Browsing: Digital economy

How the digitalization of African trade will help realise the AfCFTA

The digitalisation of trade across the continent can significantly boost free trade in Africa, helping to realize the objectives of the Africa Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA).

To properly implement the AfCFTA, Africa will need digitalisation in the digital and virtual services and making it an enabler of trade in the different sectors.

By 2030, Africa’s population will have grown from the current 1.2 billion people to an estimated 1.7 billion. With this growth, the AfCFTA has to create an integrated African market for these consumers. The aggregated gross domestic product (GDP) from this market could see the market hit US$3.4 trillion after the opening up of the continent’s economic borders.

Read: Africa’s Cashless Payment Revolution

There are, however, various issues such as harmonising standards and improving the existing legal frameworks; enacting cybersecurity, consumer and data protection laws; and …

Africa has more digital financial services deployments than any other region in the world, with almost half of the nearly 700 million individual users worldwide.…

Africa, the continent of more than 1.3 billion people has experienced its share of the coronavirus (COVID-19), which shaved off crucial portions of the continent’s economy (tourism, trade and travel) leading to funding holes, debt burden and propelling unemployment and inequalities.  

There are several projections laid out benching on Africa’s economic trend. According to UN estimates, African countries have so far lost an estimated US$29 billion due to the pandemic.  

Meanwhile the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) pinned its forecast noting the virus will shave 1.4 per cent off Africa’s $2.1 trillion GDP, hurting the continent’s business landscape. 

Despite the pandemic eviscerating this year’s plans of enhancing tourism and travel horizons for East Africa’s hotbed Tanzania and Kenya, the African Development Bank (AfDB) finds the region undeterred in the face of the pandemic , as it becomes …

Uganda’s real GDP growth is projected to hover below 2 per cent in 2020 compared with the almost 5.6 per cent in 2019.…

Digital technologies could quicken economy recovery that has been affected by COVID-19 pandemic, according to the World Bank’s latest Economic Update for Uganda.

The world bank focused on the digital economy this time around with their report titled ‘digital solutions in a time of crisis’.

The report noted that during this COVID -19 period there has been an increase of digital technologies such as mobile, digital disease surveillance and monitoring, on-line education, on-line shopping and dissemination of public health messages which showed great potential to support faster economic recovery and strengthen resilience against future crisis.

The World Bank country manager for Uganda, Tony Thompson said that the digital space in Uganda is very innovative and during this pandemic, it has quickly adapted to provide various solutions in various sectors.

He added that if the solutions are up-scaled and developed to their potential they would boost the digital economy in Uganda …

Local IXPs are a critical piece of technical infrastructure that improves internet access.…

Modern technology is the new normal; it is the currency for development in the 21st-century landscape, and for Tanzania, this means developing and launching solutions that decipher community problems including getting access to your local professional and proficient electrician, plumber, hairdresser or even IT expert.

In this case, Fundi Popote—a tailored web-based platform simplifies life by giving clients across Tanzania the liberty to book appointments with various sorts of highly-qualified fixers instantly to attend to their electrical, housing, plumbing or even computer-related problems.

Fundi Popote reveals how potential and digital-hungry Tanzania is, hence—the platform innovator, who is a young female ICT-enthusiast, who displays her talents well and shows how the nation of 55 million stands to benefit from community digital solutions.

Getting digital

Information and communications have been growing in Tanzania, as the number of people going online via their mobile phones hit 83 per cent out of 23 million …

The world is much more digitally interconnected, compared to the past three decades, and Tanzania has been busy to get its fair share of interconnectedness.

In 2013, there were about 23 million telecom subscribers in Tanzania, surprisingly at the moment, the number is almost close to double, as Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority (TCRA), telecoms statistics show, over 43 million subscribers, with an 81 per cent penetration.

It is important to recognize the contribution of the telecoms sector in Tanzania, to the economy and to the promotion of innovative solutions to community problems. Tanzania’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) quarterly highlights, show that: information and communications sector recorded a 10.3 per cent growth, compared to 9.6 in the first quarter, thus—the growth is attributed to increasing in airtime used by mobile phone owners, and the expansion of Tanzania’s broadcasting and internet use landscape.

On the side of the context, Bank of …