Ethiopia Second Telecom Market in Africa, Says Standing Committee Chair

Addis Ababa November 20/2024 (ENA)  Ethiopia is the second biggest telecom market in Africa with the entry of Safaricom into the country's market , Human Resource Development, Labor and Technology Affairs Standing Committee Chair of the House of Peoples’ Representatives said. 

The 13th African Internet Governance Forum (AfIGF) under the theme “Building Our Multi-Stakeholder Digital Future for Africa” kicked off today.

In his remarks during a session of African Parliamentary Network on Internet Governance (APNIG), Chair of the Standing Committee, Negeri Lencho said that AfIGF is dedicated to fostering exchanges within the region on relevant digital policy topics. 

The regional parliamentary track with the title “Parliamentarians’ Contribution to Effective Data Governance on the African Continent” is the right choice to facilitate a timely discussion, he added.

With Digital Ethiopia 2025 strategy, Ethiopia has liberalized the telecom sector, Negeri added.

“The implementation of the Digital Ethiopia 2025 strategy enabled us to liberalize the telecom sector, and accordingly, one additional internet service provider has come to this big market of 130 plus million people. This enables Ethiopia to be the 2nd biggest market in Africa with more than 80 million mobile voice subscribers and 50 plus million data and internet users,” he elaborated.

Ethiopia’s electronic money transaction has exceeded the amount of the traditional transaction and reached more than 3 trillion Birr, Negeri stated, and emphasized “this is very significant for parliamentarians since we are very close to measuring such impacts, and we are also keen to clearly understand the meanings in terms of policy directions.”

According to him, the digital divide is one of the critical challenges that hinder the wider accessibility of internet benefits, inclusively to all citizens while device affordability is one of the critical reasons for the digital divide. 

Information Society Division Senior Policy Officer at AUC, Adil Sulieman said that in view of realizing its integration agenda, Africa is striving to achieve the largest free trade zone in the world, which would require more connectivity, free flow of information, electronic payment and cross border transactions. 

“Indeed APNIG is instrumental in advancing Africa’s digital transformation journey aimed at socioeconomic growth and inclusivity which is currently counted under several problems, including digital divide, cyber security threat, automation impacts on job, Data safety and privacy, reliance on foreign technology skills gap regulatory barriers,” he added.

The digital era brings to the forefront the indispensable role of data in crafting policies for social economic advancement, Sulieman stated, and emphasized the importance of presenting Africa with the prospect of a sustainable and protected future shared by data driven decisions.

“The increasingly digital and data driven information society also comes with new risks and challenges. And therefore; the African AfIGF and multi-stakeholder groups with the system of APNIG would have to commend new rules that will generate trust, protect and secure data,” noted the Senior Policy Officer.

Moreover, he pointed out that Africa is determined to be a crucial player in championing the digital transmission to propel socioeconomic development and to play a key role in ultimately shaping the world digital future by closing the digital divides and data invention divides.