This progress underscores the region’s growing commitment to enhancing digital infrastructure, security, and market readiness, ensuring more stable and accessible online services for millions.

The Internet Society’s Pulse Internet Resilience Index—which tracks key indicators such as infrastructure, performance, security, and market preparedness—reveals that West Africa’s overall Internet resilience score has climbed to 34%, marking a two-percentage-point increase between 2022 and 2023.

This upward trend translates into more reliable access to essential online services, including education, healthcare, and economic opportunities, reinforcing the Internet’s role as a key driver of development across the region.

Benin (39%) and Senegal (36%) secured impressive six- and ten-point increases between 2022 and 2023, the highest increases among African countries. This moved them into the second and fifth positions in West Africa.

“Senegal has changed remarkably over the last few years,” commented Ahmath Bamba Mbacke, president of Internet Society Senegal Chapter. “Over 60% of the population has access to the Internet, and at least 96% of Internet users have access to at least one device with 4G mobile Internet. 20% of users in Senegal can access online resources using IPv6, which is far above the average 7% for Africa. There are concerted efforts to improve upstream diversity to ensure that our in-country infrastructure can recover from unexpected events with the help of SENIX (Senegalese IXP) and keep our Internet stable and secure in the face of adversity.”

“There has been a marked effort to improve Internet infrastructure in Benin,” says Malick Alassane, Chair of Internet Society Benin Chapter.

“Strong foundations have been laid to continue improving Internet access, security, performance, and market readiness across the country to ensure that more people can take advantage of the social and economic benefits that strong, resilient, and stable Internet brings to the country and West Africa as a whole. The development of this environment and trusted infrastructures in our country has led, for example, to the emergence of new e-service platforms, now accessible in just one click, making life easier for citizens and businesses.”

Côte d’Ivoire continues to have the highest IRI score in the region (42%) and the sixth highest in Africa.

Although it didn’t experience any growth between 2022 and 2023, its score has increased by 12 points since 2019.

Benin, Burkina Faso (38%), Nigeria (38%), Senegal (36%), and Ghana (36%) round out the top six countries in West Africa. Niger (27%) was the only country in the region to experience a decrease in its Internet Resilience Index score for the past 12 months.

As the individual Pulse Country Reports show, these changes are driven by multiple factors, including investment in Internet infrastructure and security, increased usage of IPv6, enabling policies, and growing collaboration among governments, technology providers, and local communities.

An equally contributing factor is how much popular content is accessed through in-country servers and caches. Currently, Ghana has the highest percentage of the 1,000 most popular websites that its Internet users access locally (58%), followed by Togo (46%) and Nigeria (38%).

Benin, Cabo Verde, Gambia, Guinea Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, and Sierra Leone access between 96-100% of all their most popular content from outside the region.

The Internet Society is working with local partners in Benin, Burkina Faso, and Niger to increase this locally cached content figure to 50% by the end of 2025.

“Hosting popular content and local digital services within countries and regions is a cost-effective way to improve Internet performance and resilience,” says Michuki Mwangi, Internet Society Distinguished Technologist for Internet Growth.

“Importantly, the cost savings from not having to pay to access the content via international connections can be reinvested to improve the network or passed on to Internet users.”

Data centres and Internet Exchange Points (IXPs) help in this effort as they help store content closer to end users and create shorter, more direct routes for Internet traffic instead of sending and receiving it via expensive international links.

IXPs are Internet intersections, where networks connect locally to exchange traffic and help make the Internet faster and more affordable.

The initiative aims to scale up efforts to expand affordable, reliable, and sustainable Internet access globally, with both the Internet Society and Internet Society Foundation committing a $30 million investment through 2030.

Meta has joined as the first co-funding partner as the Internet Society calls for additional partners to support the vision of a more equitable, connected world.

Across the globe, 2.6 billion people lack access to the Internet, excluding them from vital opportunities in education, healthcare, economic growth, and civic participation.

Through the new Co-Funding Initiative, the Internet Society is leveraging its decades of expertise, global network, proven grant-making systems, and advocacy to help enable policies to address these issues.

Meta is the first company to join the Co-Funding following a successful partnership with the Internet Society. Since 2018, the two organizations have collaborated to develop Internet Exchange Point (IXP) infrastructure, train technical communities, and measure Internet resilience in countries around the world.

Specifically, the Co-Funding focuses on investing in community-centered infrastructure development, addressing market gaps and advocacy, and providing training to build technical capacity.

It aims to:

• Increase Funding and Advocacy: Fund infrastructure deployment and empower communities to manage their networks.
• Address Market Gaps: Address market failures where commercial providers see no viable business case.
• Enhance Training: Scale training programs to build technical capacity, empower marginalized groups, and develop the next generation of Internet leaders.
• Improve Community-Centered Solutions: Build and strengthen last-mile community-centered solutions for people, businesses, schools and health facilities in underserved areas.
• Build Sustainable Networks: Support locally owned, scalable, and sustainable networks that create jobs and foster entrepreneurship, retain value within communities, and promote self-reliance.
• Mobilize Advocates: Increase global impact by working with the Internet Society’s 130 local chapters and 133,000 members worldwide.

“Over the past several years, our partnership with Meta has resulted in 56 IXPs in 45 countries, giving millions of people faster, more affordable, and reliable Internet access,” said Sally Wentworth, president and CEO of the Internet Society. “This new Connectivity Co-Funding initiative, supported by Meta, is a prime example of collective action that will help provide meaningful access to more than 2 billion people across the world with insufficient or no Internet. It is our hope that this fund plays a pivotal role in reducing this gap and creating a more equitable digital society.”

“Meta is proud to extend our collaboration with the Internet Society, reinforcing our commitment to bridging the digital divide. Together, we aim to empower communities worldwide with sustainable and equitable Internet access, fostering innovation and connectivity for all, said Aaron Russell, Director of Edge Network Infrastructure. This partnership complements our existing infrastructure investments, including subsea cables, which help make the Internet ecosystem more reliable and lower the overall cost of providing access.”

To increase this percentage and reap the benefits of the Internet, including a highly connected economy, Nigeria must address market-related challenges.

The report reveals the number of companies that provide local access to the Internet, known as Internet Service Providers (ISPs), and companies that connect an ISP to the global Internet, known as Internet transit providers; servicing Nigeria is well below average compared to global standards.

According to the Internet Society’s Distinguished Technologist, Michuki Mwangi, this observation points to local barriers that make it difficult to provide resilient and affordable Internet connectivity.

Mwangi says, “Nigeria can improve the resilience and usage of its Internet by reviewing its telecommunications-related policies, regulations, and other factors that discourage service providers from investing in the Internet infrastructure that will facilitate better connectivity,”

“Our Pulse Internet Resilience Index highlights that more efforts are needed to improve the infrastructure, performance, security, and market readiness. Improving these areas can have flow-on effects such as decreasing interconnectivity costs, improving performance, and increasing affordability,” adds he.

Mwangi also notes that the country needs to increase its use of IPv6 to accommodate the future growth of the Internet—something that many populous countries are doing as more of their population starts to use the Internet.

According to the Pulse Country Report, Nigeria’s 1% IPv6 adoption rate ranks 18th in Africa and is the lowest among the top 10 most populous countries worldwide.

IPv6 is the next-generation Internet Protocol (IP) standard intended to replace IPv4, the protocol many Internet services still use today.

IPv6 is a well-established protocol that is seeing increased deployment and adoption, particularly in mobile phone markets, as it enables networks to connect more devices and expand their networks without relying on additional resources. Mobile devices generate more than 84% of Internet traffic in Nigeria.

The Internet Society Pulse Country Report highlights governments, technology stakeholders, and industry players need to work together to prioritize competition and open the market to increase Internet resilience.