Greentech startups are rapidly emerging in Africa with firm conviction that new technologies will play a key role in supporting sustainable development on the continent. 

Catalyst Fund, a private equity fund investing in early-stage, climate-focused startups in Africa, has reached the first closing of its $40 million fund. Last Wednesday, the fund announced a first closing, at $8.6 million, with support from investors like FSD Africa Investments (FSDAi), the Cisco Foundation, USAID (Prosper Africa), and technology investor Andrew Bredenkamp.

The Kenya-based fund, headed by French impact investor Maelis Carraro, plans to invest in around 40 start-ups, including 20 this year.  Eligible companies will receive funding of up to $200,000 for pre-seed startups, $500,000 for seed-stage companies, and $1.5 million in Series A financing for more mature companies.

“By blending equity investments with hands-on venture building, we believe we can unlock tremendous potential for innovative companies on the continent. Supporting ventures at the pre-seed stage requires more than capital. Our venture builders are the engineers, data scientists, and growth marketing experts who can supercharge founders’ journeys toward building scalable and highly impactful ventures," says Maelis Carraro.

Climate change is a global reality but Africa is the continent most vulnerable to its adverse effects despite contributing just 3% of global carbon emissions. It is therefore important to invest in startups that are active in the fight against climate change on the continent. According to a report published, in February 2023, by technology business accelerator AfricArena, such startups raised a total of $1.17 billion in 2022, of which $863 million was invested in capital.

By strategically focusing on solutions in agri-tech and fisheries management, food systems, insurtech and climate fintech, cold chain, waste management, and water management, Catalyst Fund aims to accelerate sustainable green growth. It will focus on solutions that can enable communities to better prepare for and manage shocks, adapt livelihoods to climate impacts, and build long-term resilience.

Samira Njoya

Nigeria aims to become one of the leaders in the African digital economy.  To achieve its goal, it is signing partnerships with countries that share the same objectives.

Nigeria's Minister of Communication, Innovation, and Digital Economy, Bosun Tijani, signed two memorandums of understanding in New Delhi, India, last Wednesday.  The first agreement, signed with the Indian Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, aims to share the best digital solutions that would benefit citizens in both countries. 

The second partnership, signed with the Central Square Foundation team, a non-profit organization working to ensure quality school education in India, aims to develop solutions that leverage technology to facilitate education in Nigeria. 

“The collaboration between our countries gives us a platform to build on the upward trajectory of digital transformation as a driver of economic growth,”  Dr. Bosun Tijani indicated in a post on X (formerly Twitter). 

The MoU were signed on the sidelines of the 18th G20 Summit, to be held from Saturday, September 9 to Sunday, September 10 in New Delhi. They come at a time when the Nigerian government is stepping up efforts to attract additional investors to the country, increase funding to support Nigerian innovators and expand resources for local entrepreneurs. With such initiatives, the government wants to create one million jobs in the digital economy and improve digital literacy among the youth.

By choosing India to support those digital projects, Nigeria is making a strategic move. Indeed, in less than 10 years, India's digital penetration rate has more than doubled. In 2015, the world's fifth-largest economy launched "Digital India", an ambitious program to transform India into "a digital society and knowledge economy."

Samira Njoya

With the acceleration of digital transformation across the continent, African countries are compelled to invest in cybersecurity.  18 of the continent's 54 countries have already drawn up national cybersecurity strategies, and 22 have national computer incident response teams (CIRTs).

The lack of investment and weak regulation exposes Africa to cyberattacks, according to the report "Cybersecurity in Africa- A Call to action" published in June 2023 by consulting firm Kearney. Yet investment in the African cybersecurity market is set to rise from $2.5 billion in 2020 to $3.7 billion in 2025, representing a compound annual growth rate of 7.9%.

"Despite this investment, it’s estimated the region loses more than $3.5 billion annually due to direct cyberattacks, and billions more from missed business opportunities caused by the resulting reputational damage from the attacks,” the report says.

To show the continent’s vulnerability to cyberattacks,  Kearney tested its cyber resilience –the ability to resist, adapt, and recover from cyberattacks. That test focused on the five African best performers in the International Telecommunication Union's Global Cybersecurity Index: South Africa, Morocco, Nigeria, Kenya, and Egypt.

“Through the five selected countries, the analysis showed that Africa’s cyber resilience is low, particularly around strategy, governance and operational entities and cross-sector cooperation,” the report states. 

While the average benchmark is 0.25% of GDP, South Africa, the African champion in cybersecurity spending, invests just 0.19% of its GDP, compared with 0.03% for the rest of sub-Saharan Africa. "If each African country spends 0.25 percent of GDP annually on cybersecurity, this would be in line with spending in mature markets. Our estimates suggest that this translates to $4.2 billion annually for the region," reads the document.

In addition to financial investment, investment in human capital is also an important component. Indeed, 84% of organizations believe that less than 50% of candidates applying for cybersecurity jobs are qualified, and more than half of companies seeking these profiles take more than 6 months to find qualified people.

Against this backdrop, in an interview with We Are Tech Africa last May, Youssef Mazouz, Secretary General of the African Cybersecurity Center, explained that there was a need to support Africa “by setting up continuous training, building skills, and opening cybersecurity research centers and universities."

Regulatory issues

African countries are yet to agree on regulations.  Although the African Union convention on cybersecurity and the protection of personal data was adopted in 2014, it is not yet effective to this day. According to Article 36, to become effective, the convention must be ratified by at least 15 of the continent's 54 countries. To date, only 14 have ratified it, the latest being Côte d’Ivoire (March 2023). However, digital transformation has been accelerating on the continent since the Covid-19 pandemic.

“Cybersecurity is not a matter from which African countries can isolate themselves. The interconnectivity of systems results in the interconnectivity of the security threats to member states.[...] The absence of an implemented, unifying, regional governance framework makes it difficult to collaborate and share intelligence,” the report indicates. 

Africa will better manage cybersecurity by emulating European countries, which opted for the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). That law, effective since May 2018, frames data processing equally throughout the European Union (EU).

Adoni Conrad Quenum

The debate on the impact of artificial intelligence on development in Africa gathered pace late last year.  The opportunities and threats it represents are now being scrutinized by experts and organizations.

Artificial intelligence (AI) can be a formidable asset for international peace and security, according to the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). The UN body supports this position given the rapid pace at which conflicts are evolving, and the vast amount of data generated, which human beings are unable to process efficiently for effective decision-making processes.

The UNDP believes that "artificial intelligence can help us understand and even anticipate the onset and evolution of a crisis." But it must be combined with a human touch. Indeed, the international body is certain that Human-in-the-loop AI (HITL) –a process that combines the power of machine learning with human intelligence to solve complex problems– can improve data analysis in radically changing circumstances.

In Africa, where social networks have become privileged tools of expression, and where misinformation and hate speech are on the rise, as is communication from extremist groups, AI will help enhance watchfulness. Especially on platforms such as "Facebook and Twitter, which have been unwilling or unable to address these fundamental vulnerabilities," says the UNDP.

"These companies are often unable to consider the cross-platform impacts of their policies and user behaviors. They lack the resources (and internal incentives) to understand the impact of technology in a non-Western context and, to date, have been unwilling to share the metrics needed to properly assess the effects of their policies and interventions," laments the organization in the August 2023 issue of its "Development Futures Series".

After the start of the Ukrainian-Russian conflict on February 24, 2022, Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook were actively used to report on events in real-time. They were also used as “weapons” to influence and shape opinions online.  However, they have also proved useful for studying many aspects of the conflict, such as attacks on health facilities, minefields, and the use of banned weapons systems (e.g. cluster munitions).

For the UNDP, artificial intelligence systems can be tested within the UN, in a small number of country offices, or in other field operations to meet the needs of each context. The initial objective could be to expand prevention efforts in places where tensions are rising or to identify disinformation campaigns targeting humanitarian personnel.  These tests could lead to the creation of a cutting-edge global platform for sharing artificial intelligence tools, tags, models, and algorithms.

Muriel Edjo