BY SOLOMON DIBABA
In 2020, Ethiopia launched Digital Ethiopia 2025 Strategy for Inclusive Development benchmarking the support of partners and experience from 60 countries. Ethiopia has started a digital economy that is expected to be driven by new global technologies such as institutionalization of artificial intelligence, internet of Things, nanotechnology and big data.
Ethiopia’s digital transformation strategy is not a standalone strategy but is carefully blended with Home Grown Economic Reform Agenda of 2019, Ten Years Perspective Development Plan (2020-2030), global SDG and AU Continental Digital Strategy and Agenda 2063.
The contributor of this article is of the opinion that integrating the national digital economic development program with global and regional standards and soliciting wider investment opportunities is a major step towards the strategic success for the country’s socio-economic development.
The 2025 digital transformation and inclusive development strategy document envisages four pathways for digital transformation including unleashing value from agriculture, global value chain in the manufacturing sector in view of boosting exports from manufacturing sector from current 5% of GDP to 17%, promotion of ICT enabled services and digitally driven tourism. In addition, resolving structural impediments, enhancing forex and promotion of inclusive growth are identified.
It has repeatedly reported that the Ethiopian agriculture sector is responsible for 45% of the GDP in which 85% of the workforce is involved while 90% of the nation’s exports come from agriculture. In line with the first pathway, ATA and its partners are engaged in making initiatives on block chain support for agriculture, promotion of digital agricultural platforms, agro-technical entrepreneurship and agricultural commercialization.
Moreover, utilizing ATA’s soil information system in which digitally mapping soil resources of the country, shallow and ground water mapping, national market information system, national market information system, agricultural commercialization clusters, 8028 farmers hotline and ATA rural finance services In pathway two the sector focuses on apparel and creating an enabling environment for the adoption of communication technologies suited for the manufacturing sector, further enhancement of the industrial parks and digitally enabled logistics system remains vital for the development of the sector. In terms of information technology at pathway three, the development of more IT parks like Kilinto IT Park and complete digitalization of the business process.
The document identifies several areas in which Ethiopia can succeed including enhancing production and productivity at smallholder farms, developing a legal framework that will allow farmers to lease their land rights and become shareholders in commercial farms, modernization of the livestock sector, linking agricultural produces with commodity markets and commercial value chain, encouraging the private sector to invest in agriculture and provision of agricultural financial services.
Ethiopia can successfully accomplish the above mentioned digital technologies because the nation is already engaged in IT and logistics infrastructure development, generation of electric power from major mega projects like GERD in the context of national electric plan, expansion and acceleration of digital ID, facilitation of digital payments, cyber security, e-governance of taxes and e-commerce.
Digitalization promotes monitoring and evaluation as well as timely accomplishment of projects and immediate rectification when the need arises. More importantly, the use of ICT and pertinent digitalization of the education system and health services in Ethiopia will enable swift delivery of health services and quality education at all levels.
As noted above, digitalization would help to streamline business processes for promoting higher productivity. The use of digital technology helps to reduce operational costs at all levels and would promote transparency and accountability at any point in time. It promotes good governance, reliability, quality and consistency in all operations. Digitalization promotes accuracy on work and would also help to drastically reduce possible human error.
Digital transformation does not only mean adopting new technologies but also adopting new business models. This indicates that organizations should well-understand digital transformation and consider every factor, starting with the way employees will react to the way it will impact their customers.
Nowadays, almost every organization considers digital transformation and according to Gartner, 91% of them are already engaged in some form of digital initiative. As they are pursuing digital technologies and digital transformation, they are also channeling huge investments toward it. By 2025, global digital transformation investment is predicted to reach US $2.8 trillion, up from US $1.8 trillion in 2022.
However, although so many organizations start on this journey easily, some of them find it difficult to complete. In fact, according to BCG around 70% of digital transformation programs are not successful and fail to reach their stated goals. In terms of money, organizational effort, and time lost, such results are massively costly. So, considering all these facts, we can conclude that even though digital transformation can sometimes be challenging to achieve, its benefits and advantages make it almost inevitable in today’s industries.
Editor’s Note: The views entertained in this article do not necessarily reflect the stance of The Ethiopian Herald
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD SATURDAY 22 APRIL 2023
