In the Eyes of the Pandemic Storm- Africa ICT Leaders upbeat on Public Sector Outlook

The COVID-19 pandemic is an unprecedented challenge. It threatens our health, livelihood and peace of mind—our very way of life. Both the public and private sectors have important leadership roles in developing a response. Citizens and businesses expect government to provide guidance they can trust, services that meet their needs and financial security. 

Unfortunately, the pandemic has upended how government works, forcing a sudden shift to widespread telework, an unprecedented demand on public-benefit programs like unemployment insurance and an almost universal cessation of in-person services, as the social-distancing practices meant to limit the spread of the novel coronavirus prevents people from going to government offices, and inspire little confidence about when normal society will begin to resume.

These concerns are common in communities around the globe. They represent ways that organizations are already joining together on what must be done. It is critical to look both at the immediate response toward recovery and preparations for future scenarios.

To some observers and eager vendors, this quick and radical overhaul of government work presents a mixture of new security challenges, and an opportunity to accelerate the pace of digital transformation in the public sector, despite legacy challenges.

While the immediate focus is to limit the human, social and economic loss, operating in the “new normal” will mean extra pressure on ICT in the months to come. Public sector bodies need to use digital channels to inform and serve citizens more effectively.

The pandemic has exposed the need to improve and apply technology efficiency for the continuity of government. Public and private sector employees want leadership that stays the course, provides clear direction on a path forward and a working environment that ensures their safety.

In continuation of her Africa Tech Leaders’ series, Digital Jewels hosted another interactive and well attended online webinar on Tuesday, May 12, 2020, at 11am (WAT) with the theme: COVID-19 Pandemic: The Public Sector Outlook.

On the list of exceptional panel of discussants were Paula Ingabire (Hon. Minister of ICT & Innovation, Rwanda), Engr. Aliyu Aziz (DG/CEO, NIMC, Nigeria), Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi (DG, NITDA, Nigeria), Kwaku Ofori (Ag. Deputy DG, NITA, Ghana) and Adedoyin Odunfa (MD/CEO, Digital Jewels Ltd), as the moderator.

Webinar flyer

In her opening remarks, the MD/CEO, Digital Jewel (Adedoyin Odunfa) laid some background highlighting the impact of the global pandemic on the African continent, the role of Digital Jewel in enhancing value of discerning organizations across Africa. She captured the mood of the outlook through a poll with 57% of participants rating the role that Government can play to significantly improve local ICT infrastructure as ‘Information/CyberSecurity Awareness’ as the highest, followed by ‘Ensure secure connections’ with 50%, and ‘Provide access for last mile connections for better speed’ with 45%, then ‘Ensure data privacy’ came fourth with 43%, closely followed by ‘Provide free data’ with 38.1%, while 36% of the participants chose ‘Provide multiple hubs’, and the least choice of 21% was to ‘Provide secure cloud services’.

While highlighting the proactive steps taken by the Rwandan Government through the ‘Smart Africa’ initiative in the enhancement of digital public services through the national digital transformation agenda, the first speaker, Paula Ingabire (Hon. Minister of ICT & Innovation, Rwanda), reeled out a number of well thought out government initiatives to foster a national culture of innovation in positioning Rwanda in the forefront of digital service distribution process across all sectors of the economy. She confirmed that over 200 government services are available online for public access.

She further informed that the Rwandan government was able to achieve these through:

• A sizeable investment in innovative technology platforms and digital awareness for ICT adoption.
• Capacity development and promotion of digital skills across the platforms.
• Massive expansion of digital infrastructure and innovative solutions such as the ‘Corona-Action’ Rwanda initiative to combat the pandemic.
• Deliberate strategy in partnership with the private sector towards the digitization of the Rwandan economy.

On the flip side, Paula sees some silver linings in the cloud, as the pandemic holds huge ace to accelerate the efforts of the government towards the acculturation of the digital transformation agenda. She stated that the pandemic is gradually changing the paradigm with significant drive towards greater collaboration in the value chain and a marked shift in the re-invention and re-modelling of workplaces to take better advantage of digital services.

While acknowledging the pandemic induced disruptions in the Educational sector which is witnessing a lot of adoption, she was of the opinion that a lot more digitization of content creations and end to end digital services will serve as key drivers towards achieving the transformation goals. With the zero rating of most digital services, She sees the following outlook:

• Increased adoption of digital payment channels by banks, mobile service providers, governments, etc
• Increased demand and adoption of innovative business continuity solutions.

On funding, she stated that the Rwandan Government is taking the following deliberate steps to enhance digitization:

• Attracting increased funding and investment in digital solution and services
• Providing awareness to improve digital literacy and support for entrepreneurs
• Promoting research and innovation through grants to innovators

Deploying intra-regional trade data driven automated payment for regionalizing the supply chain flow.

In conclusion, she asserted that the opportunity provided by the pandemic, through the National digital transformation agenda can be leveraged to achieve improved productivity, accelerate poverty reduction and thereby attain economic growth.

The second speaker, Engr. Aliyu Aziz (DG/CEO, NIMC, Nigeria), whilst corroborating some of the earlier positions, emphasized that a national digitization strategy can only be effective when there’s an authentic identification management system, which is the major focus of the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) with the sole mandate to register and provide a digital identity to every citizen.

He confirmed that the total number of unique identification records in the NIMC database captured thus far in absolute terms is about 42 million, which can be provisioned for any required government service. While acknowledging that the number is a far cry when compared to the overall population of Nigeria, he assured that necessary steps are being taken fast-track the registration process with a view to ramping up the numbers.

He also stated that for effective impact of the National digital drive, Government agencies need to utilize new and innovative technology solutions, adopt digital skills, embrace change management process and accept a complete shift from the norm.

Engr. Aziz, further confirmed that earlier in February this year, the World Bank approved USD 430 million in support of NIMC Digital Identification for Development project to fast-track the enrolment of unique identification and grow the number of National Identification Number (NIN) in the next couple of years.

He also confirmed that a total of 14 million Bank Verification Numbers ( BVN) have so far been harmonized with the National Identification Number (NIN).

However, he submitted that the pandemic may have opened up a pandora’s box to accelerate the digital economy. He acknowledged that the private sector has done a lot more in taking advantage of ICT innovation when compared to the public sector where the level of participation and digital adoption is fairly low.

He rounded up by canvassing the need for the use of innovative intrusive technology solutions in the unique identification of citizens.

On his part, the third speaker, Kwaku Ofori (Ag. Deputy DG, NITA, Ghana), provided insights as to how the public sector in Ghana faired by taken advantage of the pandemic and the proactive steps taken by the Ghanaian Government leapfrog.

He made the following key points:

• The Government of Ghana was a bit ahead of the pandemic in the digital journey process with the ‘Smart Web’ digital transformation initiative for the public sector, which commenced in 2017.
• The Smart Web digitization initiative enhanced the implementation of paper-less policies across the Government agencies, with full enforcement by the Bank of Ghana.
• The huge investment in internet backbone connectivity enhanced the digitization effort in most sectors, particularly in the Education sector, where smart learning platforms were deployed to most of the schools and the Health sector where tele-medicine was leveraged to enhance healthcare services.
• The National Digital agenda of the Ghanaian Government is integral to the structure of governance with the ‘Smart Office’ in the Presidency.
• These initiatives were deployed for contact tracing and tracking of Covid-19 victims, leveraging some of the huge investments in innovative technology.
• Investment by the Government in public enlightenment and awareness of the general public through the institution of centralized call centre for prompt response on Covid-19 victims.
• Ghana’s Government deliberate policies on ACT 772 (Electronic transaction Act) and on zero rating of digital services saw a major leapfrog in ICT and Innovation in the area of mobile payments which saw huge online demand especially from students and homes.

The final speaker, Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi (DG, NITDA, Nigeria), began by giving the digitization trajectory of the Government, which predates the pandemic as follows:

• The launch in 2017, of the National Economic recovery and growth plan, which identified ICT as a key enabler.
• The separation, empowerment and repositioning of the Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy by the Federal Government to fulfil a broader agenda of the Digital Economy.
• The launch of the National Digital Economy plan as a blueprint of the National Digital Transformation agenda.
• The launch of the Nigeria Enterprise Architecture and ePolicy master plan.
• Implementation of other ancillary digital transformation initiatives by the Government like the TSA (Treasury Single Account), IPPIS (Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information), GIFMIS (Government Integrated Financial Management Information System).

He informed that in the midst of the pandemic, NITDA had leveraged some of these initiatives to conceptualize and execute the launch of the NITDA virtual Academy platform and the Nigeria Covid-19 Innovation Challenge.

While acknowledging that the pandemic is generally accelerating digital transformation, he however highlighted the following as key inhibitors to the effective adoption of ICT:

• Funding – The dual impact of the pandemic (Health & Economic) on Government funding.
• Digital Literacy – Low or poor knowledge on how to connect to Government digital services.
• Resistance to Change – Need to embrace change
• Implementation strategy – Need for phased implementation

On specific initiatives by NITDA towards the actualization of the digital Economy goals, he stated the following:

• Implementation of the public policy rules for the migration of public institutions to Government digital services.
• Development of a framework to help Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) assess digital services.
• Implementation of the Cloud computing policy guidelines on ICT projects for public institutions to enhance end-to-end digitization.
• Implementation of a detailed supplementary regulatory framework for the Nigeria Data Protection Regulation (NDPR)

In conclusion, he shared in the optimism that the pandemic has provided the opportunity for acceleration of the broader vision of the National transformation strategy with ICT as a key enabler for economic development and growth.

The session ended with a Q&A session anchored by Adedoyin Odunfa (MD/CEO, Digital Jewel), with a somewhat consensus on the need for a unified and integrated technology platform to drive the intra-regional transformation across Africa in the post pandemic era, leveraging economies of scale.

Digital Jewels Limited is a leading African focused IT Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC), Consulting & Capacity Building, firm with deep competencies in Information Security, Information Assurance, Project Management, e-business and Knowledge Capacity Building; with extensive footprints in several African countries.