IHS Towers and UNICEF announced a three-year international partnership to support the Giga initiative's objective to map internet connectivity of all schools worldwide. Giga is a joint initiative of UNICEF's Office of Innovation and ITU's Telecommunications Development Bureau. Currently, more than a third of the world's population has no regular access to the Internet.

This digital divide, which has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, results in exclusion and fewer opportunities for young people to learn and fulfil their potential. It also means that millions of children leave school without any digital skills, making it more difficult for them to thrive in local and global economies. Understanding the global school connectivity landscape is a critical step towards Giga's ambition of connecting every school to the internet, and every child to learning and development opportunities.

IHS Towers' three-year partnership with UNICEF, which includes a contribution of USD 4.5 million will strengthen Giga's work to map schools and their connectivity levels on an open-source map, using machine learning and satellite imagery. With the support of its partners, Giga has so far mapped more than one million schools in 42 countries. The data identifies gaps in infrastructure and helps develop strong business cases encouraging investors to finance connectivity in the hardest-to-reach communities.

In addition to the company's financial contribution, IHS will support Giga by providing relevant tower data, thereby accelerating Giga's work to identify which schools are connected to the internet and those which are not. IHS' data will also support Giga's analysis on the most appropriate technology to connect offline schools, as well as the potential cost of connectivity, to present to public and private investors.