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Africa’s chance to be an active player in the 4th Industrial revolution (4IR) rests on the ability to adopt digital technologies allowing the continent to diversify its economy, Director General, National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, has said.
Abdullahi, while delivering a keynote address at the 9th Annual Summit of Africa Information and Communication Technologies Alliance (AfICTA) Webinar with the theme: “Accelerated Digitalization for Economic Revolution in Africa: Prospects and Challenges,” said with billions of people still not connected, the continnent must invest in diguital infrastructures to get going on the 4IR.
“Implementing a nationwide digital transformation is not a straightforward venture. It is plagued with intricacies, risks, and other encumbrances. African leaders must champion digitalization by first, showing commitment and willingness to engender and support the culture of digitalization,” said Abdullahi. He was represented by NITDA’s Acting Director, Digital Economy Department, Salisu Kaka.
Nigeria is regarded as Africa’s largest ICT market with a huge percentage of the continent’s telecommunication subscribers and 29% of internet usage. Sub Saharan Africa is projected to be the fastest growing region with a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 4.6% and an additional subscribers enrolment of over 167 million in the next five years.
There is still much works to be done to close the gaps, the NITDA’s boss said.
He said the adoption of digital technologies will help increase Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of African countries and the development of digital technologies will further help diversify exports, thus increasing sources of foreign exchange earnings.
“Nigeria’s National Digital Economy Policy and Strategy (NDEPS) document by Federal Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy has presented strategic pillars necessary for the nation’s digitalization drive, which includes; Developmental Regulation, Digital literacy and Skills, Solid Infrastructure, Service Infrastructure, Digital Society and Emerging Technologies, and Indigenous content development and adoption. These 8 strategic pillars were further broken down into Strategy document by Agencies under the Ministry for implementation.
“NITDA has developed a Strategic Roadmap and Action Plan (SRAP 2021-2024) towards implementation of the NDEPS. There are various initiative of projects and programs designed to give effect to the SRAP document. Other sister Agencies under the Ministry have also done their strategic initiatives as well”, he added.
He said “accelerating the digitalization of the economy of any nation is not a responsibility of government alone. There is the strong need for any serious government to make deliberate effort to identify relevant entities that can be instrumental to the achievement of a national digitalization and engaged them on a continuous basis. Thus, the effort put in place by AfICTA is a step in the right direction and Africa as a continent should be proud of AfICTA.”
