Disruptive technologies in Africa can drive efficiency in business and public services

Disruptive technologies can help Africa to unleash its full creativity, ingenuity and enterprise and open up new markets, increase choice and speed up delivery. But barriers remain. How can they be overcome? In this article, I discuss how digital disruption can help to drive efficiency in business and public services across Africa.

Boosting connectivity

Connectivity is the essential bedrock of disruptive development, not just in linking consumers to businesses, but also enabling innovators to share ideas and seek funding and advice through the shared economy.

Yet while mobile connectivity is well-advanced, internet availability lags behind. Less than 30% of African people have access to mobile broadband (compared to 43% in Asia) and only 15% have internet at home.

Beyond limited coverage, the barriers include high costs. Most people are on pay-as-you-go plans – downloading a movie can cost several days’ pay. Mobile hot spots are available, but they’re generally confined to urban areas and beyond the means of most people. Further obstacles include devices, most of which use old technology and are not set up for smart access. Finally, the preponderance of Western-orientated news and entertainment content deters many African people from using the internet.

Opportunities and priorities for business

• Developing affordable devices and data usage plans, along with high quality home-grown content.

Opportunities and priorities for policymakers

• Working with telecoms providers to increase broadband coverage.

Targeting investment in public services

More effective collection, analysis and sharing of data could improve the efficiency of public services. Yet while there is a lot of data available, it can often be fragmented, incomplete or out-of-date, making it difficult to target investment, track progress against objectives or enable citizens to hold public officials to account.

Drones could offer part of the answer by providing up-to-date monitoring and tracking. We at PwC have been developing a fleet of surveyor drones to help clients monitor infrastructure, manage construction sites and carry out insurance assessments. The drones are also being used to support town planning by mapping buildings and land usage, formal and informal, in urban areas. The drone surveillance in Lagos will help the local government to verify property ownership, improve postal services and collect taxes on unregistered properties.

Key data and analysis could also come from using unstructured mobile data to verify where people live, their income and spending habits. Properly used, this data could help governments to better estimate where populations are concentrated, find out the areas where deprivation is most severe and hence where to target investment and services.

Further initiatives include new one-stop portals to pay bills and manage services such as passport application. Examples include Kenya’s eCitizen portal. South Africa’s Yowzit for Government goes further by enabling citizens to post online reviews and ratings of public services. The results help to create a daily updated ‘Top 5’ rankings for education, health, recreation, municipal services, arts and culture, justice, social services and sport. This is both revealing for users and an aid to government in pinpointing areas in need of improvement.

Opportunities and priorities for business

• Work with government to share data that could support better planning and public services, and provide the basis for joint initiatives in areas such as housing and infrastructure development.

Opportunities and priorities for policymakers

• Look at opportunities to augment information gathering using drones, mobile data, payments and other new data sources.
• Work with companies to develop protocols for data sharing that provide information for use in planning, while protecting confidentiality.

Smart farming

Agriculture is by far the largest employer in Africa. There have been many attempts to modernise techniques, boost yields and improve the livelihoods of farming communities. But progress has been slow and uneven. Plots are small, irrigation is rare and wastage is high. Mobile connectivity is providing channels to communicate information to farmers about their crops and livestock. They range from advice on animal husbandry (i-cow) to apps that give the latest market prices and as a result hence help remote producers to secure a fair deal from wholesalers.

The focus of innovation also includes crop insurance. Several companies are using mobile platforms to deliver crop insurance, drawing on their ability to aggregate large numbers of farmers and to cheaply collect data about them.

Opportunities and priorities for business

• The key gap in the market remains finance: after several false starts, mobile lenders are coming to recognise the importance of offering packaged services such as credit advice or lending and insurance.
• Seed development also offers significant opportunities. Micro-sensors allow developers to tailor varieties to local conditions more effectively. Using mobile connectivity to improve after-sales advice and support is also crucial in maximising the potential of new ‘smart seeds’.

Opportunities and priorities for policymakers

• Agriculture has continued to be at the back of the queue for investment. But Africa represents an extraordinary resource, not only capable of supplying domestic needs for multiple African nations, but also of becoming a major source of world food supplies. (For more on this, see PwC’s report Food Security in Africa.)
• Smart development would put agriculture at the forefront, bringing unused land into production, deploying the latest technology to boost yields and moving up the value chain into areas such as seed development.

In my next article I'll consider how disruptive technologies can help to strengthen trust and combat corruption. If you'd like to read more on these topics, please read PwC's report Disrupting Africa: riding the wave of the digital revolution.