[kictanet] Africa's future is clear: Youth, Technology & Broadband - Jay Naidoo

Mon Nov 11 11:47:01 EAT 2013

+1 Dr. Matunda,

Cant agree more!

Regards
Bob.

On Sun, Nov 10, 2013 at 11:54 AM, Matunda Nyanchama <
mnyanchama at aganoconsulting.com> wrote:

> FYI
>
> Africa's Future is Clear: Youth, Technology & Broadband<http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2013-10-14-africas-future-is-clear-youth-technology-broadband/#.Un9AgfmnoQ2>
>
>
> Technology is not an end unto itself. While it needs to reward
> shareholders and management, it has to address the improvement of human
> well-being. At its core it has to place the values of equity, justice and
> human dignity. Only then will it drive a revolution of ethics and morality
> that resolve the grand challenge of development in Africa and the world.
> The increasing disparities in wealth are causing rage worldwide, with
> global protests over corruption, bonuses, and tax evasion. Large numbers of
> unemployed youth fall outside formal markets and public services.
>
> People are demonstrating not only for democratic inclusion, but also to
> change the form of democratic inclusion - traditional multiparty politics
> is losing the ability to command younger populations, with party membership
> and voter participation going down worldwide.
>
> Still, there is a revolution going on in our world. The Internet and
> mobile phones were widely credited with the ‘death of distance’, and the
> rise of mobile broadband may be widely credited with the ‘death of
> geography’. Mass connectivity via mobile phones will exceed the global
> population of 7 billion in 2014.
>
> But where is Africa?
>
> I remember in the mid-90s as Minister of Communications in the Mandela
> Cabinet that there were 600,000 mobile phones in sub-Saharan Africa. Today
> it exceeds 750 million and is one of the fastest growing markets. No aid
> dollars drove this digital revolution. It was innovation; game changers
> like the prepaid card and demand for the right to communication from users.
> It was the appropriate policy and regulatory frameworks and freeing up of
> spectrum, that gave certainty and predictability to private investors. Most
> importantly it was getting our presidents out of the clutches of
> securocrats and to understand that communication as a right of citizens was
> our best protection of democracy.
>
> Today technology is changing our world - the way we live, work, educate
> ourselves, buy goods and services and transfer money. It determines the way
> in which our future societies will be organized.
>
> How do we ensure Africa rides the next wave of the digital revolution?
> What do we need to do to stop being left behind again in development?
>
> Half the population on our continent is under 25. It is our demographic
> dividend. While the populations of most continents are aging, ours grows
> younger. Are we hoping to be the factory or the farm of the future or the
> center of the global knowledge economy? What we do in this sector will
> decide our growth trajectory. Technology is driven by young people. They
> are the most connected generation in the history of humanity.
>
> So what are the key challenges we confront in Africa today and how can
> technology help us overcome them?
>
> Poverty confronts half our population who live on $1.25 a day. Education
> is one of the key pathways out of poverty. But half the children out of
> school live in Africa and the quality of public education is generally
> poor. Our infrastructure is weak and regional integration lags far behind
> the rest of the world. That reduces intra-African trade and the movement of
> goods and services. Although we are the richest continent we have not
> learnt to value our assets. We act as 54 separate countries and weaken our
> bargaining power with powerful economies and trading blocs. We have not
> benefitted from the commodities boom in the past decades.
>
> Now we can harness the digital broadband revolution to drive a
> entrepreneurial and livelihoods approach to our key assets; our land and
> agricultural potential to feed Africa and the world through a modern,
> technologically-savvy smallholder farmers model. Farmers, mainly women,
> have been incredibly empowered by being able to negotiate prices for their
> crops with middle men because they know market prices now.
>
> We can build on the incredible talent coming out of the technology hubs in
> Africa. In Nairobi, one of the cutting edges of new technology, public
> innovation, has produced some of the most successful applications. It is
> estimated that anywhere up to 20% of the Kenyan GDP is circulating on the
> back of mobile platforms like M-pesa, putting effective financial services
> into the hands of the previously unbanked.
>
> Over 17 million customers can deposit, withdraw and transfer money, pay
> bills, buy airtime from a network of agents that includes airtime resellers
> and retail outlets. Across Africa I see a multiplicity of such miracles are
> being born.
>
> We can use technology to drive education content and teaching and to
> deliver telemedicine. Public information on lifestyles, exercise, diets,
> breastfeeding and maternal and new-born care can be universally accessible
> and citizens empowered.
>
> We  can begin to see our citizens as the greatest ally for good
> governance. Governments can improve outcomes on public expenditure by
> breaking down budgets and making it transparent for citizens to follow the
> money and demand accountability at a local level, in schools, clinics and
> local governments. Citizen engagement is essential for effective
> development, strengthening the quality of policymaking and the “science” of
> service delivery with improved social accountability.
>
> We live in the world of the ‘Internet of Things’, a universe of around 9
> billion connected devices which could reach a trillion by 2025.
>  Convergence of technology, a dream in my term in government, is now a
> reality. Mobile broadband is growing faster than any technology in human
> history averaging 30% per year. And it is driven by private sector
> investment.
>
> Five countries now have mobile broadband penetration in excess of 100
> connections per capita (Singapore, Japan, Finland, Korea and Sweden). By
> the beginning of 2013, 32 economies had mobile-broadband subscription
> penetration in excess of one subscription for every two inhabitants,
> compared with just 13 countries at the beginning of 2012. There are more
> than 70 countries where more than half the population now has access to the
> Internet.
>
> While the impact of mobile over the past decade on our continent has been
> nothing short of a game-changer, there is a larger revolution for progress
> waiting. Just as we leapfrogged into the digital infrastructure of the
> mid-nineties we can today leapfrog the PC era into the marriage of mobile
> broadband and the Internet: we can be in the top league if we had the
> political will and build a smart partnership between government, the
> private sector, civil society and citizens.
>
> But we need to support an entrepreneurial approach to public innovation
> driven by public demand and needs. Today it is policy, regulatory and
> investment frameworks that will determine the future of Africa’s economic
> success: broadband licenses and spectrum are not cash cows for government
> in the short term. They are the foundations for long-term economic success.
> Otherwise broadband will remains out of reach in many countries in Africa.
>
> We need:
>
> Governments to lead through clear policies and regulations
> Each country needs a broadband rollout plan
> Clear policy and regulations that drive competition, attract private
> sector investment and drive down tariffs
> Introduce financial incentives that support entrepreneurs in public
> innovation
> Universal service obligations to subsidize education and rural internet
> access
> Local governments to drive connectivity and increase citizen access to
> public services and information
> Define incentives for operators and stakeholders in the broadband value
> chain
> While there is no single recipe that is likely to work for all countries -
> instead, countries need to relate the options they choose for
> universalising broadband to their market needs.
>
> None of this is rocket science. We need transparency in the way licenses
> are issued. We need predictability and certainty of policy and regulation.
> We need to drive digital literacy in our schools and communities. We need
> to eliminate any tariffs on the inputs into the broadband value chain. And
> Africa needs to use its bargaining power to ensure that we benefit in the
> manufacturing value chain from this broadband boom. DM
>
> Jay Naidoo is a member of the UN Broadband Commission which held its 8th
> Meeting in New York recently.
>
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Matunda Nyanchama, PhD, CISSP; mnyanchama at aganoconsulting.com
> Agano Consulting Inc.;  www.aganoconsulting.com; Twitter: nmatunda;
> <http://twitter.com/#%21/nmatunda>Skype: okiambe
>
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