The document discusses cloud computing trends across several African countries based on a study conducted by Research ICT Africa. Key findings include: - Cloud computing is in early stages across Africa, with more developed markets in South Africa, Nigeria, and Kenya. Infrastructure bottlenecks around broadband access remain a challenge. - Global cloud providers have a presence but local African firms are also active as aggregators and integrators helping bring cloud services to domestic customers. - Countries like Ethiopia, Ghana, and Nigeria have begun exploring cloud solutions to deliver e-government services more effectively. - Growing broadband access via undersea cables and mobile networks is helping drive cloud adoption, though high costs and limited rural connectivity still impede

1. 1
Cloud Experience in Africa:
Emerging Trends & Perspectives
Presentation to UNCTAD seminar on Cloud Computing & E-Government, Addis Ababa, December, 2013
Fola Odufuwa, Research ICT Africa
With Alison Gilwald & Mpho Moyo, Research ICT Africa, Cape Town, South Africa.

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Introduction
Risks
Africa ICT Landscape – brief overview
Bottlenecks
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3Bottlenecks
State of the cloud in Africa 2
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3. Introduction
This presentation is based on a rapid assessment of the state of Cloud Computing in
selected African countries.
The Cloud report was commissioned by UNCTAD 2Q2013, and was developed by
Research ICT Africa (“RIA”) in conjunction with its nodal partners as follows:
Lishan Adam (Ethiopia)
Godfred Frempong (Ghana)
Fola Odufuwa (Nigeria)
Muriuki Mureithi (Kenya)
Prof. Farouk Kamoun & Prof. Jamil Chaabouni (Tunisia)
The slides have been supported by a previous RIA study on Cloud Computing in South
Africa (Alison Gilwald & Mpho Moyo 2012), while additional analysis has been provided
by the core team of analysts of Research ICT Africa.
The speaker acknowledges the work done by each of the nodal partners in the study
countries and the support of the central team based in Cape Town.

4. 4
State of the Cloud in Africa
Risks
Africa ICT Landscape – brief overview
Bottlenecks
Use this area to provide an optional section subtitle or explanation
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3Bottlenecks
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1Introduction 1
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5. Locating cloud computing in the ICT ecosystem
‣ Users including consumers and
citizens have been placed at the
centre of the ecosystem and factors
such as price and quality of service
are a measure of access and
affordability of services provided
‣ Cloud computing is located within the
broader ICT ecosystem as cloud
services are delivered via an internet
connection.
‣ Reliability of cloud computing is
critically dependent upon the
availability of underlying (broadband)
infrastructure.
5
Integrated perspective of markets, networks, services,
services, applications and content and determining
governance, legal and regulatory frameworks

6. Distinguishing cloud services & cloud-
based services
‣ ITU (2012) defines cloud services that are provided and utilised ‘on
demand at any time, through any access network, using any
connected devices [that use] cloud computing technologies’
• Cloud services utilise software and applications that are held in the cloud an not on the
users’ own devices (REF). These are used for internal administration by cloud user or for
the management of service delivery to end-users. An example is customer relations
management.
‣ On the other hand cloud based services include mass market
applications such as Facebook, YouTube, etc consisting of user
data that are then posted on the cloud.
‣ With the proliferation of mobile phones, the expansion of mobile
broadband networks and the increased access of the internet via
the mobile phone; the delivery of mobile based cloud services is
becoming important in the African context.
6
It is important to make a distinction between cloud
services and cloud-based services:

7. Types of cloud providers
‣ Cloud Providers:
• Primary source of cloud offerings who “create, configure, run and distribute
services.” (Kushida et al (2012))
• Mainly global IT brands, most of which are present on the continent and
offer some cloud solution in most markets.
• Continental IT giants beginning to play in this space.
‣ Aggregators and System Integrators:
• Continental and indigenous vendors and system integrators.
• Provide “boots-on-the-ground” for Cloud Providers by managing the cloud
migration process. They match their knowledge of global cloud computing
technologies with local needs.
• Some offer own solutions.
‣ Cloud Brokers:
• Third party service providers acting as intermediaries between end-users,
OEMs and System Integrators.
7
RIA has identified three types of players in the African
cloud space.

8. Emerging trends in Africa
Cloud-computing is in its early growth stages, large corporate
enterprises earlier adopters. Market activity across Africa appears
supply-side driven rather than demand-side driven.
Exception is South Africa where demand is arising from the private sector.
SMEs and the public sector without legacy IT assets can be greatest beneficiaries.
Cloud providers are mostly global US-based players with some local
presence.
A number of South African based companies like Dimension Data and Internet
Solutions are competing aggressively by provding services on the continent.
Local IT providers and telcos typically compete with global brands within
the cloud market.
Public sector usage is limited though the governments of Ethiopia,
Ghana, Kenya and Nigeria are beginning to explore public cloud
solutions.

9. Drivers of cloud computing in Africa
Suppliers, vendors and system integrators
Infrastructure providers particularly mobile operators and
submarine/fibre optic companies
Internet enabled mobile phones, low bandwidth applications,
and social networking
In South Africa, cloud uptake is being driven by private sector
demand.
African telcos and mobile operators are leveraging existing
infrastructure to deliver cloud services in order to diversify
their revenue streams.

10. Cloud trends in Ethiopia
Ethiopia’s movement towards the cloud is at a very early stage. Efforts to
promote cloud computing is largely government-driven.
The government is working with the Republic of Korea to upgrade data centers using
technology supplied by Samsung.
Recently, there has been significant investment by the government in the telecoms
sector:
National rollout of 16,000 km of fibre has extended broadband access to about 40% of the
population.
Country connected to international cables through neighboring Djibouti and Sudan, and plans
to link to the EASSy cable through Kenya ongoing.
Major obstacle to cloud deployment is limited competition as the government holds a
monopoly on the communications market.
Broadband usage is not widespread. At the end of 2012, there were about 221,000
broadband users, representing 0.25% of the population (Ethio Telecom).

11. Cloud trends in Ghana
The cloud computing market is at an early stage of evolution in
Ghana.
Over 20 providers - many of which are local companies who provide “boots–on-the-
ground” for global cloud providers. Others are pan-African mainly South African
based companies.
Cloud services offered is mainly IaaS and PaaS.
One of Africa’s most liberalised ICT markets with 6 mobile operators, all
of which offer data services based on 3G and CDMA platforms.
More than 20 companies actively provide broadband Internet access, led by
Vodafone.
Companies that provide hosting, managed services and data centres
such as Internet Ghana, Ostec, Ecoband Networks, Computer
Information Systems, among others, have the potential to grow their
businesses into the cloud.

12. Cloud trends in Nigeria
Market is in early growth stages,
driven by global IT companies offering
IaaS, SaaS and PaaS.
Larger corporations, and to some
extent, the public sector implementing
variants of the private cloud .
Mobile operators also launching cloud
offerings targeted at the SME market.
Main local players include Computer
Warehouse, Datagroup IT, and
Business Connexion.
Example of innovation is real-time cloud
solution being implemented by IBM and
Sproxil that enable drug manufacturers
in Nigeria to prevent counterfeiting.Source: Odufuwa (2013)

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Cloud services offerings in Kenya
Cloud services are evolving and supply-side driven, though
competition is emerging between local and international companies
IaaS CaaSPaaS SaaS
‣ KDN, MTN Business and
Safaricom Ltd operate in
this space.
‣ KDN has the largest
private sector optic fibre
network of 7000km, KDN
and provides data centre
services.
‣ Government has built its
own data centres and is
in the process of building
other centres for public
access as PPPs.
‣ Safaricom, in partnership
with an integrator Seven
Seas Technologies has
been offering public
PaaS- servers, storage,
backup and operating
system.
‣ Market entry in 2011 has
changed market
dynamics as potential
users now explore local
clouds as a feasible
alternative to foreign
clouds.
‣ Range of the platform is
however limited to one
operating system
environment.
‣ Key actors targeting the
market include:
‣ Pamoja Cloud Services,
SEACOM’s value added
services business unit,
offering content
aggregation and
associated services.
‣ Xtranet - allows
customers to connect
own software to their
servers.
‣ Kenyan Cloud - provides
mail, data recovery and
storage services.
‣ Sofgen – launched the
Temenos T24 cloud-
based MFI banking
software solution in the
market.
‣ CaaS is yet undeveloped
and emerging in Kenya.

14. Cloud trends in Tunisia
Growing awareness of the potential of cloud solutions.
Growth in the telecommunications sector accelerated by (a) liberalisation at the turn
of millennium (b) the political transition of the 14th of January, 2011 which saw the end
to censorship and has resulted in freedom of expression, (c) amendments to the legal
and regulatory framework in 2013.
These landmarks have opened the market to the deployment of new technological
innovations including cloud computing.
Since 2011, cloud providers have began to focus on the Tunisian market.
Microsoft, Oracle and OEMs including HP are increasingly advertising cloud offerings.
Several cloud providers have emerged within Tunisia that provide public
clouds. Local players include Tunisia Telecom, Smart host and Axelaris.
Services of other international operators like Amazon are hardly used in
Tunisia due to the foreign exchange regulations.
Universities beginning to introduce courses and research in this area.

15. Cloud trends in South Africa
Growing adoption as various sized companies become acutely aware of
the benefits of cloud-computing.
Out of 100 large JSE-listed corporations interviewed by World Wide Worx, 46% are
already using cloud computing, mostly the private cloud as companies still have
security concerns about moving on the public cloud.
Even with these obvious advantages some large enterprises are
constrained by governance rules that prevent them from moving some of
their applications into the public cloud as the location of the servers is
unknown as required by law or company policy (Microsoft South Africa,
Interviewed 29 June 2012).
Main players include Microsoft, Google, AWS, Salesforce.com, MTN
Business, Dimension Data, Internet Solutions and Telkom.
Iaas, PaaS, SaaS established in South Africa, CaaS is however
conceptually challenged.

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‣ E-Government in the cloud
• Ethiopia:
• Government has adopted a cloud-computing strategy with plans to implement 219 eservices over a
five-year period commencing 2013, with support from the Republic of Korea.
• Cloud applications being rolled out include e-procurement, human resources management, e-
office, e-mail, financial management and information system. Project also includes the construction
of a Wide Area Network to underpin service delivery.
‣ Ghana
• Government initiative to promote cloud-computing as part of a broad e-government strategy
involves the extension of the national backbone to all public institutions to enable a single shared
communications and computing infrastructure and facilitate the effective delivery of government
services to all citizens.
• The proposed network is expected to reach 1050 sites, of which half be linked via wireless last mile
access networks.
‣ Nigeria
• The public sector has adopted cloud-computing architecture to deliver public services.
• WIth world bank support the Nigerian government has moved public sector payroll systems at over
180 MDAs to the cloud through a SAAS arrangement.
• Galaxy backbone, a state owned managed services provider has an exclusive agreement to
provide connectivity to the public service. The company is in the process of implementing national
cloud infrastructure that will deliver IAAS, SAAS and PAAS solutions.

17. Relevance of cloud-computing in the
informal sector in Africa
‣ African economies are dominated by the informal sector.
‣ Mobile phones are the most commonly used form of ICT by SMEs, while the
use of fixed lines and internet are negligible.
‣ Opportunity exists for providing business enabling public cloud services over
mobile phones in order to boost development, employment, and facilitate
economic growth.
17
Cloud solutions are now being targeted at SMEs who often
lack the financial resources to build in-house IT capacity.
Source: RIA ICT Access and Use Survey 2011/12. Distribution across formality classification (unweighted)

18. Growth of submarine cables over the past 5 years
is transforming the continent
Source: R. Les Cottrell, IEEE Spectrum (2013), accessible at
http://spectrum.ieee.org/telecom/internet/how-bad-is-africas-internet

19. Improving broadband infrastructure
is enabling cloud adoption
Telecommunications sector is liberalised in most markets and continues to grow inspite
of policy and regulatory bottlenecks.
Ethiopia is the only study country with a closed market and lags other African countries in
arising from a market monopoly situation.
International bandwidth capacity bolstered by recent landings of new submarine
cables, both on the west and east coasts of Africa.
Competition in the broadband market has increased resulting in significant increases in the
availability of bandwidth..
The private sector has also invested in broadband backbone infrastructure, however this is
concentrated in urban areas and centres of economic activity.
Nevertheless territorial national backbone networks in Africa remain
inadequate despite efforts by African governments to promote (or directly build)
national backbone networks.
Policy and regulatory challenges have hampered investment in the expansion of
networks to rural and under-serviced areas

20. 20
Bottlenecks
Africa ICT landscape – brief overview
Bottlenecks
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Introduction 1
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State of the cloud in Africa

21. (WEF)
Network
e-Readiness
Index
No African country features in the Global
Top 30.
Tunisia leads the continent in terms of
Network Readiness, followed by South
Africa and Egypt.
No African country featured in the High
Income Group. Tunisia and The Gambia are
the highest ranked Low Middle Income and
Low Income economies.
Only Ethiopia (24) is not in the Top 20 in
Africa of the 5 countries reviewed by RIA in
the Africa Cloud Report 2013.
Major barriers to market growth:
Lack of competitive or affordable
backbone infrastructure/ bandwidth
High costs of access to
communications
Effective regulation
No Country Rank Score
Rank within
Income Group
1 Tunisia 35 4.35 LM 1
2 South Africa 61 3.86 UM 11
3 Egypt 74 3.76 UM 9
4 Gambia, The 76 3.70 LO 1
5 Senegal 80 3.61 UM 10
6 Kenya 81 3.60 LO 2
7 Namibia 82 3.58 UM 22
8 Morocco 83 3.57 LM 11
9 Cape Verde 84 3.57 LM 12
10 Botswana 91 3.53 UM 25
11 Ghana 99 3.44 LO 3
12 Zambia 102 3.36 LO 4
13 Nigeria 104 3.32 LM 23
14 Malawi 105 3.31 LO 5
15 Mozambique 106 3.29 LO 6
16 Uganda 107 3.26 LO 7
17 Cote d'Ivoire 113 3.20 LM 26
18 Benin 114 3.20 LO 10
19 Algeria 117 3.17 UM 31
20 Tanzania 118 3.16 LO 13
Source: WEF. UM - Upper middle income; LM- Lower middle income; LO- Low income

22. Share of those with a mobile that
own one that is capable of
browsing the Internet
15+ Owning a mobile

23. International bandwidth no longer a problem... electricity and backhaul national networks are....
Country ISP Technology
Product
name
Downstream
bandwidth
Usage
cap
Monthly
cost (US$)
Notes
India MTNL ADSL TriB 49 2 Mbps 200 MB 0.88
Speed reduces to 512Kbps after exceeding the usage cap + Additiona
charge INR1.00 per MB after exceeding usage cap
Sri Lanka SLT ADSL Entrée 2 Mbps 2.5 GB 3.78
Mexico Cablevision Cable
Intense 3.0
Mbps
3 Mbps 10.56
Installation charge for the internet only package is taken as the
connection charge
South Africa MWEB ADSL Capped ADSL 384 Kbps 1 GB 17.55 Modem cost from ZAR 369 onwards, excludes voice line rentals.
Kenya TelkomKenya ADSL Surf and Talk 256 Kbps 34.99 The cost of Livebox+Panasonic Handset is taken as the modem cost
Cameroon Ringo Fibre Fibre Ringo 1 Mbps 47.29 XAF95000 is the charge for equipment and installation cost.
Uganda Uganda Telecom ADSL 64 Kbps 90

24. Where did you use the Internet in the last 12
months

25. 25
Bottlenecks
Africa ICT landscape – brief overview
Bottlenecks
Use this area to provide an optional section subtitle or explanation
2
3
Introduction 1
4
5
State of the cloud in Africa 2

26. Lack of competition in fixed telephony has
resulted in relatively high prices for fixed
services across Africa
In most countries, a
legacy of monopoly
fixed-line operators
with significant
control over
essential facilities
including backbone
networks.

27. High costs of broadband access at the last-
mile limits the growth of the cloud in Africa
Source: RIA. Cost of fixed broadband baskets per month (Sept. 2013) USD PPP
There are also
observed pricing
and interconnection
barriers at the
wholesale level.

28. Poor quality of service hampers growth of
cloud-computing services
• South Africans are on average only getting 74% of the speeds they sign
up for (Ookla), which is lower than the global average of 85%.
• The Ookla findings are supported by a broadband QoS pilot study
conducted by RIA in South Africa which found that consumers in South
Africa are not getting advertised speeds (Gillwald, Moyo, Stork, 2012).
The study also demonstrated that mobile 3G and LTE services out
perform fixed broadband.
• In Nigeria, frequent optic fibre cuts arising mainly from vandalism and
unplanned road construction with consequential loss of service have
degraded connectivity services.
• In many countries, engineers are battling their way to the remotest parts
of their countries and have to overcome many obstacles in the process.

29. 29
Computer ownership is also a bottleneck
to cloud penetration

30. Most African markets are
unprepared for the legal
challenges of cloud computing
• Concerns around data protection, security and privacy remain a major hurdle to
the adoption of cloud systems in place. Legislation addressing these pertinent
issues is absent in most countries.
• At present there is no framework governing e-commerce within Nigeria. There are no
data protection and privacy laws and there can be no criminal sanctions or civil damages
available to pursue whenever user rights are breached.
• In Ghana, there is no legislation around security, privacy, anonymity and government
surveillance which pertains to cloud computing. the National Telecommunications Policy
only provides a general framework.
• There is no legislation in South Africa that protects information in the cloud – a major
hindrance to investment in the ICT sector.
• Kenya has no data protection legislative framework, though the government has drafted a
bill on data protection which is awaiting parliament deliberations.
• On a positive note, Ethiopia has recently adopted e-transaction and e-commerce laws in
line with international standards.
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31. Bottleneck summary
• Cost associated with migration
limits adoption of cloud-
computing
• Regulatory uncertainty & lack
of effective competition (at
infrastructure level)
• Institutional
capacity/competencies
• Demand stimulation: e-literacy
• International bandwidth –
selected (landlocked) countries
• National backbone backhaul
network capacity
• Shortages in skilled personnel
• Open systems/interoperability
• Consumer protection
• Security, trust & piracy
• Taxation
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32. Thank you for your time and attention.
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