Huawei doubles down on Africa

Black and white version of “Lion” by Capri23auto (Pixabay)

After its recent woes with the US, Huawei is not letting go of Africa; and Africa is not letting go of Huawei.

The Smart Zambia project

This week, the Zambian government has described its partnership with Huawei under Smart Zambia, a large project aiming to improve information and communications technology (ICT) in the country, as a “step in the right direction”.

Robster Mwanza, Chongwe District Commissioner (central Zambia), stated the government was optimistic that the partnership would create many jobs for young people. “Huawei is a reputable firm that has advanced technology and this partnership should be able to accord us access to technologies such as the 5G. I am particularly excited because our young population will greatly benefit through what will come out of the financing agreement which Zambia and China went into in 2015,”.

The tone is very different from what you may have heard about the Chinese tech giant in recent times…