The Africa Data Centre Association (ADCA) is offering free hosting for applications and digital tools that are being used in the fight against COVID-19.

The Association stated: “Africa Data Centre Association is pleased to announce that the following ADCA members will provide free hosting up to 10 Us servers and 2 KW, for any applications aiming to fight the Coronavirus in Africa for the rest of 2020.”

Participating members include: GPX Global systems in Egypt, PAIX in Ghana, Africa Data Centres owned by Liquid Telecom in Kenya, South Africa, Tanzania and Zimbabwe, as well as N+ONE Datacentre in Morocco, Galaxy Backbone in Nigeria and Dataxion in Tunisia.

The organisation has underlined the importance of business continuity and said digitalisation is critical, with datacentres playing an increasingly important role.

Makhtar Diop, World Bank’s Vice President for Infrastructure said in a separate statement: “Countries that do not have the infrastructure for widespread broadband are bracing for the worst. Think about Sub-Saharan Africa, where sixty percent of the population remains out of reach of 4G networks, or countries like Indonesia, where 2G is still the norm.”

“As the crisis wears on, and pandemics of this kind become more common, some countries will be left behind. For a start, being able to deploy digital health care solutions for detecting COVID-19 can save lives, and this will also be important to protect countries against future pandemics,” Diop added.

Already there is a big shift in promoting digital economy by improving internet access, in countries like Kenya, where there is an ongoing deployment of the Loon Balloons by Google.

There has been a 70% surge in internet demand in the East African country.

ADCA said sectors such as commerce, education, payments and mobile education must be ‘always on’ to ensure a country is able to sustain itself and operate during the pandemic.