P. Sarojini
Kenya (CWBN)_ According to the recent report from Digital Intelligence Index payments firm Mastercard and the Fletcher School at Tufts University, Kenya topped the region in digital growth and demand. Kenya is accompanied by Rwanda and Tanzania in the next top places in the survey titled Digital Intelligence Index. These three countries jointly are listed as “break-out” economies for their rapid development and substantial growth.
Significant features that have made Kenya and Rwanda more inviting to investors around the globe include their development in internet penetration, enhanced infrastructure and high involvement of young digitally savvy people. For instance, in March, Kenya and Djibouti were linked via the Djibouti Africa Regional Express 1 (Dare1) cable submarine with 30 Terabits per second to increase connectivity in the Horn of Africa. This feature enhances the Seacom, East African Marine System (Teams), Eastern African Submarine Cable System (EASsy) and Lion2 networks of other cables serving Kenya.
In spite of the youngsters’ extraordinary involvement in social media and mobile payments and showing passion for a digital future, the Sub-Saharan African countries such as South Africa, Nigeria, Uganda, Ethiopia and Namibia have been labeled as “watch-out” economies for their infrastructure gaps.
According to the report published this month, it shows that in the past decade, sub-Saharan Africa has seen a wide increase in the adoption of mobile payments. The report says that savings have risen, micro-savers have opened bank accounts, and short-term loans can now be priced by lenders. Further, there are more than 20 million digital savings accounts at present.
A recent report from United Nations on digital finance says that mobile banking has developed in East Africa with M-Shwari, which is a mobile money product from Kenya that leads with 20.4 million active accounts since its start-up in November 2012. The next comes M-Pawa of Tanzania, which was launched in May 2014. The other is MoKosha of Uganda which was started in August 2016 and MoKosha of Rwanda which was started in February 2017, with 2.71 million and 556,202 active accounts.
The index rated South Africa as the most advanced digital economy in the continent, and Nigeria is listed as a the high-performing future digital economy because of its high digital participation led by active use of social media and the acceptance of mobile payments.
According to the survey, broad mobile payment adoption and wider financial inclusion in Africa have been powered by enhanced technology, connectivity and access in conjunction with young, digitally savvy populations in the past two decades. Despite the sub-Saharan Africa is still lagging in connectivity behind other areas, digitalization is improving rapidly. The report said, “Sub-Saharan Africa has led a mobile money revolution, making up two-thirds of the world’s 37 billion mobile money transactions in 2019, while Internet penetration has grown tenfold since the early 2000s, compared with a threefold increase in the rest of the world”.
According to the recent report, with the enhanced and more equitable digital environment and infrastructure, small-scale business owners such as farmers are expected to be successful in the digital economy.
