{"id":1742,"date":"2016-11-10T09:31:54","date_gmt":"2016-11-10T08:31:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/?p=1742"},"modified":"2016-11-10T14:31:02","modified_gmt":"2016-11-10T13:31:02","slug":"facebook-google-and-connectivity-in-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/2016\/11\/10\/facebook-google-and-connectivity-in-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"Facebook, Google and Connectivity in Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Before I visited his country, a colleague from Nigeria described to me <strong>how an up-and-coming Nigerian youth shared the same interests as youngsters in developed countries<\/strong>: they want to have i-pads, use social networks, and so on \u2013 as everybody else. Yes, I\u2019m aware that this is just one part of the Nigerian society. Not everybody has access to Facebook, Google, or the like because not everybody has connectivity in Africa.<\/p>\n<p>Actually, according to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.internetworldstats.com\/stats1.htm\" target=\"_blank\">Internet World Stats<\/a>\u00a0Internet users in Africa represent only 9.3% of the total users in the world, despite being 16.2% of the world population. What\u2019s more, <strong>Internet penetration in Africa is only 28.7% of the total population, well below the rest of world (54.2%)<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Acknowledging this important issue, a group of prominent leaders including Mark Zuckerberg, Bill and Melinda Gates, and Bono, agreed to implement the <strong>promise that universal internet access becomes a reality by 2020.<\/strong> They believe this is essential for achieving the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.globalgoals.org\/\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Global Goals for Sustainable Development<\/strong><\/a>: to create equal opportunities all around the globe, to fight injustice, to share ideas, and to create more jobs.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_1747\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1747\" style=\"width: 744px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/files\/2016\/11\/Nigeria.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1747\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/files\/2016\/11\/Nigeria-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"Nigerians are connected\" width=\"744\" height=\"558\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/files\/2016\/11\/Nigeria-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/files\/2016\/11\/Nigeria-500x375.jpg 500w, https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/files\/2016\/11\/Nigeria.jpg 744w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 744px) 100vw, 744px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1747\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Nigerians are connected!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Facebook and Google have started <strong>unprecedented projects<\/strong> in order to make Internet accessible in Africa:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Facebook<\/strong> has launched the <a href=\"https:\/\/info.internet.org\/en\/story\/free-basics-from-internet-org\/\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Free Basics App<\/strong><\/a>. This enables mobile users\u00a0to access the site free of data charges. It\u2019s available in 53 countries \u2013 23 of which are African countries.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Google<\/strong> has implemented the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/get\/projectlink\/\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Project Link<\/strong><\/a>. This brings faster and more reliable Internet by building a metro fiber network. It was first implemented in Kampala, Uganda with a 1,000 kilometer network, and the extended to Accra and two other cities in Ghana.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>However, these projects are <strong>controversial<\/strong>. The risk of censorship in Africa may be high as many of Facebook\u2019s mobile-provider partners are state-owned or highly influenced by the local government. Also, these projects generate the suspicion that Facebook and Google are looking to take over a rising and promising continent in order to multiply their potential profits.<\/p>\n<p>Any views on the issue?<\/p>\n<p><em>Nadim Elayan, Research Assistant at IESE Business School, collaborated in this article.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>___________________________________________________________________________<\/p>\n<p>RELATED POSTS:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/2016\/06\/09\/the-power-of-twitter-in-africa\/\">The power of Twitter in Africa<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/2016\/01\/27\/the-4th-industrial-revolution-threat-or-opportunity\/\">The 4th Industrial Revolution: Threat or Opportunity<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/2015\/10\/28\/google-plans-to-invest-in-kenya\/\">Google Plans to Invest in Kenya<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/2015\/10\/21\/connectivity\/\">The Course of Connectivity<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/2014\/11\/19\/global-connectedness-index-of-african-countries\/\">Global connectedness index of African countries<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Before I visited his country, a colleague from Nigeria described to me how an up-and-coming Nigerian youth shared the same interests as youngsters in developed countries: they want to have i-pads, use social networks, and so on \u2013 as everybody else. Yes, I\u2019m aware that this is just one part of the Nigerian society. Not [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1654,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[99314,492,99106],"tags":[45555,176,100513,14,909,918,100512,100514],"class_list":["post-1742","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-social-and-institutional-context","category-development","category-future-and-perspectives-for-africa","tag-connectivity","tag-facebook","tag-free-basics-app","tag-google","tag-internet","tag-investment","tag-project-link","tag-unprecedented-projects","megacategoria-mc-africa"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1742","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1654"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1742"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1742\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1754,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1742\/revisions\/1754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}