President Salva Kiir during the inauguration of the international gateway to the internet at the Ministry of Information, Communications and Postal Services, with government dignitaries & officials where present; Credit: Presidential Press Unit/May 21, 2019

South Sudan has just launched its international gateway for the first time since independence in 2011.

A gateway is a piece of networking hardware used in telecommunications for telecommunications networks that allows data to flow from one discrete network to another.

The gateway will allow South Sudan improve its international communication.

The 30-million-dollar project was first approved by the then Southern Sudan government in 2007.

But due to the conflict and economic crisis, its implementation slowed down.

Michael Makuei is the minister of information, communication, technology and postal services.

He says with the launch of the new digital project, South Sudan will connect faster with the rest of the world.

Makuei was speaking during the launch in Juba this morning.

“With today’s inauguration of the gateway, we expect our people to experience improvement in the quality of international communication for voice and data. The implementation and operationalization of South Sudan international gateway is not the end point, but one achievement among others to come.”

He said many projects are underway in partnership with other sectors and regional bodies. Among which include, national broad band network, optical fiber network, infrastructure for national and international connectivity.

He said licenses have been awarded to a number of companies to start pulling optical fiber cable from South Sudan border with Uganda, via Nimule to Juba.

He added that when the projects are completed it will ensure high speed internet services that will accelerate the development of the e-government and various electronic services.

For his part, President Salva Kiir who graced the launch of the international gateway, urged youth to make good use of the technology instead of concentrating on violence.

“The youth should not be lured into fighting because of ranks, because of whatever, military ranks what are they? If you have not been there please concentrate on what we are launching today, this is where you will progress, in fighting you will never progress. You may get killed, if you are lucky to be wounded then you are lucky, but not everybody that gets a wound lives.

President Kiir said that the youth should concentrate more on peace and loving one another.