Namibia has drawn inspiration from neighbouring Angola as it embarks on plans to establish its own sovereign datacentre.
This emerged as Emma Theofelus, the Namibian minister of Information and Communication Technology, led a ministry delegation to the newly inaugurated National Data Center in Luanda, Angola, this past weekend.
The tour was part of the just-concluded ANGOTIC, Angola’s premier international information and communications technology forum.
The National Institute for the Promotion of the Information Society (INFOSI) hosted the delegation.
INFOSI director general, André Mpumba Pedro, took the delegation on a tour of the facility, providing an overview of its infrastructure and operations.
Theofelus emphasised the importance of digital infrastructure development, and said her country is progressing with plans to set up its own national datacentre.
Inaugurated at the end of April, the datacentre forms part of Angola's broader digital transformation efforts.
The $89 million project is Angola’s first sovereign national datacentre, occupying 6,225m².
Namibia has announced plans to build a national datacentre as a core pillar of its 2025–2029 digital strategy, but dates regarding the facility have not been set.
However, the country has already established commercial datacentres, including the Armada datacentre, operated by Paratus, and the Virtual Space Data Centre, a collaboration run by Airbus and the Namibia University of Science & Technology.
E-wastes challenges
While in Luanda, Theofelus also met Halima Letamo, Southern Africa representative at the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), to discuss the growing challenge of electronic waste management across Africa.
Letamo emphasised the increasing concern posed by e-waste and the importance of developing practical and sustainable measures to address it.
“The handling of this e-waste is not yet at levels where all of us would like to see it. We have to protect our citizens. Citizens are still so unaware of the dangers of mishandling this e-waste,” she said.
Theofelus noted Namibia had adopted the National E-Waste Policy in 2022, with current efforts focused on developing implementation mechanisms to guide citizens and local municipalities on the proper handling and disposal of e-waste.
“We now need to move into the second part of coming up with an implementation plan that is able to manage how e-waste is disposed of by citizens,” the minister said.
She proposed partnerships with the ITU to enable this.
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