PARIS, FRANCE: Lleida.net and the international organization Smart Africa have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to cooperate in the digitization of all types of public processes through the use of the SaaS services belonging to the Spanish company.

Smart Africa is the African Union agency in charge of promoting the digitization of the continent. Its partners include Google, Huawei, Microsoft, Facebook, Intel, Softbank, the World Bank, and the United Nations.

The agreement will empower state organizations in African countries to undertake digitization projects in public administration, private services, and e-commerce without having to invest heavily in infrastructure.

The understanding was signed last Monday, October 18, within the Dubai Expo, specifically in the Rwanda Pavilion. Smart Africa is headquartered in the Rwandan city of Kigali.

“As a corporation with a presence in Africa, we are gratified to contribute to African countries, through our technology, to address digitization projects of high immediate impact,” emphasized Sisco Sapena, CEO and founder of the company.

As a result of the agreement, Lleida.net and eGate Egypt, the company’s partner in Egypt, will help Smart Africa to identify projects in which its SaaS services can be used for the public good.

This agreement follows the one signed last summer between Lleida.net and the Pan-African Postal Union (PAPU), the body that coordinates the postal services of the 55 countries of the continent.

The framework agreement signed in July allows operators in all African countries to channel digital postal services through the infrastructure of the Spanish company.

As a result, the postal services of several states have already begun to distribute registered digital communications that can be used as valid evidence before courts of law and public administrations.

Postal operators in Côte d’Ivoire, Djibouti, Gambia, Guinea, Madagascar, Malawi, Senegal, and Sierra Leone have joined the agreement, and several more countries are negotiating their entry.

Before the signing, Lleida.net was already providing digital postal services in South Africa, the United Arab Emirates, and Colombia.

Africa has approximately 650 million cell phones and 525 million Internet users. There are also 500 million mobile bank accounts on the continent, about half of those worldwide.

Lleida.net is listed in New York, Paris and Madrid. Its technology has received more than 200 patents from 63 countries on five continents, and its intellectual property portfolio is one of the most important in the industry worldwide.

In the first nine months of 2021, it channeled more SaaS units (contracts, notifications, emails, and registered SMS) on behalf of its clients than in all of 2020.