B R I G H T
Better Research Informs Governance, Humanity and Technology
Data-Driven Agenda for Africa Policy Brief
Research Briefing: Ghana's Gig Economy
Next Steps for Ghana's Gig Economy: A Research Briefing
Authored by: Richard Boateng, Sheena L. Boateng, Thomas Anning-Dorson, Joseph Budu and Obed Penu
Highlights
This policy brief provides insights on the recommendations for a data-driven agenda among indigenous businesses in Africa. This call is made to policymakers, governments, data governance commissions, the private sector, civil society and local and international donor agencies. The call to create an enabling environment for data to thrive, to be leveraged and to be responsibly governed for the good of Africa is NOW.
Towards A Data-driven Agenda among Indigenous Businesses in Africa
Authored by: Richard Boateng, Adedeji Adeniran, and Sone Osakwe
Highlights
This policy brief provides insights on the recommendations for a data-driven agenda among indigenous businesses in Africa. This call is made to policymakers, governments, data governance commissions, the private sector, civil society and local and international donor agencies. The call to create an enabling environment for data to thrive, to be leveraged and to be responsibly governed for the good of Africa is NOW.
African indigenous businesses (AIBs) are in the nascent stages of becoming data-driven and innovative through data analytics. The data-driven agenda looks promising in industries like manufacturing (distribution), health, agriculture, and online platforms like social media, with enterprises deriving economic and symbolic value from descriptive, diagnostic, and predictive analytics. These data-driven activities tend to be often directly or indirectly enabled by the quest of multinational companies, who as business partners or collaborators of AIBs seek to mutually maximise value-generating activities. Thus, these multinational companies play a key role in creating awareness of the value of data and providing the motivation, and sometimes the technical and human resources, to enable AIBs to develop data analytics capabilities.
Concerning constraints, there is generally a lack of awareness regarding the value of data. AIBs are challenged in providing auxiliary resources and processes for a data-driven agenda (i.e., recruiting the right skillsets, acquiring logistics, paying for software licenses, and meeting regulatory standards, among others). Further, some are yet to scale above existing digitalisation barriers.
In this respect, recommendations to drive a data-driven agenda among AIBs are:
Awareness (educational curriculum development, academia and industry collaboration, and enhancing women’s participation in the data economy);
Accessibility (incentivising stakeholders to collaborate and integrate efforts and establishing common open data banks within countries and across countries); and
Adoption (institutionalising a data culture).
This policy brief was commissioned by the Centre for Study of the Economies of Africa and was funded by The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.
