Digitalisation of everything

MTN Group Vice President Markets. Ebenezer Asante delivered the  keynote address at MWC KIGALI 2023.We present to readers a full text of the  speech

Firstly, please permit me to start on a more personal note. Exactly 10years ago I had the privilege of working in this inspiring country as the CEO of MTN Rwandacell. Under your leadership and vision, your Excellency, the power of ICT as a catalyst for socio-economic change was brought to the fore. My paradigm of ICT for development was sharpened during the period in Rwanda. Next week, my organisation would be launching our Global Appreciation week so please let me seize this opportunity ahead of time to express my deeper most appreciation to you and the people of Rwanda.

Secondly, I’d like to congratulate the GMSA for organising this second MWC in Africa. It’s great to see so many government officials, policymakers, regulators, tech suppliers, and industry top players and peers in the room today.

For those who don’t know us well, I’d like to give you a quick overview of MTN, where we believe that everyone deserves the benefits of a modern connected life, and our 5-Platform strategy is ‘Ambition 2025: Leading digital solutions for Africa’s progress’. More of that on our website.

We have more than 290 million subscribers in 19 markets and commit about $2 billion a year in capital investment. In our quest to create shared value, we constantly reduce the average cost to communicate.

MTN as an Afro Champion strongly believe that the once popular and well-fashioned neo liberal approach to business alone will not flourish nor serve the best interest of a continent we have such a significant and existential stake in. Business must respond to the needs of society sustainably and must complement Nation-State effort in delivering real development for its long term sustenance. This reinforces the new development paradigm Africa requires among States, Enterprises and para-development agencies such as multilateral organizations and CSOs. This we believe must set the axes in the plain of digitalisation. When we at MTN talk about Leading the digital solutions for Africa’s progress we mean a new approach to business. In there lies the elements of elegant partnership, inclusivity and shared value creation. Our social impact is significant – in 2022 we contributed some R149 billion ($10bn?) in economic value-added terms.

The theme for this key note address is Digitalisation of everything. In this, we see the role of digitalisation within the African context, aiding our search for long term developmental solutions and creating opportunities at individual, enterprise, state and societal levels.  In all this, one mantra may serve as a reminder: “anything worth doing must not only be worth doing well but smartly with the autonomous aid of data and digital solutioning”.

Judging that Africa is coming from way behind,  the need to double our pace to derive more mileage from the Digitalisation of Everything is obvious. I’m therefore using a simple framework only as a reminder, we may call it TWICE (standing for Transactions, Work, Information, Connectivity, and Economy). Digitalising everything therefore means the rapid digitalisation of  Transactions, for and around Work, Information or data, Connectivity and the Economy as a whole.

Right from the Mobile Age, one theme stood out for Africa – Leapfrogging the fixed connectivity to mobile. Fast forward to what we call the Fourth Industrial Revolution today, and again Africa has found its voice in taking a position, that, we will not let this opportunity pass us by. The rhetoric is one thing but the reality informed by our assertively concerted action will bear the whole difference. Perhaps its too early or the jury is already out there? One thing is clear in my mind, for us to leapfrog in the Digitalisation of everything, we must not only be consumers of technology but its avowed creators as well, playing beyond the base of the technology food chain to compete with merit at high end of value in the tech knowledge and expertise economies. It will take a lot but the critical path may be Education system that foster creativity and problem solving. There is a lot to say here but in brief let me add that as a core foundation, Africa must take Mathematics education and creative problem solving more serious and to the highest levels. That opens the door to scarce areas such as Quantum Physics, Advanced Computing, Software engineering, Digital Economics, as well as the dynamic interplay of Liberal Arts,  Creative Arts and Science. Mathematics sit at the Centre of all that.

The digital skills gap on the continent is well known. It is especially prevalent in advanced skills such as artificial intelligence, scientific computing and human-computer interaction.

1. World Bank research shows that there will be around 230 million ‘digital jobs’ in sub-Saharan Africa alone by 2030 – that’s in just seven years’ time! So, we really need to prioritise this fast.
2. At MTN, our flagship educational programme is MTN DataSmart and it is accessible in most of our markets. We appreciate the knowledge-sharing with the GSMA to boost digital literacy, skills and opportunities. And look forward to more of this collaboration with others ahead.

It’s interesting to note the digital industries that are growing the fastest in Africa at the moment. They include:

1. cloud & software as a service;
2. delivery;
3. online retail;
4. digital ads;
5. streaming; and

Digitalisation as the bridge between virtual and physical worlds is extending human to human connectivity into partnership with machines and non-mechanical elements as such. The outcomes of digitalisation would include more Convenience, higher Productivity and improved efficiency. It calls for stretching the exponential limits of things to the extent that the collective human imagination and intelligence can command. Therefore the potential of digitalisation is by default limitless. There lies the need for balance in being mindful of the ethics of digitalisation. We in Africa must not only use digitalisation to leapfrog the development ladder but also leapfrog the potential ills of digitalisation with our strong social culture and warmth. The significant investment and research in cyber security, national security and territorial integrity ringfensing, privacy governance, etc are in the right direction and encouraged. Further light must be shed on emerging areas such as the socio-psycho impact of excessive digital use, in cyber intoxication, addictions, bullying, and toxic content management. More attention ought to be placed on digital ethics just as we praise the magical elements of digitalisation. The question remains what and how else could we robustly leapfrog into the opportunities and out of the threats of digitalisation of everything at the same time

We have defined the Africa we want and deserve so clearly and cleverly. It is indeed becoming a cliché or boring to repeat it but let me try: One of progress, poverty-free and wealth creation. One with enhanced and inclusive human capital development, etc etc. The obvious difference however is not our rhetorics but purposeful action in pursuit. On that score, Rwanda presents a living and seminal inspiration to the continent and the world.

And we understand that by innovating and harnessing digital technologies, we can help transform African societies and economies.

By adopting digital, Africa can unlock the full potential of all sectors of the economy through improvements in productivity and better access to markets and financing. Digital mechanisms also support governments in making their services more efficient, less costly and more accessible to all.

So how far are we, as a continent, in our digital journey? This is where the rubber hits the road:

The latest GMSA State of Mobile Internet Connectivity report shows that nearly three-quarters of the total population of sub-Saharan Africa are not connected or benefiting from the mobile internet. That’s almost one billion people! Excluding without excusing the large population of children, more than half of adults in Sub-Saharan Africa are still unconnected.

2. Those numbers are rather overwhelming, humbling!
3. So clearly there is much work to be done by us all.
4. Where do we start? Through elegant partnership among critical development Actors – State-Enterprise and Development Agencies.
5. As we prepare for 2024, the global and regional macroeconomic backdrop looks challenging – compounded no doubt by the events of the past few weeks in the Middle East. The weighted inflation in the continent is all time high at 15% or so in line with sticky global inflation trends.
6. But there is also a lot of growth opportunity for those who drive digitalisation for economic inclusion social participation, and ultimately facilitate the digitalisation of everything –
   1. of agriculture and its value chain
   2. of health,
   3. of education ecosystem,
   4. of government and governance,
   5. of financial services, trade and commerce
   6. of industry,
   7. of everyday life for African citizens.
7. Though we are encouraged by the priority that many governments across Africa are already giving to promote the growth of ICT and the digital economy. A lot more is needed.
8. So, it’s clear we all have our work cut out for us in overcoming the challenges.
9. Firstly, we must close coverage gap (coldly put, bridging the gap of inhumanity) – Rural/ Urban, Male-Female, North and South, Have and Have nots: With a large portion of Africans living in rural areas, we all need to work together to expand networks to under-served communities.
   1. At MTN, we are closing coverage gaps in rural areas through our collaboration with several partners, and through OpenRAN technology. We are also piloting low-earth-orbit satellite connectivity. Last year our broadband services covered 88% of the population in our markets after we increased our 3G and 4G coverage by 9 million and 45 million people
   2. Our target is 95% population broadband coverage by 2025. We all need to do more of this, and quickly!
   3. We all understand the enormous capital investment that is required for network expansion and upgrades. The ‘fair share’ debate and push in Europe to get OTT Operators to become balanced beneficiaries and contributors of mobile network deployments is not settled and Africa’s voice and clear comprehensive position may be needed. This may need a very careful and dispassionate evaluation of the OTTs value Add vrs take to inform our policy and regulatory direction of travel as a continent. We need to talk about this more.

Now getting to handsets: we all know that these are too expensive for the average African. We need to accelerate device accessibility by collaborating with all critical hands on deck here – Governments, ODMs, Operators, OTT players, Chipset developers, Dealers, Banks, development partners etc with the right policy, design, funding and go-to-market approach to crack at scale.  At MTN, we can point to some encouraging examples so far, including one here in Rwanda:

1. Macye Macye is a device financing programme that MTN Rwanda has developed with the Bank of Kigali that allows MTN customers to purchase devices on credit. Our M-KOPA partnership also benefits customers in Uganda, Nigeria and Ghana.
2. Last year, we reduced our effective data tariffs by 22% whilst at the same time looked for areas to recover high inflationary and currency depreciation cost of doing business in most markets.

An affordable handset is a start. There is also much focus on making data more affordable so that no-one is left behind. For this to happen, cost of production must fall from scale economics due to traffic growth and decline in major input costs such as Spectrum, Frequency fees, taxes and related fiscal charges. Some long term policy interventions may be needed here.

Let’s now turn to the digitalisation of everything Transactional. All clearly require digital payments, and we are working towards an Africa that will become a digital-payments-first region. The quantum leap that we will make if we can fully digitalise cash in circulation with spin off benefits in ease of transacting and doing business, acceleration of money in circulation with enhanced GDP growth following the improved marginal productivity of transactions, credit creation with lowered interest rate by removing deadweight cash under pillows and in hamlets, boost and ease of revenue collection by governments to spur badly needed infrastructure investments in the continent. Perhaps we should have a long term target and milestones to work towards. If Cash is King, genuine Digital Currency is the Kingdom!

So as part of our focus on extending digital inclusion, we at MTN are very driven to broaden economic inclusion – helping the hundreds of millions of unbanked people across the continent to access safe, secure and affordable financial services. Thereby enhancing their economic participation as well with services such as Banktech, Insurtech, merchant payments, real time access to affordable units of utilities, etc.

Should we realize our target, our modest contribution to this effort is to extend mobile financial services to 100 million Africans by 2025. We are about 61% through to its attainment and we remain unwavering towards its delivery.

To this end we’re pleased to have executed commercial agreements with Mastercard to support the acceleration and growth of our fintech business’s payments and remittance services. And to agree to that Mastercard will take a minority stake into MTN Group Fintech. The journey to leapfrog physical cards into the future has perhaps commenced. A critical space to be watched.

This collaboration is another essential cog in the engine of our work to achieve the ‘digitalisation of everything’ we aspire to in our markets.

However, we know that we first need an enabling environment, right partnerships and collaboration.

Touching on digitalising everything Economy, we at MTN, talk about a few digital economy policy considerations that are required to promote overall economic recovery, and facilitate inclusive growth.

First, governments’ spectrum roadmaps should ensure sufficient spectrum to meet the sharp rise in demand for mobile services. Including speedy access to mid-band spectrum – in particular 3.5MHz, given its importance to the future of 5G low latency to support the digitalisation of everything Work. Accelerating access to sub-1GHz spectrum to provide widespread rural mobile broadband services is a priority.

1. Second, is the need to apply best pro-digital-growth tax, tariffs and fiscal principles to facilitate rapid digitalisation. We should not strain the “goose that lays the golden eggs”
2. Thirdly, a fair and transparent regulatory regime is essential. This is a continuous dialogue even as technologies such as those in non-terrestrial gain interests.
3. And finally, governments need to facilitate the provision of reliable and efficient grid power and energy mixes.

With these policy changes in place, we will be able to work side by side with you all as the continent leapfrogs previous generations in adopting digital solutions faster and, importantly, out of necessity.

We want to partner for progress with stakeholders across the broad spectrum represented here today to create shared value and together give Africans dignity, hope and opportunity.

There are no doubt challenges ahead to making the ‘digitalisation of everything’ possible, but we are up to the task and enthusiastic about the future!

We in Africa must collectively think, act and digitalise our way out of poverty and shared prosperity.