search Session on Knowledge Sharing in E-Governance held at the Ministerial Conference
On November 9th, 2024, during the “Knowledge Sharing: Capacity Building in E-Governance” session, African officials and Russian experts of the E-Governance Knowledge Sharing Program discussed prospects for exchange of experiences in digitalization of public administration. The session was held within the First Ministerial Conference of the Russia-Africa Partnership Forum.
The moderator Andrey Maslov elaborated on the “E-Governance Knowledge Sharing Program for Africa” and announced the key points of cooperation with the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (according to the Memorandum of Understanding).
In his opening remarks, Dr. Moctar Seck, Head of Innovation and Technology Sector at the UN Economic Commission for Africa, highlighted challenges faced by African countries during digitalization process:
“One of the key issues for Africa is the digital gap between urban and rural areas, as well as the lack of digital skills. Another issue is digital ID. We have almost 500 million people without any legal form of ID. Thus, they don’t have access to any government service. Another point is our cyber security issue. It costs 10% of the African GDP, and for this 10% we can build schools, we can build hospitals, and we can develop African e-government services to become closer to the population. And knowledge-sharing is something that can develop our E-Government technologies”.
Anastasia Pavlenko, Deputy Executive Director, Director for Strategic Partnerships at Innopraktika, shared some details on how the Program is going on and how Russia is contributing to e-governance development in African countries:
“We believe that knowledge-sharing that we’ve launched will enable our friendly countries to make use of these technologies. This is a big, mutually beneficial and, I’d say, ‘win-win’ story, that will help to transfer advanced Russian experience in the area of e-governance. A huge interest was received from African experts since it’s a very important initiative that contributed to digital sovereignty. This is our future as digitalization embraces almost all aspects of our today’s life.”
Tatenda Mavetera, Minister of Information and Communications Technology, Postal and Courier Services of the Republic of Zimbabwe, commented on the Zimbabwean opportunities to provide e-government services:
“We need to leverage digital technologies in public administration. They will make our governments more efficient and more reliable, and they will also contribute a lot to our GDP growth. That’s why we are going to have more platforms where we will be able to establish online education and raise digital literacy among populations. In Zimbabwe, we’re working on our e-government Framework and Implementation Strategy. We believe that there’re a lot of opportunities in Zimbabwe to provide e-government services.”
Mario Augusto da Silva Oliveira, Minister of Telecommunications, Information Technologies and Social Communication of the Republic of Angola, highlighted the importance of e-government services in Africa:
“The digital transformation of e-government services is a very important issue. We have to discuss such issues as accuracy, AI, and legislation in the digital sphere to provide populations with access to digital services. All these things are equally important in the African countries, and many of them we can do jointly with Russia.”
Alan Khubaev, Head of International Projects in Solar, elaborated on international cooperation in the field of building digital infrastructure:
“As a national cyber security provider in Agola that protects ministries and agencies, critically important infrastructure, state services and even presidential elections, we can see on the daily basis an importance of digital sovereignty. Now we can say that there’s a progress towards digital it in our country. However, an international cooperation can play a very important role when it comes to breaking digital gap, providing cyber security and raising digital literacy. We also need to develop our own products and not just use the services of other nations.”
Nkundwe Moses Mwasaga, Director General, Information and Communication Technologies Commission of the United Republic of Tanzania, spoke about digitalization in his country:
“We’ve made progress in the field of digital transformation, and we’ve started benefiting from it. In Tanzania, we have our digital payment and digital operability systems that are already accepring for cross-border trade. Of course, it makes us open for trans-continental trade. We succeeded mainly because of our collaboration with foreign partners. Still, digitalization and creating digital public infrastructure are number one for us in terms of importance.”
Abiodun Omowunmi Essiet, Senior Special Assistant to the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, commented on Nigerian priorities for digital transformation:
“Nigeria is one of the biggest African countries that seeks to establish its own government infrastructure. We are already seeing the transformation of digital technologies across various sectors, from public to private. The Government agencies are mostly responsible for promoting development and technology implementation, as well as connecting rural areas and schools to the Internet. Gidital literacy is also important, as our economy needs a robust and digitally skilled workforce. The e-commerce sector is one of the most innovative and progressive in terms of entering the international market. When it comes to the efficiency of mobile banking services, we need to develop our cashless policy. Actually, we have to work together to make Africa great again!”
Monica Jane Musenero Masanza, Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation of the Republic of Uganda, defined the goals in the fields of technologies and digital platforms in Uganda:
“Uganda is also engaged in the digital transformation processes. We understand that we cannot transform our economy without owning our own intellectual property, so we’d like to develop technologies, own and control our own digital platforms. But to achieve it, we need to rely on our foreign partners. So that’s why we highly appreciate sharing knowledge on building technologies.”
Expressing her belief in more success stories in the digital future of Malawi, Moses Kunkuyu Kalongashawa, Minister of Information and Digitalization of the Republic of Malawi, said:
“Malawi isn’t an infant when it comes to digital technologies. We strongly believe in technologies to be sure that every one of our 28 districts is connected to the Internet and that there’s free WiFi in every public place. 80% of our population lives in rural places, so we’re providing training to rural massives, supporting start-ups not only in urban areas but also in rural places. We have a project that we are calling “diplomatic data corridors” that is connecting Malawi to Tanzania on the northern part, connecting to Mozambique on the southern part, and also connecting to Zambia on the north-western part. This is one good story that we can see, but we believe that we will have more of them very soon.”.
Oleg Kapitonov, Director of the International Business Efficiency and Coordination Department, “Sberbank International”, spoke about the role of Sber’s developers as one of the leading companies in solving the digital problem, including cyber security issue:
“We’re a federal center for cyber security and AI development, and today we’re a key institution that develops and shares technologies. We’re relying on academic education, so we are opening schools and campuses for teaching and training our specialists. We also have our special program on training future govermment leaders. We have also highlighted the importance of digital security. Since 2022, we’ve become a bank that was attacked most in the whole world. We are ready to share our security solutions with foreign governments and companies.”.
Aboubacar Sidiki Douno, National Deputy Director, Direction of Information Technology and Digital Economy of the Republic of Guinea, emphacized the importance of creating the solid legal framework for digitalization:
“Not only the governments but also the start-ups can be crucial drivers for the digital development of a country. The key objective for governments is to align with initiatives proposed by start-ups. It’s very important since many solutions are actually developed or implemented in Guinea. Many of them are created by the local start-ups and local engineers, so they are the homegrown. One of the first initiatives was providing access to the Internet so more and more people could get online. The second initiative is sharing knowledge via collaboration. Many of them are created by the local start-ups and local engineers, so they are the homegrown. And we need to help them in entering the international market. The third initiative is creating a legal framework for our digitalization strategy.”
Francis Mangouani Seck, National Сoordinator of the Digital Transformation Acceleration Project, Ministry of Posts, Telecommunications and Digital Economy of the Republic of the Congo, outlined the challenges of digital development:
“Today it’s very important to develop huge technological projects. We have several projects for the Hub construction. It’s a serious project that needs finding, of course. It seems quite appealing for our foreign partners and experts, who are ready to support us remotely.”
Bonheur Djerabe Djatto, Director of Information System, Commission of the Economic Community of Central African States, explained the Russian-African digital partnership in detail:
“In our organization we have 11 members, and we help all of them to reach a common policy and provide African integration. We’re collaborating with Russians in different areas, and now we’re glad to see Russians active participation in this process. E-governance is a question of great interest for us, as we all need to make us more protected in the field of cyber security.”
After the session, experts of the Center met with Ahmed Salem Bede Etvagha, who is the Minister of Digital Transformation and Modernization of Administration of Mauritania. They discussed the prospects for the introduction of digital technologies in the field of public administration and agreed on further joint work.