WEF 2016: Collaboration is key for a fully wired Africa
Session after session at the World Economic Forum Africa meeting confirmed the applicability of the African saying “If you want to go fast go alone; if you want to go far go together”.
The saying is relevant for a solution to Africa’s challenge of expanding access to the internet and making the most of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
The WEF Africa sessions in Kigali which started Wednesday end on Friday.
A session on Wednesday afternoon, Transforming the Digital Marketplace, ended with consensus that lack of collaboration – between the various parties within countries, the countries themselves and the multinational players – was a major stumbling block to the challenge of hooking millions more Africans into the digital ecosystem.
Siyabonga Cwele, South African minister of telecommunications and postal services, told the session that a shared vision of ICT was crucial because, “basically, technology is changing everything, from industry to business to society”.
If we don’t partner and have a shared vision of the impact of ICT, he argued, no one would be able to reap the full potential of the fourth industrial revolution.
Cwele also noted that trust issues and concerns about privacy needed to be part of any discussion about a solution.
Elizabeth Migwalla, Qualcomm’s senior director for government affairs in South Africa, agreed that a workable solution required the involvement of all parties.
“It is going to take everybody to make this work,” she told the session that was chaired by Pascal Lamy, the French political consultant and businessman, who was the director-general of the World Trade Organisation for many years.
Migwalla noted that there were more Africans who were not connected than those who were connected. She added that what was required was discussion between all parties, including government, industry and consumers, followed by the creation of frameworks for action, and execution.
Tobias Becker, senior vice president and director Africa of ABB, mentioned Africa’s power supply problems as a hindrance, and Charles Muritu, Google’s head of African telco and strategic partnerships in Kenya, named education and lack of skills as significant problems.
The general consensus, however, seemed to be that to take advantage of the enormous potential for economic and social development, Africa would be much better served by a shared vision and larger scale integration.