Africa, the Internet and Blogging

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Africa Internet Penetration - 2012
With about half of its people living below the poverty line; with wars, conflicts, poor infrastructure and poor institutions; and unreliable electricity supply in most urban areas or none at all for most of its people - most people in Africa have no time for thinking of the Internet let alone use it. Still, it is in Africa that the Internet is growing fastest.

It is Africa, now, that all the major IT companies are scrambling for. Large parts of Africa gained access to international fibre bandwidth for the first time via submarine cables in 2009 and 2010. In other parts of the continent, additional fibre systems have brought competition to a previously monopolised market. More cables are expected to go online in 2011. This has led to massive investments into terrestrial fibre backbone infrastructure to take the new bandwidth to population centres in the interior and across borders into landlocked countries.....Budde Com. Earlier this year, Google reported that it has been working, in Africa, to understand people's behaviors and attitudes when it comes to the internet. They interviewed over 13,000 people in urban centres of 6 key African countries - Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa and Uganda - to understand how and why people use the internet, what prevents non-users from coming online, and much more. To have an idea about how people use the Internet in Africa, access Google's data at: Insights Africa. And get more data and statistics on the Continent from Internet World Stats.
Top 10 Internet Countries - Africa 2012

With the expansion of the Internet in the Continent, more and more Africans are getting online. East Africans, overall - Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda in particular, are very active online. Some countries, like - Sierra Leone, Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad and DRC are at the bottom of Internet usage; with Ethiopia at the last bottom. Many in Africa who use the Internet are interacting in social-medias. And many are taking up blogging to express themselves: individuals, intuitions and even mainstream media have/are creating blogs. With a variety of topics from politics, entertainment, technology, literature and social justice, some blogs, independently managed by individuals - some anonymously, have become very influential. And these few, have made and are still making a difference in many African countries. It is these blogs that have shaken up and moved many main-stream-media in the Continent - to reshape and readjust their reporting.

Serious, worthy, consistent, innovative blogs on Africa by Africans, are very few. Very unfortunately, very, very few of these serious bloggers have taken up writing on wildlife and the environment as a main subject. I wish there can be more of these. Of Africans, Nigerians lead in blogging, followed by Kenyans, Egyptians and South Africans (in that order). In these countries, blogging is vibrant, very active and bloggers are making a difference. Incidentally, as can be noted, it is these countries that are Africa's economic hubs and powerhouses. It is these countries that are leading in Information and Computer technology on the Continent. Countries that allow blogging and the free expression of its citizens, are more innovative and more forward moving. That's one of the reasons why the United States of America leads and is as powerful technologically as it is.

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