24 November 2023

Project Giga, which aims to connect all the world’s schools to the internet, has extended its reach to 12 new countries, including six African countries: Benin, Botswana, Guinea, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe.

Led by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), the initiative is now present in 30 countries.

The main activities of Project Giga include solutions for school mapping; infrastructure planning; real-time connectivity monitoring; financing and improving market access and procurement processes. National steering committees are also set up in each country.

It was in June 2019 that UNICEF and the ITU set up the Giga project in order to connect all the world’s schools to the Internet by 2030. The initiative and its partners claim nearly 6,000 schools and 2.4 million students connected to the Internet. It targets 25,000 schools and 10 million students in the next 18 months. It has also mobilized more than $1.7 billion to fund school connectivity in eight countries, with a particular focus on the world’s most remote and underserved areas.

“We’ve reached 30 countries not only to connect schools, but also to give governments the tools and solutions they need to achieve universal school connectivity. We are empowering each country to tailor solutions to their specific needs, so that no child is left behind in the digital age,” said Doreen Bogdan-Martin, ITU secretary-general.