SMART Africa Chair to Visit Sudan
Chair of the Smart Africa Alliance—Rwandan President Paul Kagame—will arrive in Sudan today for a two-day visit.
The alliance was created following the 2013 Transform Africa Summit and seeks to accelerate sustainable socioeconomic development in Africa through information and communication technologies and by expanding access to broadband services.
Expect President Kagame to prioritize expanding broadband access to the Sudanese populace during this visit. Access to the internet was severely limited in Sudan during the rule of former Prime Minister Omar al-Bashir, and while internet access and freedom has improved since the end of his rule in 2019 under the technocratic leadership of current Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok, widespread internet restrictions and shutdowns are still a common occurrence.
As part of a recent allocation of funds by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Sudan was granted roughly $857 million of funding to help increase cash reserves and to prop up the economies of developing countries. Expect President Kagame to encourage Sudan to allocate part of this funding to the expansion of broadband networks to widen internet access for Sudan’s citizens, thus increasing connectivity to the rest of Africa and fostering greater online economic growth for Sudan and the broader alliance.
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