Funded by the African Development Bank and the European Union to the tune of €33 million, a high-speed internet cable is now rapidly ushering the CAR into a new and unprecedented digital age.
Junior is a young student at a technical college in Bangui, capital of the Central African Republic, getting set to resume studies at the University of Bangui. From childhood, he has restlessly pursued interesting and ambitious ideas. A recent one: building a humanoid robot called “Mama Africa”, to raise awareness about African culture and the fight against global warming. He worked on it outside class hours, assembling the robot entirely from recycled materials.
To function optimally, Mama Africa requires a high-speed internet connection. Prior to 2023, this quality of connection could not be guaranteed in the Central African Republic. The situation began to change that year, when a 900-kilometre-long network of fibre-optic cables landed in the country as an extension from neighbouring Cameroon and Congo.
This project opens up the country in a new, digital way. We contributed by interlinking the country with its neighbours at the same time as establishing a digital centre. All that was missing was for the Central African Republic to complete the digital loop within the sub-region. We are laying the foundations for proper digital development in the country.
Mamady Souare, Country Manager for the Central African Republic, African Development Bank
Among other things, the new cable has enabled the launch of a digital training centre at the University of Bangui. The centre offers a range of virtual and in-person training courses, access to computers, 3D printers and personalised workshops to teach young people how to harness the potential of fibre optics and bring their projects to life.
This centre gives students a unique opportunity to connect to the internet at a lower cost. Fibre optics represent a real blessing for us.
Arc-ange Geoffroy Ouele-Nza-Bana Zacko, Head of Logistics and Asset Management at the Central African Agency for Digital Development, and a Lecturer at the University of Bangui
Today, the new bandwidth available to the population facilitates access to many services that were previously inaccessible, such as audio and, most importantly, video streaming. This opens up a new range of possibilities for a large number of young people wishing to undertake and innovate in the Central African Republic.
Samatar Omar Elmi, Project Manager, African Development Bank
In the initial phase that launched in 2023, the speed offered to the population has increased threefold, from 3 Gbps to 10 Gbps.
We now have young people capable of developing apps and carrying out projects that we would never have imagined in our day.
Arc-ange Geoffroy Ouele-Nza-Bana Zacko, Head of Logistics and Asset Management at the Central African Agency for Digital Development, and a Lecturer at the University of Bangui
