By David Muwanga

UGANDA has earned $213m (sh377b) from private investments in telecommunications in the last 10 years, a World Bank report has said.

“Uganda got $213m from private investments in telecommunications between 1992 and 2002. Kenya got $107m (sh189.3b) and Tanzania $351m (sh621.2b),” Mohsen Khalil, the director of the World Bank’s global information and communication technology department, said in the report.

The draft report, titled “Financing Information and Communication Infrastructure Needs in the Developing World: Public and Private Roles,” says the digital divide has reduced over the last 10 years in many countries in Africa, but more should be done.

Rapid technological expansion over the past decade has resulted into half of the world’s households having a fixed telephone line and 77% of the world’s population is under the signal footprint of a mobile phone provider.

The report said although the private sector in developing countries had invested $210b (sh371.7 trillion) in telecommunications over the last decade, many people especially in Africa, lack access to basic communication tools.

“Access to more advanced services like Internet, broadband and international bandwidth is limited. Countries with well-regulated private competition in telecommunications see higher investment and more rapid roll-out of services,” the report said.

“Internet usage in low-income countries more than doubled between 1998 and 2000 in countries which had largely completed the telecommunications reform than those where reform had been slower,” the report said.