Executive Summary

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought and continues to bring about unprecedented disruptions at all levels in economies. In Africa, additional to derailing key socio-economic growth factors, the pandemic threatens to undo several decades of developmental gains.

While emergency measures to curb the spread of the disease were required, they also triggered unintended impacts on trade, including on global and regional supply chains for essential goods such as medical supplies and food products. Restrictive border measures have aggravated intra-African trade and created multiple ripple effects to already strained food and agriculture systems.

African countries are devising scenario planning with individual and collective actions, and, where necessary, with the international development community to reach a rapid and sustainable exit from the pandemic. To mitigate the collateral damages inflicted to the economy and to some extent to the social fabric of the continent, a selection of priorities that have enough commonalities across African member states have been identified. They are clustered into three categories: i) Intra-African Trade & Food Systems; ii) Health System; and iii) Education.

The pandemic has highlighted the critical role of digital technologies to solve some of the challenges in these three priority-clusters. However, although new online tools have become available in the context of the pandemic, most government-to-individual transactions are still carried out in person. Furthermore, the pandemic has laid bare structural weaknesses in how prepared African member states should be for the digital post-pandemic era.

As part of its contribution to address the challenges and opportunities in the post-COVID-19, the African Union Development Agency-NEPAD recently convened on 8th October 2020 a multi-stakeholder knowledge series: “The critical role of digital transformation in Africa in the Post-COVID-19 era: How to accelerate practical digital solutions at scale with impact on jobs and livelihoods.”

The first knowledge series was organised by AUDA-NEPAD in collaboration with the South African Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), Mezzanine, the Universities of Stellenbosch and Cheikh Anta Diop, and the United Nations Office of the Special Adviser on Africa (UNOSAA). It was held on the margins of the 75th United Nations General Assembly.

Experts discussed what it will take to harness the potential of digital transformation.

Participants noted that digital transformation is not a new phenomenon in Africa. A whole new wave of African scientists, businesses and governments are leveraging innovation and technology to solve problems around access to healthcare, food, education and finance. In just a few months, the COVID-19 crisis had a transformational impact on companies, industries and governments, accelerating the use of digital technology and new innovations.

Adopting a digital transformation agenda is no longer a policy option but a policy obligation for many African governments, demonstrating its value add towards realising Africa’s Agenda 2063 and the global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). At the same time, emerging technologies are creating new risks and challenges, including widening inequalities and the digital divide.