📋 Tender Overview
TCRS: 22522
Status: TC Com approved
Location: Regional
Business Sector: Telecommunications Media and Technology
Notice Type: Public
PSD Disclosed: 25 Nov 2025
Project Description
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is launching a Technical Cooperation (TC) project to assess the telecommunications, media, and technology (TMT) sector in its six newly approved Sub-Saharan African (SSA) Countries of Operations (COOs): Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire, and Benin (and Ghana when approved).
The EBRD’s expansion into these six SSA economies is creating a significant opportunity for the Bank to support one of the world’s fastest-growing regions, where digital connectivity, infrastructure and innovation are central to economic transformation. Despite rapid growth in mobile usage, entrepreneurship and digital services, the region continues to face persistent structural challenges. Internet penetration in Africa remains only 38%, far below the global average of 68%, while fixed broadband access is limited, costly, and unevenly distributed between urban and rural areas. Data-centre infrastructure remains nascent, 4G coverage is inconsistent, and regulatory and policy frameworks are often fragmented or underdeveloped.
At the same time, the momentum for digital development is accelerating. The African internet economy is estimated to reach 5% of continental GDP by 2025, driven by expanding connectivity, fast-growing fintech ecosystems, regional infrastructure investments, and a rising demand for digital public and private services. Yet investment decisions – both public and private – remain constrained by insufficient market intelligence, gaps in policy coherence, and a lack of coordinated sector reforms.
Against this backdrop, the EBRD requires a comprehensive, evidence-based understanding of the TMT landscape in its new SSA markets to calibrate its strategic approach, identify investment and policy-dialogue entry points, and engage credibly with national authorities, regulators, private investors and development partners. This TC project will therefore deliver a structured assessment of market conditions, infrastructure gaps, policy constraints, and emerging opportunities across telecoms, broadband, data infrastructure and digital services.
TC Services
The Bank will engage a consultant to conduct an in-depth, cross-country study that will:
• Analyse regional and national TMT markets, covering mobile networks, fixed broadband, fibre infrastructure, data centres and cloud services, and emerging digital platforms.
• Assess policy, regulatory and institutional frameworks, identifying gaps that affect affordability, competition, quality of service and private-sector participation.
• Map key market players, including mobile network operators, internet service providers (ISPs), data-centre operators, infrastructure providers, tech innovators, and development actors.
• Identify investment bottlenecks, struct
