These days, Planning and Development Commission is conducting consecutive forums regarding the ten year perspective development plan. Various ministries have been presenting their respective plans at the presence of other stakeholders and concerned bodies seeking input that enriches their plan.
The commission has coordinated a forum with Ministry Of Innovation And Technology (MiNT) recently, Fana Television reported. Dr. Fitsum Asefa, Commissioner of the Commission has briefed about the day’s discussion as usual.
The main objective of the discussion, according to Dr. Fitsum is to involve the public widely and to draw supplementary ideas from the people and using as input to finalize the perspective plan. In addition, the forum is arranged in the way to engage actors of the sector and experts in the field to forward their view on the draft plan.
Dr. Abreham Belay, Minister of Innovation and Technology has presented his ministry’s initial the ten year perspective plan. He said that the plan is based on assessment of the past years’ achievements in economic and social aspects of the country and vision how the country will reach the middle income listed countries in the coming ten years in the technology sector.
It is expected to enrich innovation and technology outputs and deploy it for the nation’s development. It requires bonding the visions of the nation and of the technology sector aiming basically to support the country’s economic growth. To this end, the past ten years’ performance of Growth and Transformational Plan (GTP) and continental and international agreements are referred when preparing the plan, he said.
The past ten years’ performance indicates that citizens’ annual per capita income has grown up from 500 USD to 1,000 USD and number of people living under poverty level has reduced from 30 percent to about 20 percent. Similarly, regarding agriculture, industry and service sectors’ share in the economy from 2010 up to 2018; the industry sector’s share has shown tangible increase whereas the service sector is decreasing and the agricultural sector is transforming to industry, he indicated.
Though the country is rich in land and other resources that can be utilized for development, it is delayed back on the track of technology utilization. “Our agricultural work and service delivery must be modernized. Unless they are supported by technology, the rapid growth we desire cannot be attained,” he stressed.
The other fundamental issue, according to Dr. Abreham is developing homegrown technology capacity since the country is using imported technology in all aspects yet. Proving successive and sustainable technology transformation, expanding technology infrastructure capacity building and making accessible are also essential.
Presence of policy, strategy and legal framework documents and the option that the sector’s development can be ruled by can be taken as a strong side. Similarly, creating national and international alliances, sharing experiences and strengthening bondages as well as system that encourage innovation and research works can be taken as strong part, he said.
Regarding the shortages, as to Dr. Abreham are absence of development oriented problem solving researches at the required amount, absence of processed data in the sector and lack of skilled and well qualified manpower in the sector.
Vision of the sector is associated with the nation’s vision that is making Ethiopia beacon of prosperity in Africa in the coming ten years. The sector’s role in this regard is building the country that is convenient to create job and wealth through innovation and technology. Among the missions of the sector is creating environmental system that enables build the nation’s digital economy.
To this end four objectives are set in which one is creating national innovation and technology research capacity and uplifting the existing capacities.
The others are building national digital economy and raising beneficiary; improving productivity and competency through building technology industries and stretching innovation and technology processes and regulatory system. Appropriate goals for each objective are also set, he further explained.
Dr. Tibebe Beshah, Head of School of Information Science at Addis Ababa University has reflected his view on the perspective plan. He said that in relation to plan performance, two points should be given special attention.
One is the ministry’s intention to work with different institutions. Its relationship with universities, regional science and technology bureaus, different schools and technology institutions must be clearly defined in the way reachable to evaluate.
The other is legal framework which must be designed in the way enabling application of different technology initiatives in practice. The legal framework ought to follow a strategy of enforcement, encouragement and push forward for the sake of the executive institutions to get performing capacity.
He further commented on benchmarks and destinations of the plan. He found some numerical data difficult to attain as they seem exaggerated somehow so that he suggested if the plan includes assumptions how the goal will be achieved.
Though the plan incorporated challenges and opportunities, Dr. Tibebe added that there is still a big challenge needs to be addressed which is reliable and sustainable telecom service. In fact the telecom sector has shown sounding progress but in order to fit the country’s potential to develop in the future; it should be given special attention.
Munir Duri, fouder and CEO of Kifiya Financial Technology PLC (Kifiya) has also reflected his view on ten year perspective plan of MiNT.
The plan, according to Munir, has excessively included the innovation and technology aspects biasing on digital technology. As experiences of many countries indicate, when saying they need to create digital economy, the basic challenge raised is who the owner of the digital economy is. Unless the massive participation of government institutions, private economy and the public is enacted in various forms, countries are seen losing the digital dividend.
What he thinks to be included into the plan is coordination that indicates integration and focus to identify the digital property owner in each institution. For instance, Ministry of Innovation and Technology as a leading institution can set a plan to apply e-commerce.
However, the Ministry of Trade may face a challenge when coming to licensing. Similarly, Ministry of Revenue may gets hard while collecting tax. Therefore, coordination is essential across all stakeholders in order to benefit properly from the digital economy, he suggested.
Applying this practice, as experiences of some countries indicate, the sector will contribute 1 – 1.5 percent to the country’s GDP. Countries those did not work in a coordinated manner lost not only the profit they get from the sector, but also the capital they invested on the technology.
According to Munir, the plan ought to include Ethiopia’s potential that is its population. Paying attention how to exploit this potential enables the country gain tangible digital dividend. In addition, the technology can be utilized as a contributing factor for the country’s effort towards poverty reduction via creating job in different aspects.
When talking about innovation, according to Munir, intellectual property right must not be neglected. Innovation by nature is knowledge property and in Ethiopia in fact, it faces two basic challenges. On one hand, the knowledge or the intellectual property is not protected and on the other hand, it is not considered as an asset. In the absence of these basic facts, innovation is hard to attain since the innovator has no property except this knowledge.
Therefore, there must be a way in which the innovation property right can be registered legally, protected and considered as an asset, he suggested.
Addis Alemayehu, CEO of 251 Communications for his part has reflected his view that also reveals the private sector’s view. He said that he previously assumed that technology investment is only the hardware and the software. But gradually the effort of some young Ethiopians has made him open his eyes.
He learned that there are young people who are working on outsourcing and software development. They develop software here in Ethiopia and export to foreign countries.
Exporting of technology outcomes is unexploited asset in Ethiopia yet. There is an encouraging need from other countries. The sector needs only space, internet access and startup fund. Once the actors obtained these facilities, they develop software and provide for market, he said.
Thus, Startup fund must be available for the fruitfulness of the sector. Government ought to pay attention for financing this entrepreneurship. He called on the government to share the risk of investing on the technology that fetches great revenue. In addition, there must be a clear cut startup law.
According to Addis, the big issue hadn’t mentioned yet is communication with the Ethiopian diaspora community. He said: “We have to have a database of Ethiopians working in the IT field abroad. They have a capacity to support their country. Indians are good models in this sphere.”
Meried Bekele, from IE Network Solutions has also commented on the perspective plan focusing on the limitations of the sector. Among the limitations he mentioned, lack of government incentives is the basic one.
Due to this, many companies are being launched in the country but could not last longer. Therefore, government has to admit this weakness and set a strategy to act accordingly, he suggested.
Besides, according to Meried, there must be local data base center that protects local communications from total lockdown when internet access is jammed due to different security issues. Moreover, the leading role of the private sector including IT must be given special attention in the perspective plan.
The Ethiopian Herald July 21, 2020
BY BACHA ZEWDIE
