Government aims to achieve 95 percent broadband coverage by 2024, Deputy Minister of Information and Communication Technology Engel Nawatiseb, told Parliament recently. Nawatiseb made this declaration while tabling the Broadband Policy and its Implementation Action Plan in the National Assembly.
He added that the government also aims at 100 percent broadband connections and usage to all primary and secondary schools in the country to enable e-learning by 2024.
Similarly, he said the government also intends to have 90 percent broadband connection and usage to 70 percent of the health facilities in the country to ensure e-health by 2024.
"It gives me great pleasure to table rapid technological evolutions that impact the day-to-day lives of most global citizens. Namibian citizens are no exception.
"Nations are digitalising their services to ease the way of service delivery to the citizens. This requires high-speed internet access," he said.
He said the role of broadband services, as an enabler of economic and social development in countries, is widely recognised in various studies and in documents such as the report of the United Nations Broadband Commission.
According to him, the fifth annual edition of the Alliance for Affordable Internet Report of 2018 indicates that affordable internet to low- and middle-income countries is where 1 Gigabyte of mobile broadband data is priced at two percent or less of average monthly income.