Tunis: A delegation of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) Secretariat and Consultancy Bureau, kicked off discussions in Tunis to prepare a study on the implementation of the Africa Cloud Ecosystem (ACS) project. An inaugural working session was chaired on Monday by Communication Technologies Minister Nizar Ben Neji and attended by the COMESA delegation who are in Tunisia till May 10. The ACS project aims to set up a unified digital system for African member countries and to contribute to the development of services in the digital education, e-health, smart agricutlure sectors, etc. The meeting also helped review the project's framework and goals, which will has initially targeted 10 countries, including Tunisia, Egypt, Ethiopia, Zambia and Uganda. The COMESA team will conduct field visits in the public data centres of ministries, public institutions and private data centres led by telecommunication network operators and IT services companies. Ben Neji, who pointed out his departme nt's willingness to provide the necessary support for the success of this mission, reviewed the cloud computing projects currently underway in Tunisia, through which the government and national cloud computing services have been labelled as cloud computing service providers. Tunisia finished off the ratification process of an agreement with the COMESA on hosting COMESA's meetings, workshops and activities. The ratification of this agreement was published in the Official Gazette of the Tunisian Republic (JORT) No.52 in 2024 under presidential decree No.204 of April 23, 2024. Source: Agence Tunis Afrique Presse