Financing Digital Infrastructure in Africa

Welcome to your course on Financing Digital Infrastructure in Africa!

As of 2021, only about 6 percent of people on the African continent had access to fixed broadband, against a target of affordable, quality broadband for the majority of Africans by 2030. Closing that gap takes roughly $100 billion, and money alone is not enough. It has to be raised through the right financial models and governed by the right policies, or it will not reach the places that need it most. This course equips policymakers to do exactly that.

You will read the current digital infrastructure gaps and the way the $100 billion requirement is allocated across network operation, infrastructure capital, ICT skills and policy. You will compare six financial models, from loss guarantee schemes to demand aggregation, and learn to match a model to a gap. The course then sets out four areas of policy recommendation, legal and regulatory, taxation and incentives, industry business models, and security and privacy, before applying all of it to a real case: Over-the-Top applications, reasoned from problem to precautions to solution. It closes with a readiness scorecard and a course project on your own context.

Learning Outcomes

By the end of this course, you will be able to:

• Identify Africa's digital infrastructure gaps and the roughly $100 billion financing requirement, and read how that investment is allocated.
• Analyse six financial models, their stakeholders and trade-offs, within your own localised context.
• Apply policy recommendations across legal, taxation, industry and security focus areas to a real funding decision.
• Evaluate a digital infrastructure gap and formulate a costed action plan that selects the right model and policy to close it.

Who is this course for?

This course is designed for policymakers, regulators, finance and ICT ministry staff, investors and programme managers across Africa who shape or deliver digital infrastructure funding. It is highly beneficial for individuals who are:

• Involved in financing strategy, taxation policy, or budget allocation for digital infrastructure.
• Seeking to choose or evaluate financial models for closing localised connectivity gaps.
• Responsible for aligning infrastructure funding with national digital strategy, data protection rules, and stakeholder coordination.