4IR will not be Africa’s silver bullet until policy and implementation solutions are accelerated

By Premlin Pillay

Data sits at the centre of the global Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR), with analysts believing there is a major opportunity for Africa to create its own talent to help businesses make informed decisions, predict markets, and prepare for unforeseen calamities. However, data by itself means nothing. Humans, businesses and machines are generating billions of data points every single day rendering the “big data” buzzword obsolete. Kickstarting 4IR in Africa cannot, and should not, be implemented on the ground by a company sitting in Silicon Valley – we need African solutions and in-country expertise for African problems.

If Africa gets it right, however, the benefits are immense. Skills and jobs acceleration, business growth, trade and innovation all lie in wait.

Benefits of 4IR for Africa

Indications are for extremely fast growth. In 2020, the first year of the pandemic, the number of Internet users grew by 10.2%, the largest increase in a decade, driven by developing countries where Internet use went up 13.3%. These growth levels have persisted, and the latest GSMA statistics show that in 2021, mobile technologies and services generated around 8% of GDP across Sub-Saharan Africa, a contribution that amounted to almost $140 billion of economic value added. The mobile ecosystem also supported more than 3.2 million jobs (directly and indirectly) and made a substantial contribution to the funding of the public sector, with $16 billion raised through taxes on the sector. By 2025, mobile’s contribution will grow by $65 billion (to almost $155 billion), as the countries in the region increasingly benefit from the improvements in productivity and efficiency brought about by the increased take-up of mobile services.

The future economic benefits will be even more extensive. According to ITU research, covering a 139 country sample, an increase of 10% in mobile broadband penetration yielded an average GDP increase of 1.5 per cent. However, what really stands out is how much more significant the impact will be on lower income countries – an increase of 10 per cent in mobile broadband penetration yields an increase in 2.0 per cent in GDP.

These benefits go much deeper – into the heart of communities too. Brookings research says 4IR technology has the potential to support countries as they transform their economies and expand their employment opportunities. New technologies bring opportunities for firms to reduce production costs, improve productivity and earnings, and introduce new business lines, all of which will provide a wealth of new opportunities that will prove particularly attractive and accessible to Africa’s young labour force. Deploying 4IR technology could accelerate much-needed economic transformation by creating new, often formal, wage jobs faster than the rate at which the labour force is growing, and improve earnings improvements in the informal sector.

Mettus, the newly minted holding entity for four established independent brands across the fast-growing and in-demand credit check, background screening and big data, analytics and technology markets, is already seeing the impact on the ground, in projects for Africa that make a real, tangible difference.

For instance, our involvement in the current World Health Organisation (WHO) project that is helping identify and trace mineworkers who had silicosis poisoning in the 80s and 90s to help compensate them and their families financially, is proof of what can be done when data is harnessed for the greater good.

Meanwhile, a recent report in SA highlighted the tragic story how a young man, who has passed matric, has been left in limbo as he has no ID number or birth certificate. The problem is extremely severe in Africa. A project of the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), and Research ICT Africa (RIA) notes that an estimated 500 million people in Africa live without any form of legal identification (birth certificate or national ID). The use of digital forms of identification has become increasingly popular because of their relative ease, low cost, and convenience compared to more analogue systems. It is virtually impossible to build a profile of anyone if this persist and makes giving credit, loans, or contracts incredibly risky.

Our job (as Mettus) is to provide these solutions by developing creative ways to generate the data that moves societies forward. For instance, one of the companies in our stable is Managed Integrity Evaluation Proprietary Limited (MIE) and its 10th annual Background Screening Index showed that close to two million background checks were requested in 2020. There was a 700% increase in social media requests as a part of candidate screening over the previous year and these are expected to increase, due to increased unemployment and economic strain. We want to be part of the solution and are extremely pleased with the extensive growth in demand for these services, which we will continue to expand and improve, for instance, as the new digital ID system in SA kicks into gear.

Policy Bottlenecks

The real drawback to accelerating these levels of integration and growth lie on the policy front.

While Africa cannot escape 4IR because African states have become increasingly integrated into the global economy, Brookings cautions that constraints on production-unit adoption of technology are plentiful. Some are longstanding, like many in the agricultural sector, and some are new, such as cybersecurity concerns. Economic policy needs to prioritize reducing these constraints through land reform, infrastructure construction, regulatory reform, and reforms in education. The balance between positive and negative outcomes from 4IR will depend on policy choices.

Some of the other challenges faced by data science in Africa include:

• Lack of data to aid machine learning – e.g. low rate of online articles in local languages means natural language processing (NLP) becomes nearly impossible
• Lack of centralised databases means harvesting coherent data across multiple data points is virtually impossible
• Automated machine learning (AutoML) applications are built in tech hubs like San Francisco, with little understanding of the realities and complexities of the contexts they will be applied in
• The lack of capacity and appropriate infrastructure required to aid big data initiatives, and inadequate investment

The key is for policy and data solutions to align so that practical answers to African problems can be found and the move to 4IR accelerated. This will help people and organisations go from chaos to clarity, no matter where they are in their data journey.

The risk is doing too little and not ensuring sufficient policy tilt to accommodate the fast pace of change.

Mettus is a data, analytics and technology services company committed to using its resources, in-house intellectual property and expertise as a transformative force for good. Mettus encompasses four established South African information services brands: Managed Integrity Evaluation Proprietary Limited (MIE), Xpert Decision Systems (XDS), HTSA, and zenAptix.

The group intends to bring credible, unique and cutting-edge data analytical insights and solutions to the market, across the spectrum of risk management, identity management, digital enablement and growth opportunities for its customers. Set to become a multibillion revenue powerhouse by 2026 through core business growth, geographic expansion, acquisition, and innovation-driven new business growth, Mettus is backed by global private equity firm Lightrock and local private equity firm Acorn Black Investments, a level 1 BEE investor and management.