A new report from Harvard Business Review provides a road map for technology implementation and advances in six emerging economies on the African continent.
In HBR reports December 4, authors Bhaskar Chakravorti and Ravi Shankar Chaturvedi go over some findings related to the African Leapfrog Index, an indicator of acceleration potential for a region associated with mass poverty and other challenges. Chakravorti is Dean of Global Business at The Fletcher School at Tufts University; Chaturvedi is Associate Director for research and Doctoral Research Fellow for Innovation and Change at Fletcher’s Institute for Business in the Global Context, also at Tufts.
The study covers the ease of creating digital jobs, the resilience of government infrastructure, and overall digital potential for the involved countries.
It also provides key actions for each of the six economies – Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda and South Africa.
For example, the report recommends increased Internet access and broader digital payment capabilities in South Africa, digitization of payments and elimination of value chain barriers in Kenya, bridging the urban/rural divide in Rwanda, and the relaxing of censorship rules in Egypt.
“As our analysis has shown,” the authors conclude, “the digital advantages and gaps of different countries vary widely. A free-trade zone could help in collaborative initiatives, such as the benchmarking described here, to close the gaps and transfer knowledge across countries to enable the delayed promise of growth in Africa and helping make the growth inclusive – thereby accomplishing that rare phenomenon of getting lions to leapfrog.”
The report bolsters the sentiment that the African continent has already begun a journey to modernize rapidly with new technological gains.
“While there is still a long way to go to bridge the digital divide, connectivity gains have helped improve lives in many parts of the African continent,” wrote analysts at ITUNews in May.
Investors in emerging economies are paying attention and diversifying investors would do well to keep this on their radar.
