A Perspective on Africa’s Networked Readiness

“‘Sustainable development’ implies that economic activity should be designed to create wealth for the use of present and future generations. If natural resources cannot be developed and exploited to create wealth for the nation, the result may be poverty and deprivation. Crisis management soon takes over from sustainable economic development. So far, experience in Sub-Saharan Africa for the past 20 years would indicate that almost all the countries in this region have suffered negative growth; that is, the economies of Sub-Saharan Africa are in a state of decline and the development of the rich natural resources has come to a virtual standstill. The Sub-Saharan region has turned into a region of "beggar nations" in the midst of plentiful natural resources. In this regard, the least harnessed resources of this beautiful continent include minerals and energy.”
If we are so rich why are we so poor? If we are so educated why are we so foolish? If all are created equal and all have 5 common senses why are members of the lighter race progressing and those of the darker color retrogressing and are thus unequal? If Africa accounts for 22% of the land mass, and has the highest record of mineral deposits in the world, why is it a perpetual beggar? If our culture is so good why does it seem to pull us down? If we are so democratic why are there so many conflicts and wars in our camp? If our history is so rich why doesn’t it speak for itself? Why is it that the only history we speak about is of the past, what about the future, what will future generations inherit but debt? Why are we independent but not free, free but not independent? What, who and why do we need someone to define who we are, are we so barbaric that we do not even know who we are? Why is all that we know to be a true account of who we are spoken from a foreign mouth? Can’t we speak for ourselves or develop benchmarks to measure ourselves? “Will future generations bless us, curse us or forget us?”

Bringing to the fore the centrality of innovation and technological readiness for national and international competitiveness, the World Economic Forum has undertaken since 2002, in cooperation with INSEAD (a graduate business school and research institution founded in 1957), a research project aimed at outlining the factors enabling countries to fully leverage ICT in daily activities in order to effectively boost growth and prosperity. One of the key deliverables of this project has been the Global Information Technology Report (GITR) series, published annually since 2001 and currently in its seventh edition. Featured in the GITR series, The Networked Readiness Index (NRI), establishes an international framework by which the performance in networked readiness of a large number of economies can be assessed and benchmarked against one another over time. By so doing, relative competitive advantages and areas of weakness can be identified for each country, offering a unique platform to governments and civil society to prioritize policies and initiatives toward enhanced ICT penetration and leverage. The GITR series has successfully contributed to raising general awareness of the close link between ICT prowess and continued growth and prosperity, and has evolved into one of the world’s most respected international assessments of countries’ capacity to leverage technology for increased competitiveness. With aims of furthering the understanding of ICT-enabling factors and benchmarking countries’ networked readiness, extending coverage to 134 countries (both “developed” and “developing” economies worldwide) the Report, the GITR for 2007 – 2008 was published. In that Report, Zimbabwe factored in the last 3 countries together with Timor-Leste and Chad, two other “African” countries. Tunisia officially the Republic of Tunisia a country located in North Africa was a breath of fresh air ranked at number 38 being the only African country ranked in the top 50 countries or economies.

What is wrong with us? Take notice “the framework aims at assessing the different degrees to which countries around the world leverage ICT for enhanced growth and competitiveness” , and Africa is still lagging behind! Who needs to “enhance growth” let alone “competitiveness” now more than ever if it’s not the African continent? I would have thought that off the cameras and somewhere in secret we would be working so hard to bolster our position, secretly and quietly, but alas we are doing the opposite. I would have thought that after having seen how we were left behind in the Industrial Revolution we would not be left behind in the Information Revolution but alas, the opposite is true, the gap continues to widen. How do you compete when you have mastered the art of begging at every turn oh Africa! ‘Life is unfair so get over it’, we cannot continue to wait for things to happen, instead we need to cause things to happen, we can’t continue to live by the tragic cliché that “good things come to those who wait” and seem to work so hard in public. After all the gurus of the Information Age worked so hard in private only coming into the public arena when all the money there is to make was safely banked and competition was on how to spend it and which Aid organization to spend it on. Africa has been “independent” cumulatively for at least 50 years with a sizeable number of Northern countries obtaining “independence” in and around the year 1960 with others coming on board in the mid 70’s but the dream of “freedom” yes “freedom” to stand on our own and chat our own course has been illusive very illusive indeed. How can we be free when all standards that were set up to judge our progress are not our own? We unfortunately for now, are relegated to followers of progress but the speed of execution will decide our fate as in being leaders of progress, innovators of the next age. If we are to grow up we cannot continue to trip and fall on our own underwear. We need to rally at one central point, unfortunately that point is not the illusive United States of Africa but in the creation of growth points – Technological Growth Points. Apart from creating national Technology Growth Points we need to engage from the smallest cell to the biggest formation such that Africa resonates with one voice for the adoption and diffusion of technology. We need to desist from consuming our seed and making sure that our seed is planted in good time so as to ensure a good harvest. Let us desist for once from looking outwardly to what the world can do for us but what we can do for the world, what we can receive from the world but how and what we can give to the world. Why do we keep on expecting “someone” to pay the price for our ticket to success as if that “someone” owes us for every breath they take? Sorry to say the world did not do any worse for us than we were already doing for ourselves, look no further than the Darfur conflict and see the truth our brothers perish as we expect the West, East and so forth to come to mediate. Talk about the genocide in Rwanda, what a shame.

In examining ourselves we need to focus on three pillars which unfortunately already stand as benchmarks by which we are adjudged whether fairly or unfairly I shan’t tell namely The Environment, Multistakeholder Effort and ICT Usage.
1.Environment
A precursor to benefitting fully from the opportunities offered by ICT, is the demand for the presence and establishment of a friendly and conducive environment for ICT development. The appropriate business environment, regulatory framework, and infrastructure must be in place for stakeholders to use and leverage ICT for development. ICT development does not happen in a vacuum, but happens in an enabling environment. Worst case scenario, who would think about buying a computer when “machetes are the hottest property on the market to smartly slice your brother’s throat and to cleanse the land from wide nosed neighbors or roaches as they would say”? Surely GOD forgive us for our errors of omission and commission.

- Market environment
By now all and sundry followers of this column would understand that in deed there can be no meaningful progress in today’s age with the exclusion of ICTs, but why do governments in Africa continue to appear as if they are punishing business for importing and utilizing ICT by continuously levying heavy taxes and duties at points of entry? Surely no known country in Africa, for now at least, is recorded as manufacturing ICTs thus rendering Africa a net importer of ICTs. Maybe it is due to our confusion that ICTs are luxury products with special mention being given to mobile phones which hail in most parts of Africa as fashion statements and not for their true worth. The absence of Capital sources (chiefly venture capital) is a thorn in the flesh to enterprising natives of the land, hence the unfortunate reality being that anyone who dare be great has to look West, East or elsewhere for funding. I’m reminded of the “spider web” theory but even the spider takes time to meticulously weave its web which time seems to be running out and fast on Africa. The degree of business sophistication, and the innovation potential, together with the ease (or is it dis-ease) of doing business compounded by the lack of freedom in information exchange as well as the related accessibility of digital content (where it is present), pose as major threats to the growth of ICT in the beloved continent.

- Political & Regulatory Environment
In Africa is where you find typical test cases of “the Spirit willing and the body being weak”. From the top echelons of governance seems to resonate with the bold belief in the cause for ICTs but somewhere in the execution is where the gold coin is lost. We need effective law-making bodies, drafting real laws relating to ICT with judicial independence being observed to enforce those laws impartially and to preside over disputes justly. The thorny issue of Intellectual Property Protection cannot be ignored in order to reward innovation and creativity. I wonder what would happen if Bill Gates’ and yes Microsoft Corporation’s “backdoor” to the Windows Operating System was open to all, how much disaster would occur and what challenges “hackers” would pose on the world. Property rights cannot be overemphasized here. One major challenge observed over time and through the breadth and width of Africa is the issue of quality of competition in the Internet Service Provider (ISP) sector. Do we continue to look inwardly for players in the sector or open up the sector to foreign players with benefits and disadvantages accruing on both sides of the coin? How do you rationalize the sector, do you choose to wear the spectacles of the user or the contact lenses of the local capitalist ISP with barley enough capital but is homegrown or an international consortium ISP with enough capital to lay undersea cables connecting and linking you to the rest of the world but at what cost to you. In short do you sell your birthright for a plate of stew and lentils like Esau or “die” of hunger as he presumed he would have, had he not sold his birthright? We need to be cunning and calculative for sometimes two is greater than one, and we are greater than the sum of our individual parts.

- Infrastructure Environment
I don’t know which Africa you hail from but from where I hail the disregard for infrastructure, especially fixed telephone lines is grandiose. With the presence of only one fixed telephone operator, who is undoubtedly heavily incapacitated, you would think the general populace would be grateful for the existence of fixed telephone lines and would hold them in high esteem, but not so, a good number of such lines has been vandalized. How then do you progress as a people when you destroy your own infrastructure intended for your own good. Just compare the level of foolishness, how much will say a hundred or two meters of telephone cable will cost in comparison to the benefits of having a reliable, cost effective (I said I would not use the word cheap ever again) and efficient fixed telephone system. So why do we have vandals doing their nasty on our infrastructure sometimes while we wait by and spur them on? We need to up the quality of scientific research institutions and create a conducive environment in our Education domain for ICT penetration and curricular. Obviously we cannot afford not to have secure internet servers or else our sovereignty will be lost let alone compromised. One burning issue here would be that of Electricity Production. I really wonder why a continent so rich in natural resources would have blackouts. These should never be allowed to exist what with all the coal deposits, the gases, the oil deposits and the various sources of water energy abounding, not to mention wind and solar. Just to throw in a quick win, I wonder if all the blackouts and load shedding which we have been subjected to in Zimbabwe have really brought any benefit. What would happen if we sincerely rotated the load shedding or blackout for just one month to everyone I say everyone such that cumulatively out of a possible 12 months we would have one month of total blackout with the savings going towards research and development of alternative sources of energy like wind and or solar. The rationale being that we would save on the import of power. I wonder how many times a year our generators at Hwange or is it Kariba break down in a year and what they are costing us in terms of maintenance. Isn’t it time to look for a lasting solution, who will we import from next, seeing that our major suppliers will one day be under pressure to serve their own domestic markets due to increased demand if this is not already obtaining. Apologies are in order for wondering into a danger zone by the way I am not an electrical engineer so let me just focus on my core competence here.

2.Multistakeholder effort
Success stories show that networked economies foster a joint effort between multiple stakeholders which are the government, businesses and civil society. There is need for governments to take the lead in giving impetus to ICT penetration and innovation by giving it pole position in national agenda and enabling the establishment of the relevant infrastructures.
- Individual readiness
A nation can only be as ready for any undertaking as its citizens are. Critical mass is achieved when appropriate human skills for ICT usage are in place, ICTs are accessible and affordable for both businesses and citizens, and government prioritizes ICT in its daily activities and organization. The bedrock of individual readiness is founded on the quality of education with a bias towards Mathematics and Science, internet access in schools, residential telephone connection charges, high speed broadband and the cost of mobile telephone calls.

- Business readiness
To be able to compete internationally African businesses need to consistently train staff as well as participate in Research and Development (R&D) as well as to foster a closely neat relationship with academia. Our absence of continuity plans is a major drawback with little if anything is done for future generations. The quantity and quality of ICT suppliers in the economy, coupled with the affordability of ICTs as well as the levels of imports serve to lubricate businesses towards ICT Readiness. It is not a coincidence that telephone connection charges as well as monthly telephone charges can create an enabling environment for Business Readiness or can be a deterrent factor to the same.

- Government readiness
Governments are appointed by the people for the people and are a true reflection of the people just as the people are a true reflection of the government. It has been said that people get the government they deserve. Put across more simply governments are a mirror image of the people and reflect the state of a people. Put in perspective there is need for government to prioritize on the agenda, a clear vision to promote the use of ICTs and their diffusion. There has to be clear cut policies on government procurement of ICT products seeing as the local government has to be seen to support local business as opposed to foreign players. In order to market and to push forward the agenda on E-culture, governments need to seriously engage in E-Governance with all national (or at least those that concern the general public and that do not compromise national security) sources of data, being accessible to the general public.

3.ICT Usage
We need to take stock of the actual usage by the three main stakeholders of the networked readiness framework, providing insight on the efficiency and productivity gains linked to ICT.

- Individual usage
On the individual level areas of consideration would be aligned to internet users, internet bandwidth, broadband internet, personal computers and yes mobile telephone subscribers.

- Business usage
Issues that come to the fore are availability of new telephone lines, extent to which business uses the internet, the creation or presence of capacity to innovate, to abstract perspectives like firm-level technology absorption and the prevalence of foreign technology licensing.

- Government usage
Measurables here would be government success in promoting the cause for ICT, availability of up to date government online services, to the presence of ICT in government offices and departments.

“We are at an extraordinary period of history. It is a time of crisis and unprecedented
uncertainty, even fear; but it is also a time of opportunity for change and profound
transformation. Now, more than ever, we are aware of how globalization has increased our interconnectedness and how global cooperation is absolutely essential. How we, as a
community of global leaders, proceed in the succeeding months will change the
course of history.”

“Wherefore seeing we also are encompassed with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us” Hebrews 12 verse 1.