Infrastructure Development: Public Private Partnership Path for Developing Rural Telecommunications in Africa

Idongesit Williams

doi:10.4067/s0718-27242012000200006

Abstract

It is the quest of every government to achieve universal Access and service of telecommunication services and ICTs. Unfortunately due to the high cost of deploying infrastructure in rural areas of developing countries due to non-significant or no economic activity, this dream of achieving Universal access and service of telecommunications/ICTs have been stalled. This paper throws light on a possible Public Private Partnership framework as a development path that will enable affordable network technologies to be deployed in rural areas at a cost that will translate to what the rural dweller in a developing country in Africa can afford. The paper is a conceptual paper

Highlights

The liberalization policies of 1990s in the telecommunications industry has given rise to the new possibilities in the Information Communication Technology (ICT) sector (Melody, 2011)
The competition that ensued as a result of dissolving monopoly markets let to innovation as well as rapid adoption and diffusion of ICT services made possible by evolving telecommunications network
The argument that markets in itself can enable the universal access of telecommunication/ICT Services has not worked for rural areas in Africa

Summary

Introduction

The liberalization policies of 1990s in the telecommunications industry has given rise to the new possibilities in the Information Communication Technology (ICT) sector (Melody, 2011). A Public Private Partnership (PPP) framework as a development path to access to rural telecommunications/ICTs will be discussed. Mobile Telephony:The major driver of ICTs of late has been mobile telephony This became possible through the introduction of the pay-as-you go service (Kas, 2008).The market leadership of mobile telephony is evident in the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) data and statistics of October 2010, it was estimated that there were 5282 million Mobile telephony subscribers in the world. Out of these approximately 1.1 billion citizens, 61% live in rural areas (World Bank, 2011) From these indicators, comparing the penetration of mobile and internet service in Africa, the penetration of the main drivers of ICT is extremely low in Africa due to the non-profitability of investing in ICT and telecom infrastructure in rural areas. A poor design can lead to undesirable financial consequences to the public sector

Method

Organizational Design

Proposed Project Funding Design

Findings

Conclusion