Digital Africa

Report

An academic paper, ‘The Digital Africa Surprise’, by Ben Turner examining sub-Saharan Africa’s mobile phone boom — which saw roughly 60% year-on-year subscriber growth in the mid-2000s, the fastest of any world region — and arguing that the region’s next wave of digital transformation will come from expanding fibre-optic and WiMAX broadband infrastructure rather than continued growth in basic voice and SMS mobile use. The paper suggests that faster, more responsive bandwidth will be needed to build genuine human capacity and value chains, and that Africa’s digital future may ultimately surprise observers who extrapolate only from current mobile trends.