Public Management (427)
Although not yet popular, online shopping is gradually getting into people’s habits in Africa, thanks notably to the Covid-19 pandemic. The sector is attracting a growing volume of state investments since it is perceived as an opportunity to reach foreign markets.
Nigeria wants to improve national e-commerce revenues to US$75 billion by 2025, up from US$13 billion currently. During a stakeholder dialogue on e-commerce and digital trade policy last weekend, Suleman Audu, Nigerian Ministry of Industry’s Director of Commodities, indicated that the government was already making the required investments to achieve the goal.
“The Federal Government is [...] committed to developing an e-commerce strategy in line with the Federal Government’s Post COVID-19 recovery plan, to encourage investment in the e-commerce value chain,” he said.
He also admitted that “Nigeria is yet to fully harness the inherent opportunities in the e-commerce value chain, largely due to inadequate investment, coupled with inadequate information on the opportunities in the sector and the inability of Government to provide the required enabling environment.”
By increasing e-commerce revenues, the country wants to reduce oil dependence in line with economic diversification calls from the UNECA and the World Bank. According to the UNCTAD 2020 B2C e-commerce index, Nigeria was the eighth best e-commerce market in Africa and the 94th globally.
Muriel Edjo
The future bill will propel the DRC and its administration into a digital era that will greatly benefit every sector of the national economy.
The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) will elaborate a digital law to oversee its digital transformation efforts. On August 26, 2022, during a ministerial council, President Felix Tshisekedi (photo) ordered his government to adopt a bill for the digitization of the public administration.
"While praising the significant efforts already made by some ministries in that matter, notably with the project to secure land deeds and digitize the cadastre, the President of the Republic stressed the need to digitize the whole public administration,” reads the release published after the ministerial council.
In the coming days then, Prime Minister Jean-Michel Sama Lukonde will accelerate the elaboration of a legal framework to ensure the appropriate supervision of the digitization efforts. He will also ensure the related bill is submitted to the National Assembly during its September session for review and adoption.
The new instruction is further proof of DRC’s commitment to upgrading its administration. In early August this year, Minister of Land Affairs Aimé Molendo Sakombi signed an agreement with Luxembourg company "eProseed" for the implementation of the "e-Foncier" project that aims to secure the cadastre and modernize land management. The digital bill instructed will allow an in-depth reorganization of state actions to make DRC a digital government, amid the ongoing digital and social revolution. It is in line with Horizon 2025, the country’s national digital strategy that aims to make the digital sector a tool for integration, good governance, economic growth, and social progress.
Samira Njoya
The digital transformation project underway in Congo will help the country address the numerous shortcomings of its education system and foster the development of a high-performance ecosystem.
Congo-Brazzaville disclosed Thursday (August 25), the key steps it will focus on to succeed in the digital transformation of its education system. The steps were presented by the Ministry of Pre-school, Primary and Secondary Education during a ceremony to validate the conclusions of the national consultations held on August 12-13 to discuss the transformation of the national education system.
The steps include training teachers on digital pedagogy, mastery of ICT tools, and distance learning management.
According to the United Nations, which is the government’s partner in the project, the ceremony held on August 25 helped identify the steps to take to build a stronger, more equitable, adaptable, and resilient education system.
"The United Nations, which is aware of the challenges facing the education system, reiterates its commitment to supporting countries in their bids to reorganize their education systems to achieve the fourth sustainable development goal,” said Chris Mburu, the UN resident coordinator in Congo.
In Congo, education is one of the sectors most affected by the coronavirus pandemic. Due to its poor readiness, the country’s education sector was disrupted with thousands of students being unable to continue classes since there were not enough technical and human resources to ensure continuity with distance learning.
The digital transformation project currently planned by Congolese authorities will safeguard the government’s ability to ensure education continuity in times of crisis that requires mobility restrictions. It will also allow students access to more educational resources.
Samira Njoya
With the boom of the digital economy, new professional activities have surfaced, bringing new legal, tax, and ethical challenges. The legal framework being planned by Algeria aims to prevent possible abuses in the country’s digital economy.
Yacine El Mahdi Oualid (photo), Algeria’s Minister of Knowledge Economy and Startups, recently provided more information on the entrepreneurship law being elaborated by his Ministry. On August 18, 2022, he took to his Facebook page, explaining that the law would not govern liberal professions, already regulated activities, or artisans. It will regulate new economic activities that emerged in the wake of the digital economy, he explained.
The economic activities included in its scope are namely web influencing, e-marketing, app and web development, information design, etc.
According to the government official, the law (which will soon be submitted to parliament) will introduce numerous incentives like online registration, streamlined accounting, preferential tax regimes, and social security coverage. It will also allow the professionals covered to open business bank accounts and register their home address or co-working spaces as their domiciled address.
The draft project of the said law was approved during a ministerial council on July 13, 2022. It aims to prevent possible abuses by web entrepreneurs. Indeed, on August 9, 2021, Algerian courts sentenced four web entrepreneurs to 6-month imprisonment for scam and criminal association in the case dubbed Future Gate, involving a fictitious agency that claimed to offer technical support to students who wish to go to school in foreign universities.
The new law will encourage digital entrepreneurship, and help the youth employ themselves, therefore reducing the unemployed population. It will also facilitate the exportation of Moroccan digital services and contribute to the national economy, Yacine El Mahdi Oualid added.
Muriel Edjo
During his presidential term, which started in April 2013, the outgoing president Uhuru Kenyatta, initiated a set of projects transforming Kenya into a tech powerhouse. His successor plans to build on his achievements to make the country a digital transformation reference.
On August 15, William Ruto was declared the winner of the last presidential election in Kenya, one of Africa’s leading tech powerhouses. In his manifesto, the incoming president promised to implement projects aimed at accelerating the digital transformation initiated by outgoing president Uhuru Kenyatta.
One of his plans is to add 100,000 kilometers of optic fiber cable to the existing 9,000 km network in the next five years. The aim is to achieve universal broadband availability during the period. He also wants to increase the rate of public services digitization and automated critical government processes to 80 percent.
According to the manifesto, broadband and digital transformation will “play a critical role in enabling [Kenya] to make tremendous achievement in the other four pillars of Health, Agriculture, MSME and Financing as well in enhancing revenue collection via automation of VAT systems.”
In recognition of the digital sector’s impact on job creation and poverty alleviation, William Ruto also announced his plan to reduce internet costs to facilitate access to internet for Kenyan youth, therefore giving them the possibility to learn, get crucial information and do business.
He also promised to establish an “Africa Regional Hub” and promote “the development of software for export.” Similarly, the incoming president plans to develop the business process outsourcing (BPO) industry into a major export and job creation sector.
“The administration will strengthen Konza Technopolis to bring together industry, academic institutions and other innovators to co-invest in emerging technologies to create high-quality jobs that leverage on artificial intelligence, robotics and other technologies and thus enhance our regional and global competitiveness,” the manifesto reads.
The projects are aimed at making Kenya a digital transformation reference on the African continent by 2027 and guaranteeing effective human, economic and social development. The investments required to carry out those projects are estimated at Ksh40 billion (US$334 million), to be financed by the Universal Service Fund. The fund, managed by the Communications Authority (CA), is made up of taxes levied on licensees, government appropriations, grants, and donations.
Muriel Edjo
In recent years, Tunisia has placed a particular emphasis on digitization. The aim is to streamline administrative procedures and facilitate access to digital services by 2025.
In Tunisia, citizens can now order and receive birth certificates online. On August 16, 2022, a joint decree from the Ministries of Interior, Justice, and ICT consecrated the effective launch of the project, which was announced months earlier.
According to the decree, the birth certificate will now be issued online, in compliance with the applicable laws governing the protection of sensitive documents. “The document is issued online through the civil registry’s online platform,” the decree indicates. It adds that the document will be issued for free during a 6-month pilot phase, through the digital platform www.e-bawaba.tn.
The new project ends the cumbersome administrative procedures citizens had to complete to obtain their birth certificates. Also, with a fully digitized issuance system, the processing time will be reduced.
This is the second digital reform being implemented in Tunisia in about two months. On July 1, the country launched Mobile ID, a mobile identity project aimed at linking phone numbers to ID cards and generating personal QR codes for citizens.
The two projects are part of the national strategy to facilitate citizens' access to public services and reduce processing times.
Samira Njoya
Absenteeism is one of the main problems affecting education in Africa. To address the problem, DRC is betting on technologies.
Last Thursday, Tony Mwaba Kazadi (photo, left), DR Congo’s Minister of Primary, Secondary, and Technical Education, inaugurated a digital attendance tracking system in Gombe. The system will allow the government to check the daily attendance of teachers under the Ministry of Primary, Secondary, and Technical Education.
According to Minister Mwaba Kazadi, the attendance system is “part of a positive sanction scheme that comes after punitive sanctions, which are still necessary to rehabilitate the education sector that once lacked strong leadership and exemplary governance.”
“You are now invited to use this tech system [...] which helps the Ministry [of Primary and Secondary Education] end absenteeism. It will provide credible data on the active workforce for an improved school administration. The human resource management department will also have to send us credible attendance rates to help us improve work performance,” he added.
Henceforth, teachers and administrative staff will use their biometric cards to certify their presence in classrooms and offices. The system is implemented to fight problems like absenteeism and duplicate records (by ghost workers) that affect the country’s education sector. It will also modernize the administration by capitalizing on modern technologies.
It is initiated to stabilize the formerly unstable public administration. With that digital attendance system, the country hopes to significantly reduce teachers’ absenteeism rate which is one of the reasons students’ achievements have dropped in recent years.
Samira Njoya
In the short term, the digitalization of the cadastre will improve land management and reduce conflicts.
DR Congo recently took a step further towards the digital transformation of its public service. On August 2, 2022, Minister of Land Affairs Aimé Molendo Sakombi (photo, left) signed an agreement with Luxembourg company eProseed for the implementation of e-Foncier, the country’s digital land management platform.
According to Minister Molendo Sakombi, the contract makes eProseed the government’s partner in the implementation of that project. It ends a “long quest for a reliable partner that will lead the digitalization of the cadastre and secure land/property titles,” he added.
The government official explained that the digitalization of the cadastre is required for the department of land affairs to meet expectations, fueled by the country’s large land potential. It will also help maximize revenues, reduce land conflicts and safeguard social peace, he informed.
The e-Foncier project will enable the government to make land management more transparent and secure more revenues. It will also make investors and individuals feel secure when it comes to land affairs. In addition, it will allow public authorities to access secure land data right from one single database and create more jobs.
The agreement with eProseed includes the construction of a "Land Tower", which will house the whole Ministry of Land Affairs, the General Secretariat, and the future National Center for the digitization of the cadastre, as of 2024. The company will also create an e-Foncier platform with a data storage feature based on artificial intelligence and blockchain. The platform will be the key tool for modern land management in DR Congo, we learn.
To fund the project, eProseed will contribute US$140 million without government support or sovereign guarantee. It will also disburse an additional US$15 million for the construction of the tower.
The e-Foncier project is part of ‘Horizon 2025’, the country’s digital plan that aims to resolve land conflict by securing land/property titles. For Minister Moelndo Sakombi, the implementation of this large project will usher in a new era, which will be utterly different from what is being witnessed currently.
Samira Njoya
Data is a key asset in the transformation of Africa’s agriculture sector. Therefore, by unveiling that platform, Senegalese authorities want to ensure the availability of reliable data for the elaboration of effective agricultural policies.
On Friday (July 29), Senegal unveiled AgriData, its national agriculture analytics platform. The platform was launched, in Dakar, by the National Agency of Statistics and Demography (ANSD), the Directorate of Agricultural Analysis, Forecasting and Statistics (Dapsa), and the Agricultural and Rural Prospects Initiative (Ipar). During the launching ceremony, AgriData awards were conferred to young journalists and researchers for their contribution to the development of sustainable agriculture in the country.
According to Cheikh Oumar Bâ, Executive Director of Ipar, the platform is a requirement to enable access to streamlined and efficient agriculture data for citizens. He explained that to ensure the reliability of the “reference platform,” data producers and users were rallied.
The new platform shares comprehensive, reliable, and timely agricultural statistics and data that can inform evidence-based agricultural development policies. Its aim is to allow easy and quick access to agriculture information produced by actors and stakeholders right from a single platform.
AgriData will also present the agriculture projects implemented by Senegal and their status reports. “The platform will present sectoral surveys conducted by national and international organizations,” Cheikh Oumar Bâ added.
Thanks to AgriData, which is part of Senegal’s strategy to meet the food security and sustainable agriculture goal by 2030, the country wants to pioneer agriculture data exploitation in Africa.
Samira Njoya
In Africa, the coronavirus pandemic demonstrated the need for e-learning initiatives. However, some constraints still affect the development of those initiatives. One of those constraints is teachers’ low ICT adoption. It is, therefore, crucial to train them on how to use IT tools to share their knowledge.
The Francophone University Agency (AUF), on Monday, July 25, kicked off a training session to train teachers in e-learning course designing and scripting. The training session is launched in the framework of Africa Digital Campus, which aims to boost distance learning.
For Ouidad Tebbaa, Regional Director of the Francophone Universities Association (AUF) in West Africa, “the AUF aims to train teachers who will constitute a skill pool to be used by the universities of Burkina Faso and Benin.”
“The project wants to boost the e-learning offer. It will provide the universities with adequate infrastructure and build teachers’ capacities in the e-learning field,” she added.
For two weeks, 69 teachers from Burkinabe public and private universities will be trained in course scripting and designing. They will become bridges assisting other teachers who are yet to grasp the importance of ICT in education.
“Digitilizing education requires paradigm shifts. We need to review pedagogical approaches and consider digitalization not as a constraint but as an opportunity,” explained Jean Marie Dipama, president of the Virtual University of Burkina Faso (UV-BF).
Throughout 2022, Africa digital campus will organize similar training sessions in other countries. The 2-year program is funded by the European Union to the tune of €2.8 million. It focuses on four key areas, notably developing e-learning, modernizing infrastructure and equipment to allow students and teachers to easily access learning platforms, knowledge sharing as well as awareness-raising to convince decision-makers to support the development of connectivity solutions.
Thanks to the training sessions organized by the AUF, 121 courses (for seven training programs) will be accessible on the UV-BF’s platform.
Samira Njoya
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In 2020, the coronavirus pandemic forced most African countries to accelerate their digital transformation. In that regard, they focused heavily on boosting access to the internet and digitization of public services. Meanwhile, with the development of new technologies, cybersecurity has become an ever-present issue. Hence, the Nigerien government wants to devise a strategy to protect residents against cyber threats.
Niger validated Wednesday (July 20), the first draft of its national cybersecurity strategy. The draft was validated during a workshop held at the Niamey Congress Palace.
According to Minister of Posts and Telecommunications Hassane Baraze Moussa, the national strategy will safeguard Niger’s digital transformation. Cybersecurity “ is not a privilege. It is a requirement because of cyberspace issues. […] Elaborating a national cybersecurity strategy is a key step to guarantee Niger’s digital transformation,” he explained.
“Cybersecurity is essential in almost every human activity. It has become a priority for companies, but also for governments, which must protect people and properties,” the official added.
Niger initiated the elaboration of its cybersecurity strategy in June 2018. Almost four years later, the completed and vetted strategy is in line with the country’s 2022-2026 socioeconomic development program, the ECOWAS regional cybersecurity and cybercrime strategy, and the African Union Convention on Cyber Security and Personal Data Protection. It is part of Niger’s national security strategy.
Samira Njoya
The smart card will serve as an ID card, allowing access to various government services. It will be used as a payment card to settle transactions.
Lagos, Nigeria’s economic capital, will start issuing smart ID cards to its residents. For that purpose, the state signed Wednesday (July 20), a partnership agreement with fintech company Verve International. The smart card is an enhanced version of the identity cards issued by the Lagos State Residents Registration Agency (LASRRA).
“We have upgraded the residency card from an ordinary plastic card, for identification purposes only, to a smart, multi-purpose card that combines biometric identification with other functionalities and benefits, that cuts across areas such as security, financial services, mobility, and access to government services and amenities,” explained Lagos State Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu.
According to the governor, the smart ID card is “borne out of the need to embrace change and align with global best practices.”
Dubbed "LAG ID", the smart card is a first of its kind in the country. It will enable holders to conduct transactions anywhere and anytime, easily verify their identities and access various social amenities provided by the government. It will “ultimately help inform the government’s planning and provision of services designed to secure lives and property,” Governor Babajide adds.
The card comes with an electronic wallet that can hold funds and be used for daily transactions and support monetary authorities' cashless program.
The partnership between Verve International and Lagos State Government is in line with the fintech company’s ambition to create a digital identification system in Nigeria. Recently, the company partnered with the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) to develop a digitization framework for the efficient management of Nigerians’ identity.
Samira Njoyav
A few years ago, Ghanaian authorities initiated digital transformation projects to boost the adoption of digital technologies and promote innovation in key productive sectors.
Ghana inaugurated, Monday (July 18), its national e-pharmacy platform. The platform, dubbed “National Electronic Pharmacy Platform,” is the convergence of licensed local pharmacies. It “will enable Ghanaians to have access to prescribed medicines and buy them by making an order with a mobile phone through the ePharmacy app, website, or a shortcode, and have the medicine delivered to a requested location,” the government indicates.
“'The introduction of the National ePharmacy Platform (NEPP) is meant to safely and securely make available medicines, reduce the burden of cost and save time,” explained Ghana’s Vice President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia.
According to Ghana's Ministry of Communication, although cell phone penetration is over 100% in the country, people have yet to fully embrace ICT in their daily lives or business operations. Less than 10% of the population uses the internet and mobile broadband use is extremely low, the ministry informs.
NEPP is part of the e-Transform strategy launched by the Ghanaian government a few years ago. The strategy aims to boost broadband access and improve the efficiency and quality of certain digital public services. It also eyes an enhancement of Ghana's digital innovation ecosystem to help create better jobs and a better economy. In addition, it will improve the allocation of government resources, leading to the efficient use of public funds. Above all, the strategy is expected to promote entrepreneurship and create more jobs.
Let’s note that according to the World Bank, with an average of 19% growth rate annually between 2014 and 2020, the digital sector is one of Ghana’s best-performing sectors.
Jean-Marc Gogbeu
Amid the accelerating digital transformation, most African countries are introducing electronic visa reforms. For authorities, electronic visa reforms can improve the administrative and financial management of travel documents.
Cameroon will launch the issuance of e-visas at its diplomatic missions, consular posts, international airports, and air, land, and sea borders by the end of July 2022. For that purpose, the country contracted research and development firm Impact Palmarès R&D SAS for a 10-year agreement to modernize, secure, and streamline consular services.
According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the e-Visa project aims to centralize and secure the data as well as control movement to and from the national territory. “It will also reduce the distance to be covered by applicants to request for visa and the queues in embassies. Those issues are the main problems reported by the diaspora and foreigners who want to visit Cameroon,” indicated Minister of Foreign Affairs Lejeune Mbella Mbella. The government official also revealed that the e-visa platform will help secure government revenues since fee payments are made online.
On Monday, June 27, 2022, Impact Palmarès R&D SAS delivered the IT equipment to be used for the project at the various diplomatic posts and embassies. Barely a week later, Cameroon submitted a draft project amending the January 1997 law on entry, residence, and exit conditions to the national assembly. In the coming days, a legal framework is expected to include e-visas.
“... To date, all the IT tools have already been developed. The equipment required has been delivered to Cameroon and [...] soon be deployed at diplomatic posts. The deployment has already begun at airports and it will be completed soon. Impact Palmarès is now ready to launch e-visa enrolment and issuance,” explains Ntaribo Ashu, Director General For Protocol And Consular Affairs at Cameroon’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Samira Njoya