The recent series of internet disruptions across Africa due to multiple undersea cable faults has highlighted the vulnerability of the continent’s connectivity to the digital economy.
While South Africa is still experiencing the repercussions of these disruptions, many other countries have been significantly impacted, with outages or degraded performance observed since last week in Ivory Coast, Liberia, Benin, Ghana, Nigeria, and Cameroon.
In February, three vital cables – AAE-1, EIG, and SEACOM – linking Africa’s east coast to Europe encountered disruptions, allegedly due to sabotage by Houthi forces. Then, on March 14, four of the five west coast cables – SAT3, WACS, ACE, and MainOne – were reportedly damaged by an underwater rock fall near Ivory Coast.
These incidents have underscored Africa’s general lack of connectivity capacity, as noted by Edward Lawrence, co-founder of the Workonline Group, a major Internet Protocol (IP) transit network in Africa. Lawrence highlighted that South Africa, despite its relatively better connectivity, is still insufficiently served compared to global standards.
According to Lawrence, South Africa relies on only 10 undersea cables for global connectivity, with seven of them currently out of operation due to the ongoing breakage crisis. Capacity constraints are exacerbated by the lengthy repair process for underwater cables and the time required to construct new infrastructure.
Efforts such as the Digital Economy Initiative for Africa (DE4A) by the World Bank aim to digitally empower every individual, business, and government in Africa by 2030.
The European Investment Bank sees the emergence of an African digital economy as a transformative opportunity, potentially improving millions of lives and reshaping societies. They emphasize the importance of leveraging data-driven technologies to foster sustainability, economic growth, job creation, and societal efficiency across the continent.
