African infrastructure is being developed to boost economy

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African infrastructure is being developed to boost economy

Innovative transport systems, telecoms operations and smart cities are being developed across the African continent to boost economies and increase trade opportunities. The Kazungula Bridge is a 923 meter long bridge over the Zambezi River that connects Botswana and Zambia. It was opened in May 2021 and replaced a ferry to speed up truck traffic along a key north-south trade artery.

A $5 billion dam is planned across the Nile -- The ambitious.

The dam has been controversial from the get-go. The Blue Nile is one of the two sources for the Nile River, providing The ambitious Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam GERD is one of Africa's biggest infrastructure projects. The $5 billion dam is built on the Blue Nile River near Ethiopia's border with Sudan and will generate 6,000 megawatts of electricity annually. The project aims to turn Ethiopia into Africa's biggest hydroelectric exporter, but the dam has been controversial from the get-go. The Blue Nile is one of two sources for the Nile River, providing 85% of the water that flows north through Sudan and Egypt to the Mediterranean Sea. The colonial-era agreements mean that Egypt and Sudan, which rely on the river for their water supply, have maintained control over the river in the past - but Ethiopia's dam threatens this. The negotiations between Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt are ongoing, but an agreement is yet to be reached. Ethiopia began generating electricity from the dam on February 20, 2022.

Supercharging western Africa's internet giant, Google Equiano, is a subsea internet cable running from Portugal to South Africa, with 20 times the bandwidth of the previous cable serving the west coast of Africa. According to research done by Google, it has the potential to increase internet speeds five-fold in some countries and reduce data costs.

A multi billion dollar expansion of Lagos started on the multi billion dollar Eko Atlantic project, which is going to transform Lagos, Nigeria's largest city, in 2009. The new financial hub, which consists of 10 square kilometers of reclaimed land, has space for up to 300,000 residents and 150,000 daily commuters. There are concerns that the development of the Eko Atlantic is causing coastal erosion and could make neighboring areas vulnerable to flooding.