The African Development Bank (AfDB) will provide Senegal with € 70.61 million for the construction of its Digital Technology Park. Goal ? Make the country a center of excellence in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT).
The decision was approved after the Pan African financial institution’s board of directors met on October 21 in Abidjan. Such support is justified, explains the Bank in a press release, by the fact of wanting to “contribute to promoting Senegal as a center of excellence in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and as a framework for the establishment of centers calls, e-commerce, wireless Internet services, software development hubs and other segments of the ICT market. ”
The digital city of Diamniadio is part of the Digital Technologies Park (PTN) program, a component of the Emerging Senegal Plan (PSE).
Incubator
The infrastructure, which could generate 35,000 direct jobs and 105,000 indirect jobs by 2025 according to the ADB, will be located in the new urban center of Diamniadio (on the outskirts of the Senegalese capital) polarizing the agglomerations around Diass. (site of establishment of the new Blaise-Diagne international airport), Sébikotane and Lac Rose.
According to a schedule published by the Pan African bank [PDF], the start of works is scheduled for January 2016 for start of operations in March 2017.
The park will aim in particular to “create a solid IT base that will allow Senegal to attract multinationals and companies that will relocate their activities to this new urban center in development,” said the AfDB.
As such, more than twenty companies, including the French IT services group Atos and the mobile phone operator Tigo Senegal, have already expressed interest in setting up their activities in the future Digital Technology Park. The latter will also have an incubator intended to boost the activities of young graduates focused on new technologies.
Added value
Likewise, this infrastructure will help modernize the way government works, diversify the economy towards technologies, develop content and outsource business processes, or even support university research on technologies …
On the technical level, the value that the AfDB will add to the implementation of the project essentially resides, details the press release, in its comparative advantage acquired not only in the development of technology parks in Africa, but also, in supporting other ICT projects: e-government infrastructure in Lesotho, the Cape Verde Technology Park, the Virtual University of Senegal and the ICT Center of Excellence in Rwanda.
Source: http: www.jeuneafrique.com
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