Digital Transformation in Communities of Africa

Introduction

A new generation of youthful ‘digital natives’ is growing across Africa and set to fuel growth and drive adoption of new digital technologies services geared to impact all areas of African society, empowering lives, transforming businesses, and increasing engagement, equitability, and wellbeing — impacting all the continent’s cities, towns, and villages. The challenge of degree of heterogeneity and differences in growth models across these emerging economies is significant for growth as countries are not starting from the same base. To revive economic growth and job creation in Africa, international research institutions such as the World Bank (WB), United Nations (UN), International Monetary Fund (IMF), Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), World Economic Forum (WEF), and European Commission (EC) have focused their attention on the growth of digitisation in industry and enterprises (African Development Bank [AfDB] et al., 2017; Arntz, Gregory, & Zierahn, 2016; European Economic and Social Committee, 2017; OECD, 2017; WEF, 2016). Such institutions define digitisation as the mass adoption of connected digital services by consumers, enterprises, and governments (AfDB et al., 2017; OECD, 2017; WEF, 2016).

Empirical work undertaken across the African Union (AU) highlights vision priority areas as covering economic growth, sustainable development, employment, and wellbeing for people and communities, with initiatives being developed for the broader and long-term AU Agenda 2063, forming the first of the 10-year incremental phasing strategies using technologies to impact critical sectors of, among others, agriculture, energy, environment, health, infrastructure development, mining, security, and water (OECD, 2017; WEF, 2016; WB, 2019a).

This empirical investigation combining the role that selected digital technologies play in overcoming social and economic challenges is presented and discussed. The aim is to contribute towards advancing relevant knowledge and recommendations for the future on the theoretical direction of digital transformation (DT) in African economies and communities. The study’s objectives were to explore policies and programs aimed at enabling African countries and communities to adopt ways to improve socioeconomic development performance and communities’ prosperity by enhancing digital technologies. The question asked is whether African countries can take advantage of programs such as those implemented in other emerging economies of East Asia like India, Korea, and Singapore. The primary objective was to assess the ability of current frameworks, such as those proposed by the G7 and G20, to deliver the potential of DT to increase trade and economic growth, bridge inequalities in African countries, and further enhance rural communities’ growth (Department of International Relations and Cooperation, 2019; WB, 2019c). Specifically, objectives centered on:

• 1.

  reviewing demographic and economic opportunities and challenges and assessing their implications for attainment of the continent’s digital development aspirations (Tor, 2017);

• 2.

  using digital development methodology, frameworks, and roadmaps to benchmark achievement; and

• 3.

  examining African ICT liberalization and the role of facilitating governments.