Connectivity & Digital Public Services

The challenge

Connectivity in African cities is uneven across all four of the dimensions that matter: infrastructure, affordability, digital skills and digital public services. Coverage maps look better than the lived experience, devices remain costly relative to incomes, and the public services that should run on top of the network are often paper-bound or fragmented. Without deliberate work on each layer, the digital divide widens even as average coverage rises.

Why this matters in African cities now

Digital services increasingly mediate access to identity, payments, education, health information and civic participation. ITU figures put internet usage at roughly 38 percent in Sub-Saharan Africa against 68 percent globally in 2024 — a gap that translates directly into who can apply for services online, who can access remote education or telemedicine, and who can transact safely. Mobile is already the dominant access channel: GSMA estimates the sector generated around USD 140 billion of economic value in Sub-Saharan Africa in 2023 and supported about 3.7 million jobs directly and indirectly. The next decade will decide whether that base broadens or stratifies.

How we think about this topic

We work along the four dimensions the UN Economic Commission for Africa highlights as the digital transformation stack: digital infrastructure, affordability, digital skills, and e-government. Connectivity is treated as a public-service backbone, not a destination in itself. Decisions on spectrum, towers, fibre, identity, payments and service design are interconnected, and the right starting point is usually a service-by-service look at which interactions citizens have with their city, and how those interactions can be made simpler, cheaper and safer.

What we typically deliver

We help city and national teams plan open networks and shared infrastructure approaches, design affordability and digital-inclusion programmes, build digital identity and payment rails into existing service delivery, and develop e-government and civic-tech roadmaps that prioritise the services residents use most. Where useful, we connect connectivity work to the energy plan (resilient power for telecom sites and digital service points) and to the governance workstream (data, regulation, accountability).

Governance and delivery considerations

Digital public services live or die by trust. We work on interoperability standards, data-sharing agreements between agencies, data-protection regimes, accessibility requirements, and procurement clauses that prevent vendor lock-in. Cybersecurity and privacy safeguards are built into the architecture rather than bolted on. Where capacity is the binding constraint, we help city and agency teams build the in-house product, data and security capability needed to manage digital services as a public function.

How we measure outcomes

We measure connectivity outcomes against meaningful access and trustworthy service delivery: affordability of a basic broadband basket relative to income, share of households and businesses connected at a usable speed, share of priority services available digitally and actually used by residents, accessibility against published standards, and number and severity of data-protection incidents. Coverage on its own is not enough; the steering question is whether residents reliably and safely transact with their city.