NEWS
Coding must be compulsory,
says African Development
Bank President
State of ICT
report shows
growth in
employment
T
he Independent Communications
Authority of South Africa (ICASA) has
published the State of Information and
Communications Technology (ICT) report that
represents the development and performance
of the sector focusing on telecommunications,
broadcasting and postal services.
The report breaks down mobile network
population coverage in terms of
geographical type at provincial levels and
records that national population coverage
for 3G remained stable at 99.5% and for
4G/LTE it increased from 76.7% (2017) to
85.7% (2018).
The ICT sector remains one of the biggest
employers and contributors to the mainstream
economy. The total overall employment
numbers for the three sectors increased by
18.8%, from 51,993 in 2017 to 61,757 in
2018. Over the same period, employment
changes in the telecommunications sector
increased by 20%, postal sector employment
also showed a double-digit increase of
21.9% and broadcasting sector employment
increased marginally by 0.3%.
A
frican Development Bank President,
Akinwumi Adesina, has pleaded for
Africans to embrace technology, and
governments to urgently move away
from ‘investing in the jobs of the past, but
rather in the jobs of the future.’
Adesina was addressing a debate
entitled, ‘The New Tech Era: Job-killer or
Job-creator?’organised by Africa Report
and Jeune Afrique as part of the 2019
Mo Ibrahim Governance Week.
“The people who control data, will control
Africa,” said Adesina.
“Coding must be compulsory, at all
levels. The currency of the future is going
to be coding.
“Information technology must not be the
exclusive privilege of the elite; we must
democratise technology.”
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INTELLIGENTCIO
Panellists acknowledged the critical role
the tech industry can play in Africa’s
economic transformation through the
continent’s digitisation. However, they
agreed on the urgent need to upgrade the
skills of the past, to do it fast, and move
away from the social fear of technology.
Research has shown that if governments
harness the full economic potential
of just the Internet, Africa could add
US$300 billion to its GDP by 2025.
Also, 70% of all jobs will have an ICT
component by 2020.
While the ICT sector continues to
demonstrate dynamic growth, particularly
as driven by the mobile services sector, the
growth has not necessarily met ICASA’s
vision of affordable access to the wide
range of communication services. Though
access to mobile services continues to grow,
broadband access remains at unsatisfactory
levels due to the perceived high cost of
communication services, particularly data
services. Therefore, ICASA has embarked on
several interventions aimed at addressing
this challenge, including the mobile services
market review process and the regulation of
data expiry and transfer rules.
“We must grab the opportunities, we must
democratise technology,” added Adesina.
“Africa should prepare itself. Digital
technologies, including Artificial
Intelligence, Big Data Analytics,
Blockchains and 3D printing, are already
upon us.”
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