On Friday 3 February 2023, the “Fleuve jaune” room of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation hosted the presentation of the 2023 agenda of the digital and digitalisation sector, chaired by Minister Aurelie ADAM SOULE ZOUMAROU
Impact, greater resilience and scaling up will be the watchwords for 2023 in the digital and digitalisation sector. 2023 will be the year of implementation of the National Artificial Intelligence and Big Data Strategy (SNIAM) and of the continuation of many projects, such as the rollout of digital classrooms and e-services, and the regulatory framework, in particular the Digital Code, the law on digital broadcasting and data protection. The extension of mobile sites and the 5G pilot phase will also be highlights of 2023. Minister Aurelie ADAM SOULE ZOUMAROU also announced two major reforms, namely the pooling of passive infrastructure construction works and the inclusion of training in minimum digital skills in mainstream training and certification curricula.
In the media sector, the focus will be on continuing the modernisation of ORTB, launching the A+ Bénin channel, establishing a framework for organising the advertising sector, and launching DTT with decoders being made available on the market.
As a reminder, the appropriations allocated to the Ministry of Digital Affairs and Digitalisation for the 2023 financial year amount to thirty-one billion seventy-five million eighty-one thousand (31,075,081,000) CFA francs, i.e. 9,003,433,000 CFA francs for recurrent expenditure and 22,071,648,000 CFA francs for capital expenditure. The main planned actions are:
Extending mobile coverage in rural areas and setting up community digital points in eligible municipalities that do not yet have them
Designing and developing new training curricula to enrich the training offering of the school of digital professions
Developing and promoting artificial intelligence and data management applications useful to national programmes
Continuing the implementation of Smart Gouv by securing, strengthening and generalising electronic mail and document management
Implementing activities relating to the digital transformation of local authorities
Accelerating the modernisation of ORTB
Bringing the new television channel A+ Bénin into operation
Strengthening the regulatory framework for the media sector
The presentation of the sector agenda was also an opportunity for the private sector (ISPs and mobile operators), the Smart Africa Alliance and development partners such as UNDP and GIZ to set out their flagship actions related to the digital sector planned for 2023.
The event was attended by the President of ARCEP, Flavien BACHABI; the President of the APDP, Yvon DETCHENOU; the Ambassador of the United States to Benin, His Excellency Mr Brian Shukan; and the Director General of Smart Africa, Lacina KONE.