GSMA and PDAA release roadmap to narrow Africa’s mobile internet divide

Details: John Tanner; Category: Regulation; 22 September 2026; 175 views

The GSMA and the Partnership for Digital Access in Africa (PDAA) launched a new roadmap on Monday that seeks to narrow Africa’s mobile internet usage gap and connect 1 billion people by 2030.

The roadmap – Advancing Digital Connectivity in Africa: Charting Africa’s Path to 1 Billion Connected People by 2030 – was developed for PDAA by GSMA Intelligence. The roadmap identifies three priorities for getting more people connected, starting with speeding up efforts to migrate mobile users from 2G and 3G handsets to 4G and 5G smartphones.

The roadmap also prioritises integrating investments in energy and connectivity, and reducing the cost of connecting rural and underserved communities, whether via shared infrastructure, tech innovations, outcome-based public funding and anchor demand from schools, healthcare facilities and other public institutions.

The roadmap notes that progress across any of the outlined priorities needs to be reinforced by “access to affordable, quality smartphones; practical digital skills; safe and trusted services; locally relevant content; digital public infrastructure; and policies that promote investment and inclusion.”

The GSMA/PDAA roadmap notes that progress will vary from market to market, depending on which of the three priorities needs more urgent attention. For example, some markets will need to focus more on expanding rural coverage and reliable electricity access, while others will have to prioritise smartphone affordability, digital skills or developing digital services people would feel compelling enough to connect in the first place.

“A network can reach a community, but meaningful participation depends on the conditions around it: reliable energy, affordable devices, digital skills and services people have a reason to use,” said PDAA CEO Ibrahima Guimba-Saïdou. “This roadmap gives us a practical framework for bringing those conditions together and turning access into opportunity at scale.”

“Africa has already built much of the network foundation for its digital future. The urgent task now is to close the usage gap by making smartphones and services affordable, equipping people with practical skills, building trust and ensuring connectivity delivers visible value in people’s daily lives,” added John Giusti, GSMA chief regulatory officer and president of GSMA Foundation.

The roadmap builds on the GSMA’s State of Mobile Internet Connectivity Report 2026 published earlier this month, which found that 3.1 billion people globally live within mobile broadband coverage but do not use mobile internet. For Africa, that number is around 906 million people – almost 60% of the continent’s population. Meanwhile, 122 million people (8% of the population) still live in areas with no mobile broadband coverage at all.

The GSMA/PDAA roadmap leverages analysis from 11 African markets, including the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa and Uganda. The GSMA said that if the mobile internet usage gap across just those 11 markets can be cut in half, it would result in 245 million additional people getting online.

The PDAA brings together governments, philanthropy, the private sector, and civil society to advance digital access across the continent, with the goal of connecting 1 billion Africans to the internet by 2030.

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, co-chair of PDAA, former president of Liberia and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, said that goal is ambitious but achievable.

“If we bring together connectivity, electrification, affordable devices and digital skills – and if we match Africa’s many promising programmes with the power of genuine public-private partnership – we can ensure that the continent’s digital transformation leaves no community behind,” she said in a statement.