Huawei joins Smart Africa Alliance to drive digital transformation
Huawei has declared that it has joined the Smart Africa Alliance as Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) advisor and Platinum member at the Smart Africa Board Meeting in its efforts to drive digital transformation in Africa.
Smart Africa is a bold and innovative commitment from African Heads of State and Government to accelerate sustainable socio-economic development on the continent, ushering Africa into a knowledge economy through affordable access to Broadband and usage of Information and Communications Technologies.
Paul Kagame, president of Rwanda, has revealed the Smart Africa Manifesto, the foundation of this initiative, is based on 5 principles: To put ICT at the center of our national socio-economic development agenda; To improve access to ICT especially Broadband; To improve accountability, efficiency and openness through ICT; To put the Private Sector First; To leverage ICT to promote sustainable development.
Dr. Hamadoun Touré, executive director of Smart Africa Secretariat extended a warm welcome to Huawei: “One of the key objectives of the Smart Africa initiative is to strengthen the Public-Private collaboration to accelerate the ICT development in Africa.
“As a global leading ICT solutions provider, Huawei has been continuously making significant contributions to provide telecom connectivity, especially broadband connections to Africa, giving African people access to affordable broadband network. We are more than happy that Huawei has joined us to partner with African governments, ITU, GSMA, the World Bank, and all the other Smart Africa members, to transform Africa through ICTs. We believe Huawei’s expertise and experience will promote African countries’ digital economy and improve their global competitiveness.”
Jimmy Pang, Huawei, vice president，discussed the Smart Africa’s vision at the Board Meeting with ICT ministers from various African countries, and said: “The key to accelerate Africa’s digital economy is to improve ICT infrastructure, upgrade the digitalization of every industry, and promote the knowledge-sharing and skill transfer. We will continuously support the Smart Africa initiative, in collaboration with all related stakeholders to increase the connectivity of Africa, and build a smart Africa together. ”
Huawei joined the Board Meeting of Smart Africa, and shared its insights on how to leverage ICT to develop Africa’s social-economy with board members of Smart Africa, head of states from African countries, including the host of the 27th African Union Summit, Paul Kagame, the President of Rwanda, who is also the chairman of the Smart Africa Board.
Huawei entered Africa in 1998, and has been improving connectivity in over 50 African countries through providing advanced telecom network services and affordable smart devices.
Huawei will assist Smart Africa to deploy its flagship projects, and push Africa’s digital economy through experience-sharing and ICT talents cultivation.
Smart Africa is a bold and innovative commitment to accelerate sustainable socio-economic development on the continent, ushering Africa into a knowledge economy through affordable access to Broadband and usage of Information and Communications Technologies.
Founded in 2013, the Smart Africa is headquartered in Kigali. Smart Africa is made of all African countries adhering to the Smart Africa Manifesto. Its founding members include the African Union (AU Commission, NEPAD Agency, specialized institutions and Regional Economic Communities), International Telecommunications Union (ITU), World Bank, African Development Bank (AfDB), UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), GSM Alliance (GSMA), ICANN, African Telecommunications Union (ATU) and the Private Sector.
Huawei is a leading global information and communications technology (ICT) solutions provider with the vision to enrich life through communication.
Driven by customer-centric innovation and open partnerships, Huawei has established an end-to-end ICT solutions portfolio that gives customers competitive advantages in telecom and enterprise networks, devices and cloud computing.
