The Managing Director of Intermac Consulting, Mr. ADEYINKA ADEYEMI, featured on NewsDay, an Arise News television interview programme, where he spoke extensively on the issues of e-governance and Africa Agenda 2063. He also expatiated the roles of technology in the efforts to ensure digital transformation in all facets of life in Africa in particular with the aim of putting an end to hunger and poverty. Below are excerpts:
Tell us about Africa Agenda 2063. I know it is a 50 years plan; it started in 2013 and the first ten years was supposed to be assessed. Tell us about the agenda and where we are now.
Thank you very much for having me on the show. The Africa Agenda 2063 speaks to the concept of the Africa we want by 2063 and the great leaders of Africa came together 2013 to develop that agenda with the intention to say that we have a certain vision of where we believe Africa should be by 2063. However, let’s take it in tranches milestones; 10 years milestones per time. We’ve been in discussion with the African Union and the SDG Centre for Africa; we realize that the only way that Africa can come in terms with that agenda is to begin to look at Africa from the lense of digital transformation. So, we cannot get any reasonable or meaningful impact in the continent of Africa without ensuring that the government, especially, also the private sector, come up with an agenda that has digital transformation within its call. Really, that is what that agenda speaks to: How do we get governments across Africa to begin to use technology to drive things like social inclusion, citizen participation for instance? And then, we look at the different elements of the SDG goals, the 17, and then say that what is the role of technology with respect to those goals? So, if you take education for instance. How do we use technology to drive education? How do we use technology to drive healthcare delivery, to drive citizen engagements; to drive transportation; to drive agriculture even, with the introduction of drone technologies and so on? We can see the impact across the globe in other climes where technology is taking the centre stage with respect to development. So, in Africa we talk about growth, we talk about development, we talk about trade and commerce. 2063 is a long way ahead, and again if you look at the market in terms of the demography, you have the Millennial, you have the GenZ, you have the Generation X. Everybody is living on the net. These are digital natives, so you really cannot project 50 years down the line without considering the population and the demography of that population at the time. Like I said earlier, we are in engagement with the Centre for Africa with AU NEPAD; we say that this is our take. We represent the Africa e-governance initiative; we are based in Kigali, in Rwanda. That’s where the secretariat is. Intermac Consulting is obviously in Lagos, Nigeria. But we work closely with those agencies and the objective is really to drive e-governance in Africa.
The Africa Agenda 2063 speaks to the concept of the Africa we want by 2063 and the great leaders of Africa came together 2013 to develop that agenda with the intention to say that we have a certain vision of where we believe Africa should be by 2063.
Towards the tail end of your discussion, there is a caveat here: there has to be that willingness to engage, to be able to say yes, I’m going to embrace this. How receptive is Africa to the concept of e-governance realistically based on current social-economic narratives?
I think the narratives are changing in favour of e-governance. We have done several case studies across Africa. I’ll tell you about Rwanda, I’ll tell you about Zambia and I’ll tell you about Nigeria. Rwanda has a government entity called the Rainbow. And what the Rainbow does is to transform governance digitally, so every aspect of life in Rwanda is touched by technology because a Rainbow, a creation of government has taken it upon itself to digitally transform social life, and it is working. In Zambia, the government set up an institution called the Smart Zambia Institute. Its responsibility is to introduce technology into the public life, even private sector, and they have fantastic initiatives that cut across every aspect of life in Zambia. Now, we have similar experience in Nigeria with respect to different areas. But I must say that I’m very impressed by current Minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, with the introduction of the Digital Economy and E-governance Act 2024, which is the blueprint that will bring about that transformation in Nigeria in a cohesive manner. We’ve seen pockets here and there with respect to, for instance, digital financial service with respect to digital health; seeing incursion of technology in agriculture, in education as well. But all of these need to come together the way the Rwandans have done it, the way the Zambians have done it, to say there needs to be a driver, if you like, for that initiative to impact lives of the ordinary Nigerians and that is what that document is saying. It is a legal framework that defines what the government intends to do with the digital transformation in Nigeria.
I know that there is a lot to unpack when it comes to this African Union Agenda 2063, and which is why you have broken it down to 10 years in five places. Looking at the SDG, you talked about the fact that this is also in alignment with the SDGs. One of the goals is to end hunger and poverty. I know that at the Malabu convention in 2014, one of the goals was to end hunger by 2025. This is 2024, so how close are we? Are we in that trajectory or path at all?
We are. I must say, we are still light years away. So, next week, we have the United Nations General Assembly taking place in New York. That assembly is where a lot of private sector and government officials gather to define those kinds of agenda to say how do we end hunger by 2025, for instance. The theme of United Nations Agenda 2030 is “Leaving no one behind”. That is also the theme for this year’s 79th edition of the UN General Assembly taking place next week. Leave no one behind. I am coming to the issue of hunger. The only way to end hunger in Africa, again, is to begin to look at the role of technology. There is so much that is being done right not to introduce technology into the agricultural space so that it’s not manually implemented anymore. You can have climate change controlled by technology to be of benefit to agriculture; you can have things like seed production and enhancement done with the aide of technology. Those are the ways that technology can improve agriculture to the extent that you can begin to visualize an end to hunger. Now, to do that government needs to be deliberate in its strategies and implementation of those agendas that we like to come up with. There is nothing wrong with saying our agenda is “Leave no one behind”, but are we driving it in Africa? Don’t forget that this is a global agenda; it’s not just Africa. It’s a United Nation’s agenda 2030 that we are talking about now. How does that fit into the African Union Agenda 2063?! What is the budget that the government, typically will put in place in Africa? Does that demonstrate your interest and your commitment to having hunger end by 2025? It’s just next year! If you go back to 2014 to now, and look at the financial commitment to end hunger by 2025, then you begin to say are we really serious about this? This is not just an issue in Africa; we are talking about global agenda. So, what is the position of Africa? What is the position of Nigeria with respect to that mandate? The only way to measure it is to say: How much of technology have been deployed in agriculture? I think we should be talking to the minister of agriculture to tell us what, and of course, the agencies under it, whether they are committed to it or not and how much they are putting into that commitment. I think we should have that conversation.
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Transparency, Accountability and Security are the three pillars of corporate governance. How can we align these with e-governance prospects in Nigeria or Africa in general? I know you already said something about the framework and the willingness to do this. But when it comes to actual implementation, that’s when we seem to have issues regarding policy implementation in Africa and in Nigeria as well. So, briefly, I just like your thoughts on that.
I agree with you. There is what is called corporate governance framework; those three elements – transparency, accountability and security – are some of the key elements of corporate governance. Without them, we don’t have corporate governance. What technology introduces to governance are those elements because you can also begin to have audit trail. It will be obvious to the people that the government is either doing what they are supposed to do or not because there’s audit trail. There is technology to show that we on track or we are not on track. I think the challenge that we are having in Africa is that we have massive population. And Nigeria, may feel overwhelmed, sometimes by how to bring these guys really into the equation. But you already know that before you go into power; to say, look I have over a billion people to look after in the continent. How do I leverage technology? So, that conversation is going to be had next week in New York. How do we do these things and leave no one behind? I think that’s where we are.
