KASESE, THE SOUL OF UGANDA'S HEART

A YOUTHFUL DIGITAL AFRICA: A Continent that will compete in the fourth industrial revolution. kansmus@gmail.com

In the light of the nude truth of the metamorphosing dynamics of the global economy and the impending era of the fourth industrial revolution engulfing the world, Africa has to cope with the transformation by adapting to a high-end speed to gain the years she is lagging behind the rest of the economies and clear her digital arrears. Hibernating and adapting to a supersonic economic atmosphere beyond the usual customary suspects is a requisite, and above all is possible amidst the abundant endowment of natural resource, biosphere, ecosphere and copiousness of human resource that hedges on the pillar of the youthful demographic dividend.

The rest of the world including multinational companies have adopted digital technology, accrued and augmented supernormal profits, evaded taxes and practiced Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) causing exploitation and inequalities while Africa loses untaxed revenue to these companies, especially those without the brick and mortar physical presence such as Uber and yet these companies pay corporate taxes to bigger western, Asian, middle East and American economies after garnering mammoth fortune from Africa.

Even though the Organisation for Economic and Cooperative Development (OECD) proposed that world economies in its jurisdictional domain should espouse unilateral approach in taxing digital companies that operate beyond borders such as Amazon to choke the strait of double taxation under multilateral procedure and mitigate its effects, this largely benefits first world economies since Africa’s digital space is small and youths’ skills are glaringly incompatible.

This fourth industrial revolution is the transformative digital economy that is raising uncertainty about the survival of the illiterate adults in the informal analog class and ambiguity about the youth’s future of work tainted by use of machines, automation and artificial intelligence with rampart Silicon Valley innovation, with more complicated encryptions that may replace the youthful human capital. It is absurd, that Africa economy’s backbone, agriculture, seen as the next biggest employer of Africa’s youths still uses elementary tools that are below the standards of the first industrial revolution that ushered mechanization. How can Africa get ready for the fourth industrial revolution if the first industrial revolution looks a farfetched nightmare?

This pure digital economy will be cashless and motionless and will largely phase out workforce without digital skills and more so, in an Africa where human capital development is still low, with skills that are either perfectly analog or predominantly elementary. Therefore, as a continent, we need to vitalise and emphasize human capital development among the youths and spice it with relevant skills that can surpass or equate to the competence of digital technology in the exactitude of incontestable compatibility. In the Africa I envisage, the clamor for relevant skilling is worth it in the struggle to polish our economies on the digital surfaces, sail in the pent up competition, create youth opportunities and get out of the poverty chasm.

These skills should be those that will not be readily replaced by machines and other elements of the digital revolution such as high-end cognitive and communication skills, soft skills such as collaboration, flexibility, perseverance and empathy. This can be done by shaping the curriculum that calls for the curiosity and a high end thought process of students rather than teaching them what to cram. This could be done through inculcating the debating culture and solution based learning at early childhood.

Therefore, the next chapter of Africa should be one that obliterates the expired academic chemotherapy, starts a cyber and hands-on curricular dosage, equips the youths with a package of relevant skills to occupy the digital realm, harness the technology, add value to raw materials, increase quantity produced, utilize digital markets such as Alibaba to sell more across borders.

In rebranding the education system, the teachers that determine early childhood development and easy adaptation to digital technology should all needs be retooled in line with the particulars of the new technology. This is because most of the teachers in Africa had analog training, archaic in diverse versions, that largely relied on file and paperwork unlike the digital technology where teachers use computers to capture attendance, process progress reports, enter marks, compute totals and averages, rank students and reduce paperwork.

Through such retooling, teachers will be inspired to speak into the aspirations of digital technology to their pupils from an informed point of view without bias in quoting their own experience. In the next phase of Africa, she should mutate the analog teacher to create a digital source of knowledge in him that will transfer and imbue the digital genes into those that sit in front of his white boards.

Given that first hand learning finds its foundation at home, parents should also be retooled with digital knowledge. This can be achieved through an adult digital education scheme. This will overhaul the overall mindset towards digital technology, give more reasons and space to the youths to use it since they can learn it at an early age through apprenticeship guided by high order phone penetration and parents’ guidance.

Over 60 % of Africa’s population is young and youthful. Unfortunately, this youthful labour is semiskilled or unskilled and the presumably skilled labour is either unemployed or underemployed largely because of low levels of innovation, archaic education system with irrelevant skilling, low levels of economic activity, the poor social contract and social protection with poor minimum wage regulations, unstable retirement laws which alienate the aspirations of the youths.

Therefore, in empowering the youths, Africa should revise the social contract, provide unemployment benefits, prioritise sectors that realise youth power such as agriculture by adapting financial technology. In addition to this, safer digital space is needed such as fair digital tax regulation, enhanced cyber security, incorporation of E-procurement, entrenchment of sector specific industrial digital plans among others. As the numeric count of youths grows geometrically and that of opportunities grows averagely arithmetically in affiliation to a technology magnetized world, they aspire to polish their minds in deeper political, social and civic matters and the availability and accessibility of safe digital spaces becomes more crucial to make this a reality.

At first, Africa aimed at improving human values since without aspirations, life is meaningless: of course she wasn’t wrong. May be in this, she could also change people’s mindset towards digital practice. In tilting the number line of peoples’ practice towards the positive digital integer therefore, Africa has to expunge the analog trends but conserve her culture, ethos, philosophy and lingual diversity, align youth’s mindset to the silicon routes of digital innovation, create digital opportunities, restructure and strengthen the tax system to end tax evasion and avoidance in the digital space caused by both national and multinational digital escapades that defy the legal fiscal convention.

In addition, African values such as empathy, patriotism, interpersonal relations among others should be entrenched to help draw a line between the abilities and values that inspire the work of the youths and that of machines.

Relatedly, efforts should be made to inculcate virtues and array away vices amongst the youths. Therefore, Africa needs to invest in her people’s moral development, mindset change and education with a fierce sense of urgency. Given that the nature of employment in the digital economy will be largely temporary, the scope of skilling and moral development should be expansive to enable the youths switch from job to job in the gig and peer to peer economy that requires one to merit opportunities that will be available yet needing different kinds of skills.

The African regimes should take the honourable imperative to intertwine this youthful demographic dividend and the multiplicity of capacities with the digital technology, upsurge its productivity, the returns on the value added and the quantity produced per unit of labour, sell beyond national and continental borders, increase on the net exports, reduce capital flight and appreciate their currencies.

At this point, Africa should embrace a common currency and take the onus to make it strong in the bid to actualise the condominium; either the federal or confederate Unites States of Africa that will enable the co-authorship of her future.

In other words, the political autonomy of Africa will be reflected in her economic clout and strength of each state. The aim of political independence that surpasses the veto of big economies to usurp Africa’s sovereignty is that economic autonomy should be a means, not as an end in itself. To be economically independent, Africa has to unite, strengthen a homogeneous currency, adapt digital technologies, skill and empower her youths and utilise the youthful demographic dividend. Even though the New International Economic Order (NIEO) proposed the same, Africa shouldn’t wait for neighbours to do better for her than she can do for herself. The Africa I want is the greatest she can ever make of her youths and of herself and be.

BY KANSIIME ONESMUS

kansmus@gmail.com