African governments have a crucial role to play in taking the continent to the next stage in its digital evolution
Africa still lags behind the
rest of the world in its digital transformation, and in spite of a growing
number of innovative solutions, the ongoing lack of adequate infrastructure and
connectivity is preventing the continent from realising its true economic
potential. The best and fastest way to overcome these barriers, may lie in
heightened cooperation between countries and their various regulators.
This is according to James Claude, CEO of Global Voice Group (GVG) (www.GlobalVoiceGroup.com) – a
provider of IT solutions to governments and regulatory authorities – who says
that while many countries in Africa are individually working to increase their
infrastructure and digital capabilities, the most effective solution will be to
approach these challenges from a regional perspective.
While attending the 5thCrans Montana Forum in Dakhla, Morocco in
March of this year, Claude noted that African governments have a crucial role
to play in taking the continent to the next stage in its digital
evolution.
“Businesses, universities and young entrepreneurs are increasingly contributing
to the digital economy and fostering innovation in Africa. Governments now need
to work towards helping these private sector players to grow their solutions
more rapidly and affect real change on the continent. This will require
harmonising regulations that allow businesses and services to expand beyond
country borders.”
Africa’s potential as a global leader in the world’s digital economy grows significantly
with each passing year. Africa’s population is increasing exponentially, and is
expected to reach between 1.379 billion and 1.486 billion by 2025. In addition
to this, the market penetration of digital technology is accelerating.
Importantly, it is predicted that half of Africa’s entire population is
expected to own smartphones by 2020, which already goes a long way towards
overcoming infrastructural barriers to digital transformation and connecting
people and services online.
“Building on this, mobile money platforms such as M-Pesa has fundamentally
changed the way that money is circulated on the continent. E-commerce is also
growing rapidly as a result of mobile money, with online retailers that accept
mobile money payments even providing people without bank accounts access a
greater variety of goods. Similarly, small and medium businesses are able to
increase sales and overcome many infrastructure restraints.”
Claude explains that governments across the continent must build on this by
creating more digital services based in Africa, facilitating more local tech
companies, and continuing to invest in education and incubators that allow
citizens to fully access and benefit from digital transformation.
“Equally vital, is to ensure that regulators in every region and country have
the visibility, transparency and the necessary data to make informed decisions
that will help the digital economy across the different
jurisdictions. This is an area in which GVG already has a lot of
experience, having pioneered the regulatory technology solution, RegTech on the
continent.”
GVG has been helping regulators and government agencies to play a proactive and
relevant role in developing their digital agenda. “Our solutions provide key
data that help regulators to migrate from paper-based institutions to digital
ones. We will continue to play this role, and focusing on Big Data for better
regulation, compliance monitoring, revenue assurance, fraud prevention and also
Digital Identity. We believe that these will be the key enablers allowing
Africa’s citizens to become active participants in the digital economy instead
of mere consumers of imported digital goods. Digital ID will also be key to
improve better government services delivery,” Claude concludes. Distributed by APO
Group on behalf of Global Voice Group