UNICEF to bring half a million African schools online

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) is fast-tracking a procurement push to connect half a million African schools to the Internet.

The UN agency said that after five years of planning, it is set to advance a formal procurement process aimed at connecting 500,000 schools to the Internet by 2030.

The organization is using its global supply chain expertise “to lower barriers, accelerate rollout, and ensure value for money,” also promising the program will cut costs for African governments and unlock new opportunities for tech providers.

Connecting these schools to the Internet across Africa will cost about $6 billion over five years plus an additional $1.2 billion in annual operating costs.

The final amounts will depend on the costs of connectivity, which UNICEF aims to reduce by as much as 60%, it said.

“When we bring UNICEF’s procurement power to the table, it changes what’s possible – governments can connect more schools, more quickly, and at a lower cost. That means more young people gaining the digital skills they need to participate in the global economy,” said Jaime Archundia, UNICEF’s procurement and market development lead for the Giga initiative.

The Giga initiative was launched in 2019 by UNICEF and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) to connect every school in the world to the Internet. Despite progress, one-third of the global population remains offline.

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Connecting 500,000 schools to the Internet across Africa will cost about $6 billion over five years plus an additional $1.2 billion in annual operating costs. (Source: freepik)

UNICEF touted itself as one of the world’s largest buyers of goods and services for children – from vaccines to ready-to-use therapeutic food – and procured $5.2 billion in supplies and services across 162 countries in 2023 alone.

It said that same “procurement power” is now being used to close the digital divide.

The organization said it can also help to attract more bilateral and multilateral funding for school connectivity, reducing the costs for governments even further.

In Sierra Leone, for example, it has worked with the government to pitch for finance from the Islamic Development Bank. 

In search of private sector partners

UNICEF said that private sector suppliers will benefit from a transparent procurement processes, predictable contracts and a large untapped market.

“We are activating this market,” Archundia said. 

Over 100 private companies have expressed an interest in working with UNICEF to connect African schools to the Internet.

UNICEF is now preparing to issue a Request for Proposals (RFP) by the third quarter of 2025.

Those companies that meet the standards on price and quality will then be invited to bid on a list of specific schools to connect. 

“Our target is to cluster school connectivity projects across all Africa, into groups of thousands of schools, so we can make deployments more efficient and reduce costs,” Archundia explained. 

“By mapping school connectivity and developing finance and delivery models for multiple countries, UNICEF has improved market transparency and dropped the levels of risk for private investors,” the UN agency said.

It added that a lack of electricity and other infrastructure gaps do not have to be an obstacle, because it is looking to bring solar power and satellite connections, when needed, into the market, adding to the list of suppliers and increasing market competition. 

Companies like Ericsson have already partnered with the Giga initiative to connect schools in countries like Kenya.