Paper Presentations by Emmanuel Bassey the Executive Secretary of the African ICT Foundation during the Virtual African Internet Governance Forum (vAf-IGF-2020) organized by the African ICT Foundation East African Region

 Topic: Digital Economy in Africa Societal Challenges.

What is Digitization:

Digitalization is transforming the world in almost every aspect of life and this as lasted for few decades now and still counting.

The access to internet, increase in people using mobile phones, social media and other ICT services has changed the way people interact, communicate, learn and work in Africa and around the globe.

African countries have the potential to benefit from digitalization in various development domains. For such development, it is required for the African states to take measures for a digital future, to facilitate a digital enabling environment, and to enhance learning, discussion and exchange platforms about the opportunities, engagement and challenges of digitalization in Africa. These platforms can give a strong basis for any action and initiatives for digital Africa.

At the same time, a mutual shared understanding on the leaning of digitalization is not self-evident.  “the term digitization refers to “the action or process of digitizing; the conversion of analogue data into digital form.” It can be considered in a common sense that digitalization means the integration of digital technologies into everyday life at processes, organizational, business and other society.

Often the specific role of digitalization on business models is emphasized. Then digitalization focuses on the adoption and the use of digital technology by the key market players and other key players including distributors, producers, consumers, film practitioners, associations, policymakers and politicians.

This paper seeks to give a general overview on the challenges and opportunities of digital economy in the African context and it will focus on several societal aspects such as labor, agriculture, education, media, gender, etc. Although none of these topics will be dealt in details, but the paper can give a broader overview of the possible wide-ranging effects of digitalization in Africa.

Also, Digitalization is affecting all aspects of everyday life, decent work, employment, business, community development and the whole economic development and the African ICT Foundation since 2009 has embarked on supporting Youths, Women, People living with disability, institutions, Civil Society

organizations, Trade Unions and young professionals across Africa on understanding the current effect of digitalization on the global trends of development and communication and finally, the case of African ICT Foundation in Nigeria will be highlighted in order to give some current insights of concrete digital development, but shall be in parts.

Who We Are:

The African ICT Foundation is an independent nonprofit and non-partisan educational, skills acquisition and research organization, with a vision to formulating, evaluating and promoting ICT and telecom policies aimed primarily at creating job opportunities, accelerating innovations and boosting productivity to spur growth in African economy.

Our inexhaustible focus is at the intersection of technological innovations such as telecommunications, information technology and data, life sciences, trade and globalization, agricultural Biotechnology, Entertainment and clean energy. It is poised towards providing high-quality information analysis, policy pragmatism, and recommendations you can trust.

Established in 2009 to discover new opportunities and growth that will accelerate progress and development in Africa through Information and Communications Technology, the African ICT Foundation is an effective advocate for African technology development, Knowledge Transfer, and innovations.

1. Young generation Inclusion:

 Africa should think big on digital development. At the current, incremental pace of economic and social advancement, too many of Africa’s expanding youth population will be denied the opportunity to live up to their potential. Digital technologies offer a chance to disrupt this trajectory – unlocking new pathways for rapid economic growth, innovation, job creation and access to services which would have been unimaginable only a decade ago. Yet there is also a growing ‘digital divide’, and increased cyber risks, which need urgent and coordinated action to mitigate.

In other words, the Young demography in Africa has more potential to benefit from digitalization by their engagement in innovative entrepreneurship, job creation, integration in the global competition and inclusive economic growth.

Entrepreneurs and young professionals can enter their skills or products on the same platforms no matter if they are from developed countries or not. They are not bound to traditional value chains, local markets or the costly employment of distributors anymore.

It is therefore essential for Africa states to prepare and respond to the digital economy and invest in their young generation to prepare them to be part of a digitalized world; to encourage their innovative entrepreneurship and to provide to them with the required tools and confidence to enter into the global value chain.

2. African Labor Market Digitalization

Digitalization in goods and services production seems to reduce jobs when it comes to human capital, the emerging African market is relying on export, thus e-commerce increases employment opportunities with the creation of new services and new jobs.

Digitalization and digital business can have several impacts on the African labor market. Digitalization

processes often promote more efficiency, since they replace workers or employees from forms of routine of human workforce to automated processes.

Furthermore, employees could shift from their work to a more creative, cognitive work. By the use of digital communication platforms and intranet, some jobs are not bound to a certain location anymore.

This can enable employees to work from their homes, to travel less for work and to combine different jobs and such incentives proved to improve efficiency and productivity.

3. Digitalization and Agriculture

 The African agriculture sector could benefit from digitalization to improve production and food security.

In the face of global climate change and high population growth, digitalization can offer broad solutions needed by African farmers. Digital technology can enable automation processes to increase production and to create learning communities for farmers through mobile technology.

Small Agric Business practitioners learned how to restore soils using crop rotation, though in some African countries this is a traditional method, but with new technology, farmers can learn types of crops to alternate.

Digital Green Organization transformed agriculture in India and Ethiopia using technology. Small Agric Business practitioners have been integrated in digitalization using mobile phones and videos for training and education in local languages.

Similarly, farmers can benefit from new digital services with access to the information about market, price, products, distribution and sell of crops using mobile phones. Access to information could also remove price asymmetry between farmers and buyers; digital payment opens new markets to farmers who could not participate before. Other start-ups offer banking opportunities and credits to farmers who don’t have access to the classic banking system. Digital technology can even allow smaller players to be integrated into the value chain, for instance through e-commerce platforms.

4. Digitalization and Information

 Digitalization could have an equalizing effect on societies. The valuable good of accessing and creating

knowledge that has been available only to the privileged for centuries, is now widely offered to everyone

with a web-enabled device. Never have so many people had access to general and specific information.

In spite of different cultural or economic backgrounds, education or geography, everyone can gain information if they have access to a device that can provide an Internet connection.

The www (world wide web) is an inclusive place that provides the same services to anyone. However, inclusive Internet Index 2019 pointed out that for internet to be relevant to all and to contribute to the socio-economic development, the following factors should be measured:

• “Availability: quality and breadth of available infrastructure required for access and levels of Internet usage.
• Affordability: cost of access relative to income and the level of competition in the Internet marketplace.
• Relevance: existence and extent of local language content and relevant content.
• Readiness: capacity to access the Internet, including skills, cultural acceptance, and supporting policy”

The Inclusive Internet Index 2018 listed Tanzania, Rwanda and Uganda as part of the top 5 of low- income countries regarding their Internet inclusivity. Especially for Rwanda, access to the Internet has increased unprecedentedly.

The proportion of households with Internet access grew by 490.8% from 2017 to 2018 (Economist 2018).

In low-income countries, cost of mobile connectivity is falling from a more specific approach, the digital access to information can, for example, help to solve some of Africa´s education problem: during the heat of the COVID-19 pandemic, many children were unable to attend schools using physical classrooms, e-learning and digital educational programs assisted immensely in that regards and was and still a bridge to educational inequality.

Currently, the amount of accessible information has grown to an extent like never before. Fake news can have several influences on societal and political stability, especially when they target minority groups or try to affect political elections. No matter whether the purpose of false information is merely inaccurate research or intended manipulation for a certain (political) cause.

With social media, the original source is hard to identify as people pass information by sharing it on their accounts. They often focus rather on the validation and response from their peers on the shared story than on its accuracy. In order to distinguish fake news from serious journalism, digital literacy is necessary. As discussed before, this responsibility primarily lies in the public educational sector and relevance NGO’s.

Tips to find out about the reliability of news:

• Excursus: How to identify fake news?
• Consider the source: What is the mission of the source? Check the author and the medium where the news is posted from.
• Read beyond the headline: Especially flashy headlines can cause a lot of attention, but the article often reveals a less outrageous story.
• Look for citations: Find out about the sources being used for the article, such as quotes and reports. A serious media outlet provides links to other supporting sources.
• Check for supporting stories: Check if other media outlets also report on the story.
• Check the quality of the publication: if you find any spelling errors, all caps or dramatic punctuation, it might be a clue that this is not a trustworthy news outlet.
• Check your bias: Maybe you want to believe the story as it correlates with your beliefs and convictions, yet that does not make it true. Especially in social media, we receive information that is designed particularly for us, which is why it is important to check one´s initial attitude and emotion attitudes towards a story.
• Ask the experts: Several sites free proved fact-checking services, such as africacheck.org, FactCheck.org, International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN).

Emmanuel Bassey

Executive Secretary

African ICT Foundation

+2348037186146

Thank you.