Telkom ensure that telecoms services are adding value and creating opportunities across all levels of society in South Africa?

Interconnection with various undersea international cable systems enables traffic to seamlessly connect to Europe, North and South America, the Middle East, and Asia thereby enhancing connectivity into the global telecoms network. These undersea

cable investments include COLUMBUS3, South East Asia- Middle East-Western Europe (SEA-ME-WE3), South Atlantic Telecoms / West Africa Submarine Cable / South Africa Far East (SAT3/WASC/SAFE), East African Submarine Cable System (EASSy), Europe India Gateway (EIG) and the West Africa Cable System (WACS).

Our submarine cable portfolio now consists of a complete ring around Africa, giving us the ability to offer redundant and restorable international bandwidth services.

The 14 000km-long WACs cable system, the first submarine fiber system to serve South Africa along Africa’s west coast in nine years with a design capacity of 5.1 Tbit/s, will complement and compete with the 34OGbit/s Sat-3 system, which went into service in 2002. A consortium of operators led by SA’s Telkom built Sat-3.

Investors in the WACS cable include MTN, Vodacom, Telkom, Broadband Infraco and Neotel. The system, which will link South Africa with London, should be ready for commercial service in the first quarter of 2012. It has 14 landing points.

Finally, what are Telkom’s corporate goals for 2030 and beyond?

For Telkom to be Africa’s preferred ICT service provider recognized alike by customers, employees, shareholders, government and the Regulator, suppliers and the community recognizing Telkom to be the first choice for ICT communication systems, employment, competitive returns, as an enabler of the economy, valued partner, and responsible and a caring South African corporation.

Our focus into the future will be on offering fully converged products that marry mobile voice and data services with the quality and resilience of the fixed-line to both the enterprise and residential markets.

AFRICA GROWTH STRATEGY REPORT

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By Dr. Ken Ife, Senior Policy Adviser, Africa Business Round Table and Co-chair, EU-Africa Business Forum.

he Nigerian Telecoms Industry Nigeria’s Telecoms industry is the fastest growing in the world, with several subsectors experiencing triple digit growth. Nigerian telecoms has seen outstanding performance, attracting record FDI and private investment since 2001; increasing infrastructure deployment, subscriber tele-density, market share, call volume and traffic, and simultaneous growth in all services, and rapidly increasing contributions to GDP.

Figure 1: The Global Picture – all ICT Penetration (ICT) Telecoms stable regulatory environment permits unrestricted remittance of profit, and dividend after tax, and up to 100 per cent foreign ownership of business in the telecom industry. There is a multitude of other fiscal incentives to lure investors, which includes zero tax on gains from sales of shares, zero

ICT and Telecoms

As engines of growth in Nigeria tax on profit accruing from export of goods, 10 per cent of profit exempted if reserved for research and development, 20 per cent for cost of provision of infrastructure (e.g. water, electricity and roads) and 5 years full tax holiday for new companies

Moreover the exponential growth in cellular telephony in Nigeria from one million in

2001 to 80 million in 2009 means that Nigeria is the best performing telecoms market in Africa with call volumes in excess of US$ 15 billion per annum. Chronic shortage of bandwidth are being addressed

by NigComSat satellite, with the creation of Interchange Exchange point (IXP) to retain local traffic, and with licensed several companies enabling communications via

Moreover the exponential growth in cellular telephony in Nigeria from one million in 2001 to 80 million in 2009 means that Nigeria is the best performing telecoms market in Africa with call volumes of over US$ 15 billion per annum.

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AFRICA GROWTH STRATEGY REPORT undersea optical fibre cable, and nurturing widespread connection to most public institutions (health, universities, public services, schools , agriculture etc ) to stimulate demand.

Communications Act 2003, and the West Africa Common Regulatory Framework 2005, the overall regulatory authority.

Key regulatory issues include GSM licence terms and interconnection, mobile tariffs and per second billing, consumer protection, mobile number portability, quality of service, environmental impact of Telco towers, infrastructure sharing, no regulation at state level, universal service, a unified licensing regime brings new competition, international gateway, a central equipment identity register, poor quality of service, the registration of subscriber details, and foreign ownership.

Third Generation (3G) Licensing is available in Nigeria from Globacom, Zain, MTN, and CDMA EV-DO.

The convergence of voice, data and video/ TV, is also enabling the provision of tripleplay services that will ultimately also involve Nigeria’s already competitive broadcasting sector.

Figure 4: Nigeria: Traffic and Tariff

The regulatory environment in Nigeria is overseen by the Nigerian Communications Commission, and enshrined within the Nigerian Communications Commission Decree (NCCD) 1992, the National Telecoms Policy (NTP) 1995-2009, the Nigerian 22

Corporate Africa 2011

WiFi network, Lagos, Naija WiFi, Abuja WiFi, WiMAX, and Enugu. The WiMAX and mobile broadband internet via satellite comprises Direct on PC, Broadband Direct, IP Direct, MWEB Nigeria, and other services including broadband over powerline.

Mobile data services available in Nigeria consist of the Short Message Service (SMS), Premium Rate SMS, Interactive TV (ITV), Multi-media Messaging Service, GPRS, EDGE, Wireless Application Protocol (WAP), CDMA2000 1x, BlackBerry, M-banking, M-payment, Mobile TV.

Figure 2: Nigeria: Infrastructure deployment and contribution to GDP

Figure 3 Nigeria: Mobile subscriber/ Teledensity and Private Investment trend

Third Generation (3G) Licensing is available in Nigeria from Globacom, Zain, MTN, and CDMA EV-DO.

The organisational framework of Nigeria’s network and operators encompasses: major mobile operators including MTN Nigeria, Zain/Celtel Nigeria (formerly V-mobile and Econet wireless), Globacom, M-Tel, and Unified Service Licensees; the fixed wireless network consisting of MTS First Wireless, Mobitel Nigeria, Prestel (O-Mobile), Regional FWA Operators, and Wideways Communications, fixed network operators including Unified Licensing regime, Nigerian Telecoms Plc (Nitel) Globacom Ltd, VGC Communications, MTN; and National Long Distance Operator. The ISP Market consists of the Internet Service Providers Association of Nigeria, Cyberspace, Hyperia, Linkserve, 21st Century Technologies and PINET Informatics. The wireless broadband market comprises Odua’s telecom, Swift network, Startec Connection, Cyberspace Network, Nitel, Netcom Africa, MWEB Nigeria, and Gateway Communications. The WiFi market embraces Accelon Internet Solutions, Jigawa Broadband Access Network, Polestar 5G

Convergence (the combination of multiple services through telecom lines from a single provider) has enabled the provision of Internet and Cable TV, and Next Generation Networks (NGN) Triple play in Nigeria.

Convergence has also enabled VoIP Internet Telephony services in Nigeria (one of a family of internet technologies, communication protocols, and transmission technologies for delivery of voice communications and multimedia sessions over Internet Protocol (IP) networks) provided by Nitel, Globacom, Starcomms, Adesemi Nigeria, Accelon, Link Serve, Layer 3, and Swift Network.

The Nigerian network infrastructure and backbone includes fibre optic infrastructure with major spinal networks such as the National Information Infrastructure, Galaxy Backbone Plc, Sub-urban Telecom Ltd, Phase 3 Telecom, Backbone Connectivity Network, alongside mobile operators, national networks, and private networks for business and fibre infrastructure for the home.

International infrastructure is connecting Nigeria’s ICT sector to overseas markets including submarine fibre such as the SAT3/WASC and Glo-1, terrestrial fibre such as The Central African Backbone (CAB) and satellite including Rascom, NigComSat, and O3b Networks.

AFRICA GROWTH STRATEGY REPORT

Accessing bank account details and executing transactions online is now viable in Nigeria because of mobile technologies.

Corporate Africa speaks to Nela Consulting, Nigeria, about the mobile technology revolution in that country and how mobile phones are enhancing value in business and everyday life.

Corporate Social Nomads in Nigeria

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hat impact is mobile telephony having on your business?

There has been progress in business enhancement and communications with the advent of mobile telephony in Nigeria. Mobile telephony provides access to the internet, and has created wider networking circles, and improved communications, reliability and clarity. It has created sustainability inside the country and also across borders at a fraction of the price of fixed lines, which at one time used to cost more than a dollar a day for a one minute call to destinations outside the country – more than the average Nigerian earn per day. Communications are now better, faster, and cheaper, making

access to information more easily available.

Mobile telephony is also linking businesses with social media adding value to products in local and international markets. This was never possible with fixed lines. Many of our business associates network with thousands of contacts and customers via Linkedin and Facebook, which are propelled by the internet, and is accessible by mobile phones.

How has mobile telephony improved your business services?

Mobiles are the number one medium for connectivity and networking in Nigeria and a powerful resource of empowerment, especially in the hands of the very poor. It adds value to business sectors in Nigeria and link in the poor giving them a platform

to join in the markets and businesses not only in their villages but across cities and national borders.

In certain countries banking and other services are facilities that can be accessed on mobile phones. Do such facilities exist in Nigeria?

Accessing Internet banking services has become much easier with mobile banking. Accessing bank account details and executing transactions online is now possible in Nigeria because of mobile technology. Updates on mobile phones help to manage banking transactions and related client relations. “Alert� messages inform subscribers about transactions that has been carried out and information about credits or debits etc. It also puts Corporate Africa 2011

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AFRICA GROWTH STRATEGY REPORT mobile subscribers more in control of their bank accounts, along with online transfers, without having to step foot inside the bank.

Improved online banking services have added to increase security within the banking system, particularly as many Nigerian banks are subjects of robbery and raids. The availability of ATM machines, Master and debit cards mean that it is not necessary to carry large sums of money on your person. It is now possible to make payments with cards. These services are available throughout Nigeria, with Nigerian banks including Zenith and Guaranty Trust Bank providing.

How are mobile services helping to increase capacity in businesses across Nigeria?

Mobile services are helping to make communications easier, facilitate business transactions, access information, improve business knowledge, and enabling interaction via social networking sites, making it possible to access online training, latest technology and programs.

Undoubtedly mobile services are helping to improve and upgrade living standards in Nigeria.

How are mobile phones increasing cross border cooperation between SMEs? The disparity of educational experience in Nigeria makes it difficult to integrate SMES into the wider commercial fabric throughout the country. Some SMEs integrate locally, but many owners of SMEs are untrained and sometimes uneducated making it difficult for them to integrate into the national corporate fabric. So although mobile technologies are playing a major role in assisting SMEs to better position their businesses, training and education are also required to add value to them if they are to obtain maximum value from their technology.

Another difficulty facing businesses in rural areas is the poor reception or lack of connectivity in rural areas making networking and connectivity with the corporate hub very difficult.

How is mobile technology impacting on health and education?

There are quite a number of schemes for health and health facility programs facilitated by mobile phone technologies.

Hospitals are providing Post Paid health scheme facilities, which enable subscribers to receive treatment without cash from health vendors and hospitals.

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Mobile technologies are also helping to create health awareness, with subscribers receiving basic information on health via phone messages. Mobile telephones are having a positive impact on education in Nigeria, with online training and courses becoming more widely available. However the number of people on the web in Nigeria is less than 2 per cent which means that such services are available only to the elites, businesses, or people who are fortunate to have access to an internet phone or cyber cafe.

Do most people have access to mobile phones in Nigeria?

The majority of Nigerians now own a mobile phone, and they have become both widely available and affordable, even in rural areas.

A mobile phone can cost as little as 2000 Naira (US$ 13) sometimes even as little as 1500 Naira (US$ 10), inclusive of a SIM card, with free time costing between 100 (US$ 0.65) and 200 Naira (US $1.31). Even the older generation can access mobile phones and become GSM subscribers.

How would you like mobile services to be improved?

Blackberries and upgraded phones have access to news, sports and finance in Nigeria.

However they are not widely available as they are very expensive and their services are mainly exploited by businesses. Apart from Blackberries some phones have been

upgraded with Internet services, but there have been problems in upgrading these services due to the economic downturn, and the cost of such services.

Increasing access to the Internet at affordable rates would greatly help Nigerians access information and become part of the new international knowledgebased society. The outreach and range of Internet services available via mobile technologies need to be improved in order to enable knowledge sharing in Nigeria, and to benefit from all the advantages in participation in the digital communications network internationally.

Currently however Internet access is not widely available for most families and schools, meaning that there is a great disparity in educational achievement throughout Nigeria.

AFRICA GROWTH STRATEGY REPORT

By Thierry Tanoh, IFC Vice President

Empowering African Women through Village Phones

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hile new advances in communications technology are being made every day, many residents of rural Africa are still denied access to telephone networks.

Low network penetration, poverty, and poor roads are preventing rural Africans from traveling to the nearest phone, a situation which is not only hampering local populations’ ability to remain in contact with friends and loved ones, but is also adverse for business. Accordingly the IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, is working hard to expand access to ICT in remote communities through a number of innovative programs.

One of these programs the IFC Village Phone Program is linking large telecom operators with African entrepreneurs who sell airtime

on the companies’ networks to people in their local communities. This relationship brings rural villagers access to telephone services, local entrepreneurs the means to build an income-generating business, and participating telecom companies a way to expand their reach. IFC launched the program in Nigeria in 2007, and it has since expanded to Madagascar, Malawi, and, most recently, Chad. The telecom companies participating are expanding by reaching more users via the Village Phone community phones in areas that are poorly served and where it may not be economically viable to install a base station, and by reaching a new market segment of people who may not afford handsets.

The telecom and ICT services involved are primary services, and in addition represent an extension of telecom services mainly

One of these programs the IFC Village Phone Program is linking large telecom operators with African entrepreneurs who sell airtime on the companies’ networks to people in their local communities.

voice telephony over mobile phones. IFC has also started piloting expanding these services to include mobile money transfer, access to health and agri information as well as internet access by establishing some of the VPO centers as Internet Access points. The objectives are to expand access to the services mentioned above to communities that have poor access while also providing economic opportunities to micro-entrepreneurs. Success is measured in terms of the number of VPO access points established, the volume of usage as measured by the transaction volume, the revenue generated by the VPOs and the track record of loan repayment by the VPOs that access start up credit.

With the Village Phone program helping to provide finance to nearly 6,000 women and training 10,000 to set up phone services Corporate Africa 2011

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AFRICA GROWTH STRATEGY REPORT businesses in Madagascar, Malawi, and Nigeria, this program is helping to increase women’s economic participation in their communities, especially in rural districts by enabling them to borrow the funds they need to start micro-businesses and to offer services to their communities in areas that are poorly served by telecom services.

The Village Phone program is actively impacting on the role of women especially in relation to their domestic situation, and improving the quality of life not only for the women themselves, but also their families and communities by providing them with a stream of income that can go towards improving the whole family’s economic situation e.g. VPOs in Madagascar average annual revenues of approx. US$ 168 in a country with annual per capita income of US$ 1,000.

Among the entrepreneurs involved in the Village Phone Program, Mrs. Voahanginirina Lovasoa, a Village Phone operator in the Madagascar village of Ampizarantany, says that “Having the phone project in our village is a great help for the community and for my family.”

Before the arrival of the Village Phone Program, residents of Ampizarantany, located about three hours drive from Madagascar’s capital, Antananarivo, had to walk 30 kilometers or take a rural bus to the nearest town to make a phone call. This meant it was hard to contact the outside world, and people would lose a day’s wages plus travel costs just to make a phone call.

But that has all changed since December, 2009, when Voahanginirina became the Village Phone operator for Ampizarantany.

Her new phone businesses has become a useful source of extra income, adding average extra revenue of US$ 150 per week, as well as higher sales at her grocery store from people coming to use the Village Phone service. Now, people in her community can access affordable telecom services and Voahanginirina can make some extra money to cover household expenses like her children’s school fees and medication.

To date, the Village Phone program has helped provide credit to nearly 6,000 women and trained close to 10,000 to set up phone service businesses in Madagascar, Malawi, Nigeria, and Chad, increasing women’s economic participation in some of Africa’s most rural communities.

“IFC is doing a remarkable job by increasing access to finance for women entrepreneurs, 26

Corporate Africa 2011

“IFC is.increasing access to finance for women entrepreneurs, reducing gender-based barriers in the investment climate, and .sustainability in the private sector.” said Cherie Blair. reducing gender-based barriers in the investment climate, and improving sustainability in the private sector.” said Cherie Blair, Founder of the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women on the centennial of International Women’s Day earlier this year.

Extending the benefits of mobile phone ownership to more women can advance a host of social and economic goals, according to Women & Mobile: A Global Opportunity, a report by the Cherie Blair Foundation and the GSMA, which represents the interests of the worldwide mobile communications industry.

Women & Mobile: A global Opportunity, found that bringing mobilephone penetration among women on par with penetration among men could enable mobile operators globally to collectively earn US$ 13 billion additional revenue a year.

Among IFC’s efforts to help rural women reach these social and economic goals is its promotion of the Cloud Phone, which IFC recently launched in Madagascar, in partnership with Movirtu and Airtel Madagascar, to expand access to communications services in the country’s rural areas. The Cloud Phone technology allows individuals to share mobile telephone handsets while maintaining private phone numbers and accounts.

Movirtu’s Cloud Phone technology allows individuals to log into any Cloud Phone handset to access their account for a small fee. The system will allow thousands of people in Madagascar who cannot afford to purchase a handset to make and receive calls more securely, and access SMS text messages, voicemail, and mobile banking.

Fanja Vololoniaina Randrianaivo from Fihaonana, a small village in central Madagascar, says, “Cloud Phone helps me

with my job search. Without a job, I am not able to afford my own handset, and Cloud Phone’s mobile identity allows me to be contacted quickly and directly by potential recruiters.”

Special Cloud Phone handsets on the Airtel Madagascar mobile network will be provided by Village Phone operators who are part of IFC’s Village Phone Program.

The pilot project suggests an expected increase in revenue of almost 25 per cent for the Village Phone micro enterprises in the first year. Airtel Madagascar launched of the Cloud Phone service on 8th June 2011 and will give Village Phone operators access to new revenue streams from Airtel mobile money payments and remittances.

IFC recognizes that sustainable economic growth is not possible without the full participation of women, and that emerging telecoms technology offers opportunities for women in rural and poor areas to contribute to their local economies and communities as small business owners.

The Village Phone Program and the new Cloud Phone initiative are only the latest IFC efforts to bring women into the business fold, Since 2006, IFC has partnered with 14 financial institutions to increase access to finance for women entrepreneurs. It has helped increase capital for over 2,000 women entrepreneurs, trained over 2,500 women in business skills, and helped over 6,000 women to open new accounts with financial institutions. IFC has also helped enact reforms to support women’s participation in the private sector in more than a dozen countries.

AFRICA GROWTH STRATEGY REPORT

By Chris Wood, CEO, WIOCC-EASSy.

Eassy Offers International Access

T

he arrival of multiple submarine cable systems on Africa’s coastline has dramatically improved the continent’s international connectivity and provided affordable and reliable diversity options. One result is a revolution in access to knowledge, information, and communications throughout the region. When the 10,000km EASSy (East African Submarine System) submarine system went live in July 2010, it brought diverse international fiber-optic connectivity to many African markets for the first time. Since then, the continent has seen rapid progress in terrestrial fiber-optic roll-out and deployment of high-speed, ‘last mile’ technologies, taking high-speed communications from the coast to inland communities and landlocked countries.

Growing requirements for diversity and the increase in mobile internet usage are now driving a dramatic rise in demand for international capacity. As a result, the

Since then, more than 25 telecoms operators mainly from Africa, and a number of global operators, have activated capacity on the system.

upgrade of the EASSy system, which is set to more than double the current available capacity on the system, is being brought forward to the end of the year.

The EASSy submarine cable system went live in July 2010. Landing points in every coastal country between South Africa and Sudan, as well as in Madagascar and the Comoros, give EASSy the most extensive reach along the East African seaboard and it offers the fastest route between eastern Africa and Europe. At 4.72 Terabits per second (Tbps), it is Africa’s largest submarine system, representing two-thirds of the total inventory in sub-Saharan Africa.

The shareholders’ objectives in building the EASSy system were to improve business prospects and access to knowledge and information throughout eastern and southern Africa by connecting the continent’s eastern seaboard to global networks and markets. The system’s construction has delivered cost-effective, high-performance,

international connectivity into the region, and is now driving rollout of improved communications services throughout sub-Saharan Africa. Implementation of an EASSy upgrade will be instrumental in the continued delivery of this vision.

At launch, enough of the total system capacity was made available to meet the expected short-term needs of the system owners and other African and international telcos and internet service providers (ISPs). Since then, more than 25 telecoms operators mainly from Africa, and a number of global operators, have activated capacity on the system. As with any submarine cable system, there was always a plan to make more capacity available as demand required. Delaying the ‘lighting’ of this extra capacity until it is actually needed enables submarine system owners to continually take advantage of the latest advances in submarine and optical technologies.

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AFRICA GROWTH STRATEGY REPORT However, it quickly became clear that plans for the next upgrade would need to be brought forward in order to meet increasing market demand. Two main factors account for the faster-than-anticipated take-up of initial EASSy capacity, these being the extra demand required from system owners, mostly for more internet bandwidth; and greater than expected uptake of capacity by international telcos and African carriers.

The decision to bring forward the upgrade was announced by the EASSy Management Committee in December 2010, with the upgrade to be funded by the EASSy consortium members. Alcatel Submarine Networks, a partner in the EASSy submarine cable since its initiation, were successful in an open, competitive tender to supply and install all the necessary equipment. Planning is already at an advanced stage, with implementation to start later this year.

The upgrade will be based on lighting 40 Gigabit per second (Gbps) wavelengths - a technology that has only recently become available. Cost-efficiencies from implementing 40Gbps wavelengths rather than more 10Gbps wavelengths are enabling EASSy’s owners to add considerably more capacity than would otherwise have been possible. The result is a significant amount of extra bandwidth becoming available to support the growing demands of operators, businesses and consumers in the markets of eastern and southern Africa.

The arrival of EASSy has already had a significant impact on the cost and quality of international connectivity, with prices falling as much as 60 per cent since mid2010 and options for diversity becoming available for the first time. The delivery of this extra capacity will make it even more cost-effective for carriers to invest in diverse international connectivity to minimise the impact of faults and failures. It will also enable EASSy’s owners and their customers to meet the continued demand from their wholesale, enterprise and residential customers for affordable international connectivity.

EASSy has quickly established itself as the system of choice for many African telcos and ISPs. Reasons for this include: • EASSy offers the fastest and most direct route between the eastern half of Africa and internet content located in Europe; • EASSy is the only east coast system with end-to-end, in-system protection, minimising the impact of cable breaks 28

Corporate Africa 2011

New and existing customers, particularly in rural and land-locked countries, are seeing rapid improvements in their ability to access the new international connectivity. and equipment; • EASSy’s reach is continually being extended into Africa, delivering connectivity to a wider range of locations than any other system; • EASSy has an extremely good history of reliability since launch.

New and existing customers, particularly in rural and land-locked countries, are seeing rapid improvements in their ability to access the new international connectivity.

WIOCC, the largest shareholder in EASSy with 30 per cent of the system’s capacity, is extending EASSy’s reach into a growing number of coastal and landlocked countries.

Interconnection of EASSy with the terrestrial fiber-optic networks of WIOCC’s 14 African telco shareholders has already enabled delivery of seamless, end-to-end services into much of sub-Saharan Africa.

WIOCC’s integrated terrestrial network now

comprises over 50,000km of optical fibre, linking more than 400 towns and cities in 20 African countries. WIOCC shareholders are continuing fibre deployment and are also rolling out innovative high-speed ‘lastmile’ solutions – such as 3G mobile, WiFi, WiMAX and CDMA – to improve coverage outside metropolitan areas. Even the Seychelles, which has never had access to submarine capacity, is to be linked up to the EASSy system next year.

One result of the more widespread availability of bandwidth on multiple systems is that there is an increasing degree of maturity in some African markets. The mobile price wars experienced by many over the last 12 months are ultimately unsustainable. As a result, some of the more forward thinking service providers are changing their focus - from one purely relating to price, to that of “best value” and quality. As costs come down, these carriers and ISPs are recognising the value in investing in multiple cable systems, enabling them to offer customers a higherquality, more reliable service than their competitors and taking the emphasis away from pure price considerations – ultimately a more sustainable model.

One thing is clear – Africa’s demand for international connectivity is growing fast and will continue to do so. The EASSy upgrade will improve availability of affordable, high-quality, high-capacity, international bandwidth, marking a key milestone in the progress of Africa’s information revolution.

AFRICA GROWTH STRATEGY REPORT

By Therese Lethu, Consultant in Global Health, Europhar, Paris.

mHealth in Africa

T

he focus should be on turning mobile health solutions into profitable business models and figuring out the proper mix of involvement from the public and private sectors, including governments.

“Technology is not a magic solution, it is a means for advancing our result, because our main focus should still be on improving processes and management, including capacity building and buy-in from local communities,” Aisha stated, based on her two years’ field experience.

Aisha’s recommendation is worth noting, as there are 450 million Africans who use mobile phones daily for personal and business use. More importantly, the applications for advancing healthcare are very promising. Mobile health, or mHeath, is aimed at integrating mobile phones with Web-based software, electronic medical

records, and medical devices in order to reach large sections of the population and help them manage their health.

This is particularly crucial in Africa where there are healthcare resource constraints and a critical lack of health workers. (Africa suffers more than 24 per cent of global diseases but has access to only 3 per cent of health workers.) As long as community health workers have access to mobile phones, they can diagnose disease, track outbreaks, and manage health data from distant places, although, subscription to mobile phones is still below 50 per cent of the population in Africa. One of the main advantages of these new tools relevant to Africa, apart from their availability and their accessibility, is their cost effectiveness.

More than ever, African governments are willing to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to eradicate poverty, enrol all children in primary school,

While pilot initiatives are expanding all across Africa, the goal now is to capitalize on the experiences and scaling up.

promote gender equality, fight HIV/AIDS and malaria, and ensure environmental stability by 2015. The use of new communication technologies should be a key innovative approach to accelerate the process.

In this direction, the multiple pilot initiatives have shown that the potential is huge. For example, Short Message Service (SMS) programs inform patients of the benefits of health practices and promote disease prevention behaviors. FrontlineSMS:Medic is a leader in this field for health care communication and medical record keeping. By utilizing the free FrontlineSMS open-source software, doctors, and health workers can bypass the expenses of medical care and the logistics of treating patients in remote areas. Another example is EpiSurveyor which is a free phone program to allow health workers to create and use surveys, making compiled digital data more easily searchable. This meets the crucial need for increasing the collection of reliable population data in sub-Saharan Africa.

While pilot initiatives are expanding all across Africa, the goal now is to capitalize on the experiences and scaling up. However, questions remain over who will cover the costs for these new technologies: patients, governments, hospitals, insurance providers, or a combination. This discussion is on-going in order to highlight how to turn mobile health solutions into profitable business models and to figure out the proper mix of public and private involvement. So far, the private sector support for mHealth is mostly limited to charity.

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AFRICA GROWTH STRATEGY REPORT Yet PriceWaterhouseCoopers’s Health Research Institute recently estimated that market potential ranged from US$ 7.7 billion to US$ 43 billion annually. However, there is still a vital need to develop clear business models.

As David Aylward, former director of the mHealth Alliance said, “The only mHealth business models that have emerged are for when there is one buyer for a solution to a specific problem.”

Aylward thinks that Sproxil, which provides an anti-drug counterfeiting service to pharmaceutical buyers, is a good example.

Their customers can easily determine the legitimacy of a drug with a single SMS message from a scratched-off number.

Another issue of scaling up is interoperability. A lot of these systems were designed for a specific program, place, and need. In order to scale them nationally, the systems need to be re-evaluated. Moreover, there should be more regulation and monitoring; a role that organisations such as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) might be willing to play, developing new guidelines for mHealth application and devices in response. It could clamp down on

In Eastern regions, such as Tanzania, clinics use mobile payments to send grants to patients to cover transport costs. any new mHealth applications and devices if there is a safety risk. mHealth has already made a significant impact on health in Africa. In Eastern regions, such as Tanzania, clinics use mobile payments to send grants to patients to cover transport costs. This has enabled an increasing number of women to come for surgeries. This method is seeing rapid growth as most of the people do not have bank accounts. In Ghana and Liberia, MDNet has networked nearly all physicians via a free doctor-to-doctor communication network using mobile phones. In this country, the maternal death rate has been lowered thanks to the mobile phones in pilot villages. In addition, the government is currently using these tools to collect data

and monitor the National Health Insurance.

Regarding HIV Aids, there are numerous projects going on. In Kenya, health workers send weekly SMS to check on HIV patients instead of conducting home visits. These beneficiaries are 12 per cent more likely than others to have an undetectable level of HIV virus a year after starting treatment.

Meanwhile, in Nigeria, UNICEF is using SMS to follow the distribution of 63 million mosquito nets, while in Uganda; they are used to collect disease surveillance data.

From all these mHealth projects, key lessons can be taken for future advances and scaling up, there being a need to: develop field inquiries and to take into account the local community; communicate with beneficiaries from the beginning to make sure that the project works towards the community’s wants and needs; to research similar projects and find out which were successful and those which were not; to build in-country partnerships to help the projects to succeed, to set realistic timelines to account for any kind of delays, and finally to bear in mind what Aisha said, that technology is not a magic solution –“it is not the end, but the means for better health results in Africa.”

GSMA- mHA Mobile Health Summit Leaders from both industries, the mobile and health ecosystems, attended the inaugural GSMA- mHA Mobile Health Summit in Cape Town, South Africa, from June 6 to 9, 2011, to discuss strategic and technology advancements in this area. Representing more than 800 mobile network operators and device manufacturers, the GSM Association plays a major role in advancing dialogue between all stakeholders, identifying best practices, and overcoming obstacles. Under the co-leadership of GSMA and the mHealth Alliance, this event has been a step forward thanks to the implication of the mobile health ecosystem, including Continua Health Alliance, iHeed and the World Economic Forum. One of the most significant contributions was to reinforce the dialogue between public and private sectors, as government experts, regulators, policy makers, and experienced NGOs were actively taking part in the event.

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Corporate Africa 2011

AFRICA GROWTH STRATEGY REPORT

P

oynting has its roots in an electromagnetic consulting business, first established by Dr Andre Fourie in 1990 at Wits University under the name Givati Fourie and Associates. In 1997, Givati Fourie and Associates underwent a restructure. As part of which restructure Poynting was incorporated on 11 July 1997 with the name CCG042 Investments (Proprietary) Limited to conduct business as designers and manufacturers of antennas including, inter alia, Radio Frequency Identification tag design and antenna production.

With effect from 18 August 1998, Poynting acquired an 83% shareholding in EM Simulations (Proprietary) Limited, the software development subsidiary of Poynting, from Derek Nitch, and issued shares in Poynting as settlement of the purchase consideration payable in respect thereof. EM Simulations (Proprietary) Limited was incorporated on 21 June 1993, and on 18 August 1998, EM Simulations (Proprietary) Limited changed its name to Poynting Software (Proprietary) Limited. Juergen Dresel joined Andre and Derek shortly thereafter and became a shareholder of Poynting.

the sale of Poynting”s products which it distributes to end-users and smaller trade customers in South Africa. PoyntingDirect commenced business in 2007, establishing its first physical store in Pretoria. This proved to be very successful and additional stores were opened in Wynberg (Johannesburg) and Cape Town.

Poynting Europe, which is a customer of Poynting, was incorporated in Germany by a German holding company, having been established in October 2007, for the dedicated distribution of both Commercial and Defence Products in Europe. Poynting currently does not hold any shares in Poynting Europe but is presently negotiating the acquisition of a 49% stake in Poynting Europe, subject to exchange control approval being obtained.

On 12 June 2008, Poynting changed its name from Poynting Innovations (Proprietary) Limited to Poynting Holdings (Proprietary) Limited and was converted from a private company to a public company known as Poynting Holdings Limited. The group currently employs over 138 people.

In 2001, Poynting Antennas, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Poynting, was formed and Poynting moved to its current premises in Wynberg, Sandton. Poynting Antennas was initially financed by the shareholders of Poynting and a startup loan of R1.5 million for working capital from the Industrial Development Corporation, which loan has subsequently been repaid. Products and antennas have been developed with the further aid of various Government grants.

In late 2004, Poynting Antennas divided its activities into two divisions: The Commercial Antenna Division, which manufactures low cost antennas for wireless and cellular end-user antenna applications, and the Defence and Specialised Antenna Division, which focuses on Electronic Warfare antennas mainly for direct or indirect export to international defence customers.

On 15 August 2007, Poynting Direct was incorporated with the name Cascade Avenue Trading 90 (Proprietary) Limited. This wholly owned subsidiary of Poynting trades under the name “PoyntingDirect” and operates physical and online retail stores for

Poynting Antennas (Pty) Ltd PO Box 76579 Wendywood, 2144, South Africa Phone: +27 87 805 5050 Fax: +27 11 262 5156 Email: mailbox@poynting.co.za sales@poynting.co.za Poynting Europe GmbH Phone: +49 89 9054 0707 Email: sales@poynting-europe.com

Poynting Antennas: USA Defense Phone: +27 87 805 5050 Email: yvette.muregess@poynting.co.za Poynting Antennas: USA Commercial Phone: +27 87 805 5050 Email: claire.nitch@poynting.co.za Physical Address: 33 Thora Crescent Wynberg, Johannesburg 2090, South Africa

Poynting South Africa Centurion: VOIP: 087 750 7070 Toll Free: 0800 443 443 Johannesburg: VOIP: 087 750 7080 Cape Town: VOIP: 087 750 7090 Tel: 021 551 6397 Poynting Antennas: USA Defense Phone: +27 11 87 805 5050 Email: yvette.muregess@poynting.co.za Corporate Africa 2011

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