/ 23 October 2023

Africa’s governments must protect subsea cable infrastructure

Graphic Tc Cable Twitter
(John McCann/M&G)

During August, South Africans experienced intermittent internet difficulties that endured longer than expected because of a cable break in the eastern Atlantic in the Congo Canyon bordering Central Africa. 

Eventually it came to light that four cable systems — the West Africa Cable System, South Atlantic 3, Africa Coast to Europe and an Angolan connection — had been damaged by subsea mud and rockslides. Over time, the Orange Marine, a ship dedicated to repairing cable breakages off Africa, stationed in Cape Town but working off Kenya at the time, fixed the damaged cables to restore connectivity.

What remains somewhat opaque is the extent of subsea cable networks and energy-related infrastructure traversing the oceans off Africa and the growing debate on protecting subsea infrastructure. 

This debate is rapidly heating up as instances of human interference act as catalysts, given the 2022 Nord Stream sabotage in the Baltic after the Russian attack on Ukraine, and the damage to the Balticconnector subsea gas pipeline between Estland and Finland across the Baltic in October 2023. 

In addition, a quick glance at the map of submarine cables around Africa on the Submarine Cable Networks page offers a colourful snapshot of the current state of multiple and ever-growing networks off the continent’s coast. These provide coastal states and the landlocked countries in their hinterlands with data flows and internet connections.

As we observe Cybersecurity Awareness Month during October, we should also take note of the   debate on how to protect the growing physical data and energy infrastructure on the seabed, as well as the products they carry, from human and natural interference. 

It is easier to frame and respond to natural and accidental interferences or damage by way of mitigation and responses, as shown by the Léon Thévenin cable repair ship, also dedicated to the African coastline. 

Deliberate human interference — by way of sabotage from terrorism and insurgents, as well as state actors, such as navies and shady or non-state entities operating deep-sea vehicles or vessels — is much more difficult to deal with. 

The risks, however, remain as the world’s demand for secured energy and data flows grows. Data and energy have become primary sources of economic growth in the 21st century and therefore the demand for secured access has increased and became a critical feature for users.

Turning to Africa, Agenda 2063: The Africa We Want, as well as the Digital Transformation Strategy for Africa (2020-2030), rely heavily on secure subsea energy infrastructure as a fundamental element for delivering services, growth, good governance, commercial goods and connectivity on the continent, with partners in Europe, South and East Asia and the United States.

Africa also houses extensive offshore energy hubs off East and West Africa that contain their own subsea networks to extract, process and shift energy products. 

Add to this the growth in demand for clean energy through wind farms at sea, which must connect to other sites and bring power to the African coast, and the current and future scope of safe and secure subsea infrastructure becomes a greater concern. This underlines that the protection of critical subsea infrastructure and data networks is a more difficult domain to master.

The ability to identify threats to, and vulnerabilities in, subsea data cable networks is fairly advanced. They are divided into natural, accidental and systemic. All three offer scope for repair interventions by way of known methods where the private sector tends to take the lead. 

Two difficulties hinder the protection debate. First, how to overcome the conundrum of critical infrastructure on the seabed belonging to private corporations and stretching over multiple state and international jurisdictions. 

Co-operation, private-public partnerships and offering facilities to house protection and repair operations are ways that governments, and regions such as the Southern African Development Community (SADC), can contribute. This is probably more a question of political awareness and will to understand and respond with regimes of cooperation.

Second, a more difficult issue, is the one regarding state interference by specialised agencies, navies and even front organisations engaging in grey-zone warfare. Protection in this case is much more premised on building global consensus on when subsea infrastructure becomes a legitimate target — whether it involves the physical infrastructure or product flows. 

As for the latter, the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research’s programme on building a more secure world plays a leading role in cybersecurity and recently published Wading Murky Waters: Subsea  Communication Cables and Responsible State Behaviour.

The overall imperative is to build global consensus on rules and best practices to protect subsea cable infrastructure, which has become a primary conduit for the proper functioning of national and international systems. 

This is a slow and difficult process as the systems on the seabed, their protection and the UN Institute for Disarmament Research’s programmes, take place out of sight, and in a world largely invisible to citizens and societies, despite their dependence on the data and energy flows.

Countries such as South Africa can contribute to the difficult protection debate by helping to ensure better safeguarding of the numerous cable networks off the SADC coast and spreading further afield into and from the Gulf of Guinea and the Indian Ocean. 

If South Africa is regarded as “the gateway to Africa”, then it must also be the digital gateway and take the lead to make possible the Digital Transformation Strategy for Africa (2020-2030) as well as help Africa move forward in the digital world. 

To do this, politicians and key stakeholders in South Africa must team up with their African partners and turn their gaze towards the coast to help protect the vast potential housed in the subsea infrastructure on the seabed of the Indian and Atlantic Oceans washing onto Africa’s shores.

Professor Francois Vreÿ is emeritus professor at the Security Institute for​ Governance and Leadership in ​​Africa in the Faculty of Military Science at Stellenbosch University.