Thanks to its policy of corporate social responsibility, Vodacom Congo gives its subscribers access to solutions that contribute to the social and financial inclusion of the Congolese people. For more than 21 years, Vodacom Congo has been a privileged and constant partner in the economic and social development of the DRC.
Deploying and operating networks, particularly in deep rural areas, continues to be a significant challenge in the DRC. To bridge the digital divide and expand network coverage in underserved communities, the companies have pledged to jointly construct up to 2,000 new solar-powered base stations over six years, using 2G and 4G technologies.
Mobile Internet penetration in the DRC is at 32.3% and Orange and Vodacom's announcement to construct new base stations in the country aligns with the country's new vision for the digital economy as included in the National Digital Plan Horizon 2025 adopted in 2019.
In the early 2000s DR Congo and its neighbours - South Africa, Angola, Namibia and Botswana - dreamt up an interconnected electricity grid. They looked to the vast Congo River, realising that its powerful waters have an immense hydropower potential.
Through Inga, DR Congo will play its role as "the trigger of the African revolver... a catalyst for the industrialisation of Africa," says the country's Agency for the Development and Promotion of the Grand Inga Project. The BBC contacted the agency for this article but it did not comment.
Inga 1 and 2 now work at around 80% of their capacity and DR Congo has drawn up plans to supercharge this output, by adding six more dams along the river. These extra dams are forecast to generate up to 40,000MW of electricity at any one time - enough to power New York city during the summer.
The DRC aims to connect 32% of the country to elec-tricity by 2030. Meeting this challenge will require co-ordinated efforts from various stakeholders, support-ive policies and regulations, and technical assistance support to prospective projects in order to attract in-vestments.
The public version of the resulting report of the effort is available here. The Democratic Republic of Congo's national electric-ity access rate is estimated at 19%. Less than 1% of the rural population and 41% of the urban population has energy access. Of the country's 10 million house-holds, only 1.6 million have have access to electricity.
DRC has benefited from several grant-making and concessional financing schemes that have helped to unlock private capital for the off-grid solar sector. In 2021, the Swedish investment platform (Trine) en-tered a partnership with Altech, a leading company in the distribution sustainable energy products and ser-vices18.
To strengthen legal and regulatory framework and catalyze private and public investment flow to the sector (including off-grid solar energy), The DRC gov-ernment established two agencies: ARE, which will be the autonomous regulatory agency; and ANSER, which is responsible for rural electrification through-out the DRC's vast territory.
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