AFRICA: West Africa Regional Digital Integration Project

Support regional efforts to increase geographic reach and affordability of broadband networks and foster an enabling environment for developing a single digital market at the regional level. Specifically, the proposed activity will support the preparation of the private sector participation scheme to be implemented under the Western Africa Regional Digital Integration Program, whose first phase (WARDIP-SOP1) is planned to be delivered in the fiscal year 2023. The recommended private sector participation options will result from a pre-feasibility study conducted under the proposed assignment following an Maximizing Finance for Development/Private Capital Mobilization approach, which would be threefold:

1. International Capacity Demand and Needs Assessment.
2. Supply-side assessment for international capacity.
3. Data infrastructure (IXP and data center) assessment for optimizing regional data flows with a special focus on landlock countries (reflecting on the findings and recommendations of the WDR2021).

This pre-feasibility study will provide a digital market integration regulatory analysis and private sector participation options for the construction, management, and commercialization of infrastructure at the regional level.