Leveraging ICT for SMARTer Growth in Ghana Minister of Communications Dr. Edward Omane Boamah February 28, 2012

STATEMENT FROM THE PRESIDENT OF GHANA – STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS FEB 21, 2013

Government will continue with the positive outlook and promote the rapid development of broadband infrastructure to reach all parts of the country to ensure that the improved connectivity provides better access to health care and health information, opportunities for education and training, transportation, protection of environment and management of natural resources and to support E-govt to create transparency in government

Fibre Status and Extension Project • Eastern Corridor

Fiber Optic project (780KM of Fibre from Ho to Bawku linking Yendi to Tamale)

• Managed Services

• Backup Datacenter

• Upgrade Network with LTE Solution

Overhead (OPGW)/ Underground 10/18/24 Core

Underground 48-Core

T’di /Elubo

connectivity

Int’nal Fibre Connectivity

linking Ghana to Togo, Benin & Burkina Faso

Eastern Corridor Fibre

Ghana’s Telecommunications Market • Highly competitive mobile

market with 6 players • 25 million subscribers;

100% penetration; • Mobile signal coverage

through most country • 4 submarine cables ;

reducing cost of bandwidth

• Internet users – 14% up from 10% in 2010

MTN 47%

Vodafone 21%

Airtel (Bharti Airtel) 13%

Tigo (Millicom)

12%

Glo Mobile (Globacom)

6%

Expresso (Sudatel)

1%

Mobile Market Share Mobile Coverage

Private sector capitalizing on enabling environment for IT/ITES • 3 large multinational

and over 40 small BPO/ ITES companies

• Nascent developer community

• Untapped potential for medical transcription

Government addressing remaining bottlenecks for IT industry development • Technology Park in

Tema; Prime location for BPO site in Accra

• Similar Tech Park opportunity in Cape Coast

• Collaboration with the World Bank

Govt continuing to improve IT Infrastructure to improve services • Pilot data center with

140TB capacity

• Network in 150 districts

• Ministries, hospitals and universities connected

Ghana GCNET Customs

From…. To….

8 Administrative Work , Error Prone Paper-based, Time Consuming ===High Costs, Duplicative Controls, Unnecessary Delays, Reactive Approach -- weeks to clear consignments

Networking all the parties to a common platform – streamlined clearance processes reducing clearance time to few days, increased revenue of about 50% in first 18 months.

Learning from earlier success in customs reform

• Streamlined processing with star network

• 50% increase in revenue

• Clearance time reduced to few days

Data Center Overview

9

Data Center in Operation To support eServices and eGovt Operations

Router Router

Security gateway Security gateway

Multi-layer switch Multi-layer switch

IDS/IPS IDS/IPS

Antivirus gateway

RunAttentionFault

RemoteSP Present

Standby PowerPower

hp rp74xx

RunAttentionFault

RemoteSP Present

Standby PowerPower

hp rp74xx

RunAttentionFault

RemoteSP Present

Standby PowerPower

hp rp74xx

RunAttentionFault

RemoteSP Present

Standby PowerPower

hp rp74xx

RunAttentionFault

RemoteSP Present

Standby PowerPower

hp rp74xx

RunAttentionFault

RemoteSP Present

Standby PowerPower

hp rp74xx

RunAttentionFault

RemoteSP Present

Standby PowerPower

hp rp74xx

RunAttentionFault

RemoteSP Present

Standby PowerPower

hp rp74xx

RunAttentionFault

RemoteSP Present

Standby PowerPower

hp rp74xx

RunAttentionFault

RemoteSP Present

Standby PowerPower

hp rp74xx

RunAttentionFault

RemoteSP Present

Standby PowerPower

hp rp74xx

RunAttentionFault

RemoteSP Present

Standby PowerPower

hp rp74xx

Service Control Gateway

Maintenance zone Security Operation

Center

Storage

zone

Ministry Operation

zone

Control network

Storage network

Front-end

Service

Network

Back-end

Management

Network

Internet zone

Internal Common zone

Ministry A Private zone

Centralized Operation Platform

VPN access Remote access Storage Interface FCOE

Internet E-government

IP Backbone

Ministry B Private zone

The World Bank has been a Partner from earlier sector reform through eGhana

• Engagement with World Bank Tech Support; spanning from privatization of Ghana Telecom (now Vodafone), licensing of Second Network Operator (now Airtel), support on licensing of remaining operators, and capacity building/regulatory instruments to improve regulations.

• Recent eGhana Project: $56.26 million of IDA financing builds on these developments and focuses on for: (a) e-government applications; and (b) IT industry development

• Achievements under eGhana: • Automation of Revenue Agency (GRA ) and Registrar General’s completed

• Additional applications for immigration, justice, procurement and parliament being developed to improve governance and service delivery

• Major investment promotion leading to some BPO companies locating in Ghana and GASSCOM, a local industry association of ITES/BPO, formed

• 300 CIOs and 500 BPO agents trained

Next frontier for Ghana – Smarter use of ICT for transformational growth and development

Despite the impressive developments in the country's telecommunications/ICT sector, Ghana still ranks very low in ICT adoption (albeit one of the 3 top countries in Africa per ITU estimates - 117th out of 155 countries).

Interested to discuss the best strategies for:

i) encouraging citizen use of ICT, in particular to create business opportunities and generate jobs; and

ii) creating/scaling up applications and services which could transform delivery and reach of public services, especially in the health and education sectors.