Africa can be digitally transformed —Johnson

What is holding Africa back in digital transformation on the continent, asked former Nigerian Minister of Communications Technology, Dr Omobola Johnson, as she delivered the UN Economic Commission for Africa’s (ECA) annual Adebayo Adedeji lecture at the recent conference of Ministers in Marrakech, Morocco?

Held in memory of the Nigerian scholar, Adebayo Adedeji, arguably one of Africa’s leading proponents of regional integration – the lecture focused around the question of digital transformation in Africa: Hype or Reality?

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“There is enough evidence that Africa can be digitally transformed. But what is holding us back?,” asked Johnson, when she delivered the lecture to ministers and a host of experts attending the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) Conference of Ministers.

As the world-wide-web (WWW) celebrates 30 years, its inventor, Mr Tim Berners-Lee told a Nigerian audience recently that the country represents both the present and future of the web, when one looks at how it is impacting lives in Nigeria, but also across the continent.

Adedeji was the ECA’s 3rd and longest-serving Executive Secretary (1975- 1991). He is renowned and admired for his relentless calls for Africa to move away from conventional ideas of international trade and economic development. He is also credited for championing calls that led to the creation of ECOWAS. It is also widely accepted that his ideas form part of the pillars on which the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) is anchored.

Economic experts agree that, in the current environment, the success of this continental trading bloc, will hugely depend on digital technology, tools and skills. Johnson cited a number of success stories across the continent and how they have used technology to provide services to the hitherto uncatered for or under-served but said that many challenges remained.

“Affordability is an issue: the internationally agreed target is for 1GB of data to cost no more than two per cent of the average national monthly income. In Africa, this currently stands at 8.76 per cent, compared to 3.5 per cent in Latin America or 1.54 per cent in Asia. And the latest affordability reports show that this has increased over the past year,” she said.

She also noted disturbing tax trends, both on digital infrastructure and utilisation taxes, which although seductive, can often have unintended consequences, such as increasing the cost of digitisation and curbing its transformative impact.

She called for an urgent need to strengthen the infrastructure and fibre network. Currently, when connecting Cape to Khartoum, she said, the connection will take them via London, New York, San Jose and Tokyo, to arrive in Khartoum 409 milliseconds later.

She also decried how most of Africa’s connections are via undersea cables connecting via Europe or elsewhere. “It is the private sector that can solve this issue,” she said, “but they also need to be supported and incentivised.”

“When you recognise these challenges and accept that there is a lack of scale among our start-ups, it could be argued therefore, that this digital transformation we speak about, might be hyped. But the increased ownership of mobile phones and those that have access to it, is having a true impact,” she stated.