$55 billion investment promised to develop internet in Africa

Several African countries and international institutions have agreed to invest more than $55 billion to accelerate access to internet on the continent, said Wednesday the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).

Among the donors include the European Commission and the World Bank (WB), which has pledged to double its funding for ICT in Africa to reach $2 billion by 2012 . They commited on that during an international conference on the development of the Internet in Africa, entitled "Connecting Africa", which took place Monday and Tuesday in Kigali, a statement of the ITU published Wednesday.

Participants at the conference pledged to connect all African capitals and major cities to strengthen connections with the rest of the world by 2012. Africa has a serious delay in the development of the Internet. Less than 4% of Africans today have access to the Internet, the ITU points out.

In addition to Rwanda, six African countries attended the conference: Mali, Malawi, Burkina Faso, Senegal, Djibouti and Burundi.