The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is advancing its digital connectivity with the installation of a fiber-optic network, supported by the European Investment Bank (EIB), in collaboration with telecommunications firm, Bandwidth and Cloud Services Group (BCs).
The project is implemented under the European Union’s (EU) Global Gateway – an initiative that aims to narrow the global investment gap worldwide – and is set to connect up to 2.5 million people in eastern DRC to faster, affordable and reliable digital connectivity.
“We are very pleased to take this step forward with BCS, as part of the EIB’s commitment to accelerating digitalization in the DRC and across Africa. Digital is such a powerful driver of equity, inclusion and growth, that the EU has made it a pillar of our Global Gateway strategy. Expansion of the fiber-optic infrastructure will enable local communities, schools and hospitals to benefit from mobile broadband, which ultimately means new opportunities for learning, for business, for jobs and for healthcare,” stated Thomas Östros, Vice-President of the EIB.
Early March saw the EIB and BCs sign a warrant agreement to kickstart the installation of the fiber-optic system, an agreement which follows a $10 million quasi-equity investment from EU investment arm, EIB Global.
“This is an important milestone in our mission to provide fast, high-quality and affordable digital connectivity in underserved areas in DRC and across Eastern, Central and Southern Africa. Our continued partnership with the EIB means we can move forward with our optic expansion plans to build over 20,000 km of digital infrastructure out of which 12,000 km are in DRC. This will go a long way to ensure implementation of the agreement between the Government of DRC and BCS to connect over 1,900 schools, 1,640 public hospitals and government institutions along the BCS backbone and metro fiber infrastructure,” added Yonas Maru, Founder and Managing Director of BCS.
