Nigeria’s new National Digital Cloud Policy will require federal ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) to prioritise cloud infrastructure when building new digital systems and services, potentially making the government a major new customer for the country’s cloud providers.
On Monday, Nigeria’s Federal Ministry of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy released the National Digital Cloud Policy, a framework for how Nigeria will build, regulate and use cloud infrastructure.
The policy is the government’s latest effort to reduce reliance on overseas systems and bring more of its cloud infrastructure in-country. Over 90% of Nigeria’s digital data and enterprise workloads are currently hosted on offshore servers, resulting in an estimated $850 million in annual capital flight. The implementation of this policy will expand Nigeria’s cloud and data centre market, projected to reach $782 million by 2031.
“Nigeria must move from being primarily a consumer of global cloud infrastructure to becoming a competitive location for the infrastructure, investment, skills and digital services that will define the next phase of the global digital economy,” Bosun Tijani, Minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, said in a statement.
Originally published by TechCabal.