(Ecofin Agency) - Abdelkader Messahel and Geoffrey Onyeama, foreign affairs ministers of Algeria and Nigeria respectively, updated their countries’ partnership for the fiber optic that should link Algiers and Abuja. This operation was conducted during the fourth session of the Algeria-Nigeria High Joint Cooperation Committee held in Algiers on October 14, 2018.

During the meeting, a new roadmap was established to finish the realization of the telecommunications infrastructure that will tighten the two countries’ economic partnership.

In the framework of the project between Algeria and Nigeria (joined in 2003 by Niger), notable progress has been made in the past years. There is, for instance, the signing of a construction, operation, and maintenance agreement in Niamey in July 2005 by the three countries. In 2010, they completed and adopted the technical specifications. In 2011, they adopted administrative and technical clauses in Niamey and set a project management committee. During the African Internet Governance Conference held in Algiers in 2017, they also installed the Liaison Committee of Trans-Saharan Fibre Optic Backbone.

Inscribed in January 2002 among their growth priorities, the Fibre optic backbone project between Algeria and Nigeria was initiated during the first meeting of the Algeria-Nigeria High Joint Cooperation Committee held in Mumbai, India and co-presided by the two partners, then presidents Abdelaziz Bouteflika and Olusegun Obasanjo. The project launched in the framework of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD)  is about 4,500 km long.  Algeria captures the longest fiber with 2,800 km while 900 km would be deployed in Niger and 800 km in Nigeria.