Djibouti Digital Foundations Project — liberalising telecoms to close the connectivity gap

Djibouti's telecom sector has long been dominated by a single state operator, leaving households, schools and small businesses with limited, costly connectivity options and little digital-skills support.
On 5 December 2021 the World Bank approved a US$10 million IDA credit for the Digital Foundations Project, implemented through the Ministère de l'Économie Numérique et de l'Innovation (MDENI). The project funds institutional strengthening of the Ministry of Communication and the Autorité de Régulation Multisectorielle (ARMD), MSME business support, digital-skills programmes (entrepreneur training plus integration of digital competencies into school and university curricula), and disaster-response/climate-monitoring capacity — aligned with Djibouti's Vision 2035 strategy.
The project has moved from approval into real procurement: a competitively tendered contract to design and implement MDENI's communication strategy has already been awarded under the project, per international development-tender records, indicating the reform agenda is being actively executed rather than only announced.
At this stage, however, no independently published evaluation of outcomes — such as measured price falls, new market entrants, or numbers of citizens completing digital-skills training — is yet publicly accessible, so the project's real-world impact on digital inclusion in Djibouti remains to be demonstrated.

Read the full analysis: https://moderndiplomacy.eu/2021/12/05/new-project-to-support-the-emergence-of-a-digital-economy-in-djibouti/