ICT sector investment opportunities in Zimbabwe and Africa
13 March 2012
Techzim - March 12, 2012
By Arnold Matimba
I recently attended the NEPAD Business Foundation Implementing ICT Projects in Africa Workshop and the Zimbabwe Investment and Trade Conference. It was interesting to note that the message on ICT had a common theme.
High speed broadband has become the lifeblood of the knowledge economy and is fast becoming a human right, as well as a significant contributor to economic growth. The World Bank estimates that a 10% increase in broadband penetration could raise GDP by 1-2%.
Africa’s ICT sector will continue to grow rapidly over the coming decades, with the largest lion’s share of investment coming from private enterprise. Africa was long deprived of access to high-speed undersea data-transmission cables. Now there is ample international bandwidth within relatively easy reach of every country in Africa.
Some of the achievements so far:
1. Extremely accelerated rate of mobile penetration
2. Emergence mobile money services across Africa
3. Roaming without charges – Africa is the first in the world to introduce this.
Category: ICT