West Africa’s fast-growing digital economy, now valued at up to US$150 billion, faces significant vulnerability after a series of submarine cable failures exposed deep structural weaknesses in the region’s internet infrastructure.
According to the West African Telecommunications Regulators Assembly (WATRA), a major outage in March 2024 cut internet traffic across parts of West Africa by more than 50%, disrupting critical services and revealing how fragile the region’s connectivity backbone remains.
The incident involved multiple submarine cable systems, including West Africa Cable System (WACS), Africa Coast to Europe, MainOne Cable and SAT-3 Cable System, which were damaged almost simultaneously off the coast near Côte d’Ivoire.
The result was widespread service disruption across major markets such as Nigeria, Ghana and neighbouring economies. At the peak of the crisis, internet traffic in affected countries dropped sharply, with some services taking days to fully recover.
The consequences extended far beyond temporary inconvenience.
Banks struggled to process transactions, fintech platforms stalled, and cloud-based operations across industries were interrupted. The outage highlighted how deeply integrated digital infrastructure has become in everyday economic activity across the region.
WATRA’s Executive Secretary, Aliyu Aboki, described submarine cables as “foundational to economic activity,” noting that more than 95% of global internet traffic is transmitted through these undersea systems.
Yet West Africa lacks the resilience seen in more developed regions.
Unlike Europe or North America, where multiple redundant cable routes ensure continuity during disruptions, West Africa operates with limited backup capacity. This means that when one or more cables fail, there are fewer alternative pathways to reroute traffic, amplifying the scale of outages.
What made the March 2024 incident particularly severe was the clustering of faults.
While most submarine cable damage is typically caused by fishing activities, ship anchors or natural seabed movement, simultaneous failures across multiple systems are rare. In this case, the overlap overwhelmed available backup systems, leaving countries with little immediate recourse.
Beyond infrastructure limitations, the crisis also exposed governance and coordination gaps.
Submarine cable networks span multiple countries, but regulatory frameworks remain fragmented. Differences in permitting rules, emergency response protocols and cable protection policies slowed repair efforts, especially where cross-border coordination was required.
For investors, this fragmentation presents a serious concern.
According to WATRA, uncertainty around infrastructure reliability and regulatory coordination directly increases the cost of capital for digital investments in the region. As Africa positions itself as a growing hub for fintech, cloud services and digital innovation, such risks could deter long-term investment.
Repairing submarine cables is also both expensive and time-consuming.
Fixing a single cable fault can cost between $1.5 million and $2 million, largely because specialised repair vessels are not based in West Africa. Instead, they are typically stationed in locations such as Cape Town, leading to delays in response times. In more complex cases involving multiple cable failures, costs can rise to as much as $8 million.
These delays carry real economic consequences.
Africa’s digital economy is expanding rapidly, driven by mobile technology, fintech innovation and increasing cloud adoption. However, it remains heavily dependent on a small number of submarine cables, many of which follow similar routes along the West African coastline. This concentration increases the risk of widespread disruption when failures occur.
In Nigeria, the region’s largest internet market, the outage forced telecom operators, banks and digital service providers into emergency mode. The disruption underscored the vulnerability of economies that are actively transitioning toward cashless systems and digital platforms.
In response, WATRA is calling for a coordinated regional approach to strengthen resilience.
Proposed reforms include harmonising regulations across countries, streamlining permitting processes, establishing pre-arranged emergency repair frameworks and improving data sharing among member states. The organisation also emphasised the need for greater investment in route diversification to reduce the risk of simultaneous cable failures.
Aboki stressed that future investments must prioritise durability and coherence, not just capacity expansion.
“The challenge is not simply to build more cables, but to build systems that are financeable, durable, and regionally coherent,” he said.
The urgency is growing.
As global technology companies increase investment in African connectivity, cloud infrastructure and digital services, the reliability of the region’s internet backbone is becoming a decisive factor. Without stronger infrastructure and coordinated policy frameworks, the continent’s digital growth ambitions could face significant setbacks.
The 2024 outage has become a wake-up call.
For West Africa, securing the future of its $150 billion digital economy will depend on whether it can turn that warning into sustained action.
