Implementing National Research and Education Networks (NRENs) in land locked African countries: critical success factors 1 D. Kunda, Director ICT B. Khunga, CEO ZAMREN

Content 2 1.Challenges of land-locked countries 2.Zambian Case and ZAMREN 3.Critical success factors 4.Sustainability Issues 5.Lessons Learnt

African LLC 3 A landlocked country (LLC) is a country that is completely surrounded by land and having no direct access to the sea or ocean. There are currently 16 African LLC (Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Chad, Central Africa Republic, Ethiopia, Lesotho, Malawi, Mali, Niger, Rwanda, Swaziland, South Sudan, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe)

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Challenges of African LLC 5 1.Lower per capita economic growth on account of geographic disadvantage; 2.Dependence on transit infrastructure; 3.Dependence on political relations with neighbours; 4.Dependence on peace and stability within transit neighbours; 5.Dependence on administrative processes in transit; and 6.Expensive bandwidth costs because of transit costs

Zambia 6 Zambia is LLC Land - 752,614 km2 (290,586 sq mi) Population million (2013) Human Development Index (HDI) (2013) GDP-$26.82 billion (2013) Annual GDP growth rate 6.4% (2014) Poverty Headcount ratio (% of population)- 60.5% Per capita gross national income (GNI)-$1,810 (2013)

Zambia Fibre (2010) 7

Zambian Challenges 8 1.Each of the HEI in Zambia was working independently with small networks with low bandwidth capacity. 2.Maintenance of the existing bandwidth was a major problem due to inadequate funding for public universities. 3.Lack of interconnectivity among the existing institutions in Zambia has hindered collaborative research. 4.The price of bandwidth at US$4,500 per Mbps per month

ZAMREN 9 In 2006 the Zambia Research and Education Network (ZAMREN) was formed The main objectives are to offer secure broadband connectivity to each other, to the dedicated global research and education resources and to the internet. Zambia Research and Education Network (ZAMREN) is a non-profit association for tertiary level research and education institutions But ZAMREN was operationalised in June 2012, when connected to Ubuntunet Alliance PoP in South Africa

Critical success factors 10 1.Initiate Higher Education Institutions and Researchers collaboration; 2.Setting up seed funding and registration of NREN; 3.Financial support; 4.Provision of an enabling Government policy framework; 5.Initiate regional and international collaboration

ZAMREN Network 11

Major Achievements 12 1.A Fully Functional NREN with a Vision 2.A Fully Operational Network:- Currently connecting 41 institutions at 622Mb/s (upgradable) International capacity. 3.Technical Capacity Building 4.Collaboration among the HEI and research institutions 5.Use of ICT in teaching and research 6.It became a game changer in bandwidth pricing

Sustainability 13 1.Negotiate prices with transit carriers. 2.Provision of value added Services. 3.Increase of Membership to Governance - Council of Representatives; ZAMREN Board; Committees of Board; ZAMREN Organization Structure 5.Local and internation Collaboration –MoU with ZICTA to support Last-Mile Connectivity and other projects –MoU with ZESCO to use of its in-country fibre infrastructure –Membership to Ubuntunet Alliance –Participation in Africa Connect Project –Membership to Regional High Performance Computing Resource Centre

Lesson Learnt 14 Lesson 1. There is need for good national ICT policy to start an NREN in a land locked country. Lesson 2. There is need for two or more HEI to come together to kick start the setting up of an NREN Lesson 3. There is need for seed funding to start an NREN Lesson 4. There is need for sustainability strategic plan for an NREN Lesson 5. NREN opens doors for collaboration for HEI and Research Institutes

15 Thank You!