Plans to build a fibre-optic submarine cable connecting six members of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) have reportedly been moving forward this month after key meetings in Guinea-Bissau and Guinea.
The ECOWAS Commission’s Amilcar Cabral submarine telecoms cable project aims to deploy a subsea cable connecting Cabo Verde, The Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. The goal is to boost international bandwidth capacity and redundancy for each country, as well as supplement existing landing stations.
According to News Ghana, ECOWAS member states held their fourth meeting for “Ministers of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT)/Digital Economy and Finance/Planning” last week in Bissau to discuss how to move forward with implementation of the cable.
The meeting was attended by Jose Carlos Esteves, Guinea Bissau’s Minister of Transport, Telecommunications, and Digital Economy, ECOWAS Commissioner Sédiko Douka, experts from member states, the ECOWAS Commission, and technical and financial partners, including the ECOWAS Bank for Investment and Development and World Bank, the report said.
Key outcomes of the meeting include approval of a phased approach to the Amilcar Cabral cable under which the project will kick off in countries that have secured the financial resources for the project, with mechanisms for reimbursement by other participating nations under an ECOWAS-prepared agreement, according to the report.
The Gambia and Guinea have mobilized financing for the project from the World Bank via the West Africa Regional Digital Integration Program (WARDIP), the report added.
Participants also set deadlines for establishing Special Purpose Companies (SPCs) in each country to execute the project, as well as completing detailed implementation studies led by Guinea and The Gambia.
Last week’s meeting followed an experts’ meeting held on June 12 and 13, which focused on financial mobilization for the project and the establishment of SPCs, the report noted.
Details on the deadlines or any other info related to a timeline were not revealed. However, the next ministerial review is scheduled for October 2024 in Liberia, suggesting the Amilcar Cabral cable still has some way to go before it gets built.
The project has been in the works since 2018, at which point it was only meant to connect Guinea and Cape Verde. The Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia and Sierra Leone signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to join the Amilcar Cabral project last year.
Earlier this month, Douka led an ECOWAS delegation to Guinea to meet with the country’s Ministers of Post, Telecommunications and Digital Economy, and Planning and International Cooperation, to discuss Guinea’s preparedness for project implementation. According to a statement from the ECOWAS Commission, topics on the table included phased implementation, establishment of an SPC, financing, expediting necessary permits, and establishment of a seed fund to facilitate preparation for the project.
