Huawei recently held its Digital Africa Summit in Marrakech, Morocco, with the theme “Accelerate Intelligence for New Africa”. The event saw the participation of over 300 customers, experts, scholars, and analysts from more than 10 African countries and regions, who convened to discuss the current state and future trends of intelligence in Africa, with the aim of accelerating the continent’s digital transformation.

Huawei has been collaborating closely with African customers and partners for over two decades. In the Northern Africa region (North, West and Central Africa), together with carriers, Huawei has connected 380 million people across the continent via mobile communications networks and provided fixed broadband to 31 million households. Additionally, Huawei, together with over 3,000 partners, serves a diverse range of customers in sectors such as government, finance, electricity, oil and gas, education, and transportation, facilitating the digitalization of many industries.

During the Summit, Mr. Richard Liu, President of the ICT Marketing Solution Sales Dept at Huawei, stated in his keynote speech: “From new infrastructure, new value, to new ecosystem, Huawei is in Africa, for Africa. Moving forward, Huawei will continue to provide more products and solutions for intelligent digital infrastructure, as well as remain a reliable partner for Africa’s digital and intelligent transformation. To achieve this, we will continue to innovate around connectivity, computing, storage, cloud, and foundation models, and dive deeper into high-value scenarios, maximize the benefits of digitalization and intelligence. Huawei will work closely with our customers, partners, and developers to create an open, thriving ecosystem for digital and intelligent industries.”

Mohammed Drissi Melyani, General Director of Morocco ADD, pointed out that “the digitalization in Morocco is vitally important for the country’s economic development in the near future. With the talent in the country, we believe it will bring a bright future to Morocco and Africa.”

Colin Hu, President of Enterprise & Cloud Business, Huawei Northern Africa, stated that “Africa embarks on a transformative journey into an era of intelligence. Huawei has put forward the value proposition of ‘Accelerate Intelligence for New Africa’, aiming to build New Infrastructure, develop New Ecosystems, and create New Value alongside customers and partners. We proposed the Huawei Intelligent Future plan. Huawei will invest 500 million dollars in the next 5 years to enhance Huawei Public Cloud coverage. Huawei will collaborate with local partners in other countries to build more than 10 in-country cloud platforms, in addition to the Cairo Region launched in May 21st, 2024. Furthermore, Huawei plans to invest 200 million dollars to support over 200 local software companies and more than 500 channel partners, and an additional 50 million dollars to train over 50,000 developers and 100,000 digital professionals.”

Mohamed Ben Amor, General Secretary of AICTO, emphasized, “By embracing intelligent technologies, we can transform Africa into a hub of innovation and lasting prosperity. Together, we can accelerate intelligence for new Africa.”

Tariku Demissie, Senior Chief Technical Officer of Ethio Telecom, said in his speech: “Ethio Telecom is deepening its leading digital solution provider vision by leveraging its connectivity, cloud and platform to ensure financial inclusion, payment, vertical solution and ecosystem development. This involves creating a platform economy through comprehensive coverage of payment, social, entertainment sectors. It also ensures vertical industry digitalization and accelerates national digitization, which will eventually create new growth engines for Ethio Telecom.”

Alex Pierre MEYE NTYAM, CTO of Cameroon CNPS, mentioned that “CNPS Cameroon has been committed to becoming the Forerunner of the Digital Economy development strategy, Pioneer in the digital transformation of Cameroonian enterprises, Leader of ICT development in African Social Insurance companies and Practitioner of Modernization Management. Since 2017 we have collaborated with Huawei to strengthen digital social security services. We are the witness to see what digital transformation may bring in terms of felicitating the work and process fluidity. We will never cease to pursue the development of digitalization and intelligentization.”

Huawei also invited Wael EIMonairy, Regional Managing Director of Egabi Solutions, to share the AI functions developed using HUAWEI CLOUD capabilities. HUAWEI CLOUD adheres to the concept of “co-creation, win-win, and sharing”. By empowering talent and developers, expanding the partner network, and building a strong cloud market, Huawei aims to promote ecosystem prosperity and accelerate the construction of Digital Africa.

The total amount of airline funds blocked from repatriation globally has decreased by 28% to $1.8 billion as of April 2024. This reduction was driven largely by a significant clearance of blocked funds in Nigeria.

However, Ethiopia continues to face challenges, owing $149 million in blocked funds. This represents a significant portion of the $1.6 billion in blocked funds that is concentrated in just 8 countries, which make up 87% of the total.

IATA has urged governments to remove barriers to airlines repatriating their revenues, noting that this is guaranteed under bilateral agreements and is critical for airlines to maintain economically vital air connectivity. The organization commended the efforts of the new Nigerian government in clearing 98% of the previously blocked $850 million, while calling on Ethiopia and other countries to urgently address the remaining blocked funds.

The devaluation of local currencies like the Egyptian Pound and Nigerian Naira has also adversely affected airlines, even as progress is made in clearing the blocked funds. IATA stressed that with airline margins already thin, the inability to repatriate revenues threatens the sustainability of aviation services.

Overall, the report shows a positive trend in reducing blocked funds globally, but significant challenges remain for countries like Ethiopia to fully comply with treaty obligations and allow airlines access to their rightfully earned revenues.