07 February 2025

In 2024, internet blockades by authorities caused a total loss of US$1.56 billion for sub-Saharan African economies, according to Top10Vpn – down by 10.34% compared to 2023, when it stood at US$1.74 billion.

The economic costs of shutdowns are calculated using the Netblocks Cost of Shutdown Tool, based on the Brookings Institution methodology with a specialized model used for sub-Saharan Africa. Losses are estimated based on each region’s digital GDP, the duration of the outages, and the number of internet users affected. Data comes from reliable sources such as the World Bank and governments. Social platform restrictions, while specific, are assessed based on the total number of internet users in a region, as they disrupt access for everyone, regardless of active use of the blocked platforms.

Internet outages in sub-Saharan Africa totalled 32,938 hours, affecting 111.2 million internet users. Asia and sub-Saharan Africa experienced about 10 times more hours or internet outages than the other most affected regions.

Sudan, which has been at war for several years, is the most affected country with losses estimated at US$1.12 billion, or about 72% of the region’s total losses in 2024. The country has accumulated 12,707 hours of internet outages, affecting 23.4 million internet users. It appears in third place in the world on this list, behind Pakistan (US$1.62 billion) and Burma (US$1.58 billion).

Ethiopia (US$211.2 million) and Kenya (US$75 million) are second and third in sub-Saharan Africa. They cut the internet for 4,680 hours affecting 3.3 million Internet users, and 511 hours affecting 22.7 million internet users, respectively. They are followed by Guinea (US$60.9 million), Mauritania (US$45.1 million), Senegal (US$15.4 million), Mozambique (US$14.6 million), Chad (US$3.8 million), Mauritius (US$2.1 million), Tanzania (US$1.4 million), Equatorial Guinea (US$500,000) and Comoros (US$200,000).