MWC AFRICA – Unlocking Africa’s Digital Economy
Through the rollout of their Digital Transformation Centres across Africa, German Development Cooperation with their initiative Invest for Jobs is a key contributor to the rise of Africa’s digital economy, supporting African governments and local innovation ecosystems on the journey to becoming digital nations. In this session, we learnt about several initiatives that help to unlock the digital economy in Africa. There was a focus on the support German Development Cooperation is providing to the continent and how their current pilot in Tunisia supports the African digital transformation. Fruitful insights are provided about the ongoing partnership with the GSMA Ecosystem Accelerator in the Tunisia through the recently launched Mobile Innovation Lab.
In the second part of this session, a panel of experts discussed the role of government, mobile operators and investors in the rise of Africa’s digital economy.
And we explored several questions around the rise of Africa’s digital economy:
- What are governments currently doing to lead the rise of their digital economy and what are the current best practices in Africa?
- What is the role of mobile operators in contributing to that common goal? What else can be achieved beyond connectivity? What are the best practices?
- What are the key sectors for investment and where are the current gaps?
- How can donors bring all those stakeholders together and ensure high impact and sustainability of digital transformation?