Accelerating Digital Job Creation in Africa

Trends driving Africa’s Digital Landscape: 1. A study by the World Economic Forumnotes that “effectively leveraging ICTs hasbeen shown to contribute to a 50 percentincrease in productivity”;2. The number of mobile subscribers in Africadoubled from 2010 to 2015 to almost onebillion mobile phone subscribers;3. The internet bandwidth grew 30-foldbetween 2008 and 2016.

Innovation INDABA: Accelerating Digital Job Creation in AfricaSince the year 2000, Rwanda has achieved thefollowing:• ICT grew at 25 percent, while the rest of theeconomy grew at about 7 percent.• Phone and internet penetration is at about 70percent and 28 percent respectively• The country is well on its way to providing 4GLTE coverage for 95 percent of Rwandans by2017.• Over 5,000 kilometers optic fiber have been laidthroughout the country.

Rwanda• is the world’s fastest developing country,• has annual growth rates of about 8%,• is the second easiest place to do business on thecontinent• is the safest to walk at night in Africa and fifthglobally

• Africa is catching up fast with Europe and the USin building the NEW Economy• SAP created Africa Code Week to teachsoftware coding skills to young people from age8 to 24.• In 2015, the initiative reached 89,000 youth in17 countries goal for 2016 is to train more than150,000 youth across 30 countries

According to the World Economic Forum (WEF), if the Digital Economy isharnessed fully in Africa, “an estimated 150 million new jobs could be created inthis sector for young Africans”(WEF Report on “Shaping Africa’s Transformation”)