Company Announcement - Alcatel-Lucent is to provide the government of Burkina Faso with cloud networking technology that will enable it to develop new digital public services, such as E-government, E-learning and E-health.  Alcatel-Lucent will supply the West African nation with its NFV (Network Functions Virtualization), Cloudband and IP platforms, which will be integrated into the ‘G-Cloud’ infrastructure to being built around virtualized network resources from cloud nodes in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso’s capital, and five provinces.

Approximately 400 buildings in 13 regional urban centers will be connected through a 513Km fiber-optic IP/MPLS wide area network. Backhaul will be provided by an 800 km fiber-optic transmission system that will become part of Burkina Faso’s National Fibre Optics Backbone. Alcatel-Lucent and the Ministry of Development of the Digital Economy and Posts as well as the National Agency for the Promotion of ICT in Burkina Faso, are celebrating the ‘G-Cloud’ project launching. Their excellencies, Mr. Yacouba Isaac ZIDA, the Prime Minister of Burkina Faso; Dr. Nébila Amadou YARO, the Minister of Digital Economy and Post and Mr. Bo Jensen, the Danish Ambassador to Burkina Faso, were among the local and national dignitaries who attended a ceremony on 12 November  in Ouagadougou.

Attendees at the ceremony included, Mr. Alfred SAWADOGO, General Director of ANPTIC,; Mr. Borlli Jonas Michel SOME, General Secretary of ANPTIC; Mr. Boris OUOBA, Financial Director of ANPTIC; Mr. Ahmed BOUDA, Director of governmental intranet of ANPTIC as well as other high level members from government representatives and executives guests. From Alcatel-Lucent participated:  Alpin Verlet, Head of the company’s activities in West and Central Africa; Mr. Jan Plenge, Export Director; Elarabi Bouddane, General Project Manager; Peter Fink Country Senior Officer Denmark;  Cheick-Abach Ouedraogo, Regional Sales Manager West Africa. 

The project is part of an ambitious IT and telecommunication strategy being administered by the country’s Ministry for Digital Development (MDENP - Ministère du Développement de l'Économie Numérique et des Postes), and intends to enable connectivity between public departments and municipalities via an e-government platform - an integral element of Burkina Faso’s Economic and Social Development Strategy, SCADD (Stratégie pour une croissance accéléré et un développement durable).

The network will support the anticipated increase in future demand for digital services to the health, education, justice, immigration, parliament and other sectors in the coming years. Under the agreement with MDENP, Alcatel-Lucent will support network and infrastructure operations to be installed by 2017. Financing for the project is being facilitated by the Danish government through the Danida Business Finance agency, whose contribution to the project amounts to Eur 30 million (19.9 billion FCFA) with a direct grant subsidy of Eur 15.5 million (10 billion FCFA).