Economic impact of Internet disruptions in Sub-Saharan Africa

A new report has been published by the Collaboration on International ICT Policy for East and Southern Africa (CIPESA), offering a ‘Framework for calculating the economic impact of Internet disruptions in Sub-Saharan Africa’. According to the document, one million dollars are lost a day because of Internet outages. In total, 236 days of disruption have occurred in the last two years, and have resulted in $237m of economic damage. The report also notices that “economic losses caused by an internet disruption persist far beyond the days on which the shutdown occurs, because network disruptions unsettle supply chains and have systemic effects that harm efficiency throughout the economy.”