Public Management (335)
In 2020, Ethiopia launched Digital Ethiopia 2025, its national development strategy. One of the focuses of that strategy is digital transformation to improve the efficiency of public services and facilitate access to online payment means.
On Monday, April 4, Ethiopia, through the Ministry of Innovation and Technology (MINT), signed a partnership agreement to integrate Mastercard’s payment service gateway into its e-services portal. Therefore, users can pay for public services using bank cards for the first time while Commercial Bank of Ethiopia will collect the payments on behalf of the government.
For Minister of Technology Belete Molla (photo), the partnership with Mastercard enables the country to “provide a versatile digital payments solution – customers with any bank card can use it. That means people can pay conveniently and safely wherever they are and at any time. It also enables us to improve revenue collection and achieve efficiencies—in turn, freeing up resources to improve service delivery.”
The partnership agreement follows a memorandum of understanding signed, in 2020, by the MINT and Mastercard. That memorandum aimed to support the government in digitizing payments and improving public services in line with Digital Ethiopia 2025, the national development strategy.
In the first phase of the project, only civil society organizations will be able to pay for operating licenses using any branded payment card.
“By supporting the Ethiopian government in the implementation of a world-class and innovative digital payments platform, we are collaborating to save resources, increase efficiencies, and deliver improved services to citizens. Soon, members of the Civil Society Organization will no longer need to carry cash, travel long distances, and stand in long queues at banks to pay for their licenses. Rather, they will be able to do it safely and conveniently online,” said Mark Elliott, Division President, Mastercard, Sub-Saharan Africa.
Muriel Edjo
Launched 10 years ago, the single window for foreign trade is one of the flagship projects in Kenya’s development program, Vision 2030. It has already helped secure millions of dollars in license/permit fees and correct the flaws of the manual system.
In August 2021, Kenya started upgrading the Kenya TradeNet System, its trade facilitation platform. According to Ukur Kanacho Yatani, the country’s Treasury Cabinet Secretary, the upgrade will be completed by the end of April 2022.
The government official made the revelation last March 31, during the first East African Trade Facilitation Summit, held in Nairobi under the theme “Re-imagining Trade Facilitation in an era of Technology.”
For Ukur Kanacho Yatani, with the upgrade, “some of the limitations” will be addressed, and “features that were lacking in the Kenya TradeNet system” will be added. They will then “promote the betterment of intra-regional trade as well as significantly make it easy to carry out trade,” he explained.
“As we launch the upgrade of the Kenya TradeNet System, which is also known as the Trade Facilitation Platform, the next 10 years are indeed promising to the trading community,” he added.
The Kenya TradeNet System is a single online platform through which actors involved in international trade and logistics can carry out various trade-related procedures like submitting documents to clear goods and pay taxes and duties.
Launched in January 2011, the system already includes 23 government agencies out of 38 targeted, 38 active insurance companies, 36 banks, nearly 1,529 clearing agents, 46 shipping agents and shipping companies, 29 container freight terminals, and five freight handling companies.
KenTrade, the agency in charge of the platform, reveals that since 2014, more than 3.3 million permits have been issued through the system while over 2.8 million unique consignment references (UCRs) have been processed. As of December 2021, the system had over 16,000 registered users. Partner government agencies were able to collect a little over Ksh3.5 billion (US$30.3 million) in license/permit fees from traders. Also, from May 1, 2018, to June 30, 2021, a total of 445,146 import declarations with values estimated at Ksh2.9 trillion were registered in the system.
Muriel Edjo
Kintambo, a northwestern municipality in Kinshasa, DRC, will test a digital population registry system in cooperation with the Brussels-Capital Region. In the framework of that test, the municipality will carry out a digital identification program to register the population residing in the region.
The test project is funded by the Brussels Development Cooperation, managed by Brussels International. It is part of the cooperation agreement signed on Monday 21 March in Kinshasa by the Minister-President of the Brussels-Capital Region, Rudi Vervoot (photo, left), and the Governor of the city of Kinshasa, Gentiny Ngobila Mbaka (photo, right).
According to Corinne François, director of the Association of the City and Municipalities of the Brussels-Capital Region (Brulocalis), a digital register containing an official record of the population "is important for democracy.”
The digital registry is "the foundation of everything. For instance, during elections, there could be fraudulent acts like counting the votes of dead people if there is no digital register. It is also an important tool to identify where to build a school, a hospital, etc…,” she added.
Belgian municipalities have been assisting Kinshasa in the improvement of its civil registration system since 2008. Thanks to the federal program "International Communal Cooperation" being coordinated since 2017, by the Association of the City and Municipalities of the Brussels-Capital Region and the Union of Cities and Municipalities of Wallonia (UVCW), six Brussels municipalities (Brussels-City, Ixelles, Uccle, Watermael-Boitsfort, Woluwe-St-Lambert, Saint-Gilles) and seven Walloon municipalities (Court-St-Etienne, Flémalle, Herve, Namur, Olne, Waremme, and Seraing) have already partnered with a municipality in Kinshasa.
If the test planned in Kitambo proves successful, the digital population register could be extended to other municipalities and even to provinces. With a secure database of its population, the Congolese government will have valuable assets to devise effective socio-economic development strategies.
Muriel Edjo
Novissi, the social assistance program developed by NGO GiveDirectly, was implemented by the Togolese government to support poor communities during the coronavirus pandemic. US$22.5 million was distributed to 817,154 people in its framework.
Cash transfer program Novissi received the Special Recognition Award of the South by Southwest (SXSW) Innovation Show, held March 11-20 in Austin, Texas, USA. The program, termed MobileAid, set itself apart during the Covid-19 crisis. Indeed, in 2020, when the coronavirus was raging, Togo implemented Novissi to assist the less privileged.
Four conditions were required to access government assistance. First, the applicant must be a Togolese residing in the country. Secondly, he/she must be an employee whose job was affected by the coronavirus response measures issued by the government. The third and the fourth conditions were respectively being aged over 18 and having a voters card.
Applicants meeting all those four conditions can self-enroll by dialing the USSD code *855# and following the enrollment procedure.
Male beneficiaries used to receive monthly stipends of XOF10,500 (US$17.76), against XOF 12,250 for women. Beneficiaries were advised to use the stipends to buy food and water, pay for water and electricity bills, or purchase airtime.
Developed by the non-governmental organization GiveDirectly, Novissi was born out of the Togolese government's desire to guarantee a minimum income for the poor amid the coronavirus pandemic that forced travel restrictions.
Overall, 1,631,101 people self-enrolled on Novissi but only 817,154 were approved. They included 516,847 women and 300,307 men. According to the Togolese government, The beneficiaries received a total of XOF13.308 billion.
Adoni Conrad Quenum
The LOGIRAD is DRC’s new integrated public finance management system. It was adopted last Friday, March 25th, in Kinshasa, during the council of ministers.
The new digital system is aimed at making the collection of taxes, duties, and fees more secure for the central government. Additionally, LOGIRAD will help the government optimize domestic revenue mobilization, knowingly by helping it better manage administrative and legal disputes, protect the tax collection circuit, limit human intervention and tackle fraud.
Per Article 3 of the tax law No. 13/003 of February 23, 2013, amended and supplemented by Article 47 of the 2022 finance law, the Democratic Republic of Congo will issue a statutory law, making LOGIRAD the compulsory platform for tax and non-tax procedures.
In the country’s 2022-2024 medium-term budgetary framework presented in September 2021, the Ministry of Finance makes LOGIRAD a key asset in the public revenues’ protection arsenal. The digital system is expected to heavily contribute to the collection of additional revenues for the implementation of essential socio-economic development projects.
According to DRC’s medium-term budgetary framework, provincial governments’ overall expenditure budget over 2022-2024 amounts to some FC89,999.8 billion (US$44.7 billion) against FC74,797.8 billion for the central government.
Muriel Edjo
Burundi validated last March 17 the final plan of its digital tax collection project. The plan was validated by provincial governors, council tax officers, and communal administrators during a workshop organized by the Ministry of Home Affairs and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP).
The final plan provides for the adjustment of the legal framework, identification and allocation of identification numbers to every taxpayer, and the acquisition and deployment of IT equipment. It also plans for the connection of every municipality to the national power and internet network as well as training for the communal staff that will be in charge of daily communal revenue collection. The plan’s pilot phase will be launched next July in sixty townships.
For Niteretse Martin (photo), permanent secretary of the Ministry of Home Affairs, the collection of communal tax revenues is being digitized to improve efficiency, boost transparency and improve the relationship between the public administration and citizens by offering efficient services to users.
The March 17 workshop is the ultimate result of instructions issued by President Evariste Ndayishimiye at the end of the January 4-5, 2022, government retreat. After the retreat, on January 27, another workshop was organized to validate the diagnostic assessment of communal tax collection in the country. The digitalization of communal tax collection is perceived as a solution to poor communal management. The latter translates into financial losses for the government. However, the authorities expect digitalization to guarantee good governance and steady communal tax incomes.
Ruben Tchounyabe
Egypt’s Ministry of Finance, on March 9, commissioned German software provider SAP and US tech firm IBM Consulting to install a digital platform for the country’s tax procedures. This move aims to improve tax procedures and optimize revenue collection.
The two contractors will roll out an integrated solution based on the SAP® Tax and Revenue Management for Public Sector. Designed to provide the Ministry of Finance with comprehensive business automation tools, the platform will help the Ministry streamline and automate its processes, enhance collaboration and improve citizen experience. The system was successfully tested in 10 tax offices in Greater Cairo but this year, it will be rolled out in every region.
Under the terms of the contract binding the three parties, IBM will also install IBM Cloud Pak for Business Automation solution, a tool designed to integrate artificial intelligence (AI) into the ministry of finance’s processes. It will streamline and automate the tax procedure, ensuring accurate tax declarations, offering taxpayers more knowledge of the taxation process while allowing tax authorities to focus on high-value tasks like reducing tax evasion and improving revenues.
The project is part of the Egypt Vision 2030 development strategy launched in 2016. One of the main focuses of that strategy is the modernization of public services.
Meanwhile, the digitization of the tax system is part of the unified tax procedure law aimed at maximizing government revenues. On February 22, Ragab Mahrous, spokesperson for the Ministry of Finance, explained that taxes account for 75% of the Egyptian government’s revenues. Therefore, it is crucial for the country, which has several development projects, to optimize tax collection.
Adoni Conrad Quenum
The last two years have demonstrated to officials in Madagascar how important transforming the economy is. As a result, the country started digitizing several strategic sectors for more efficiency.
On 22 March 2022, the Malagasy Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock (MINAE) signed a partnership agreement with the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to digitize the country’s agri-food systems.
As part of this agreement, digital platforms will be developed to make agricultural services more accessible, interactive, and efficient for the whole agricultural value chain. The platforms will take advantage of available opportunities and tackle challenges the sector may face in the future.
According to the MINAE, the partnership also includes support for "digital innovation” and it will focus on improving efficiency of coaching, training, intermediation, and partnerships. It will also entail “the publication of crucial information” related to trade, health, and regulations.
Ultimately, the ministry believes, the agreement will "accelerate the positive transformation of food systems and make them more sustainable, resilient and inclusive.”
The said agreement is one of the numerous actions carried out by the Malagasy government to improve the efficiency of its agriculture sector. Last year, the MINAE, the Ministry of Digital Development, and technical/financial partners announced the implementation of a geo-referencing system to collect and manage data on farmers, their operating segments, and the various supports received from the government. As part of this initiative, digital farmer identification cards were distributed in November 2021.
Ruben Tchounyabe
The government of Benin has in recent years made e-education a priority. The need for such a system has been highlighted with the Covid-19 pandemic, prompting the government to accelerate the process.
Benin wants to build a solid e-education system inspired by the model used in Côte d'Ivoire through the “Digital School” project. Last March 18, the Higher Education Minister, Eleonore Yayi (pictured) led a visit to the Lycée classique d'Abidjan, one of the sites where the project is rolled out.
With the Minister of Digitalization Aurélie Adam Soule, Eleonore Yayi visited two multimedia rooms and a data center. The first one is equipped with more than thirty computers, two giant touch screens, and last generation cameras and is intended for courses by videoconference. It is interconnected by optical fibers to 149 other sites across the country. The second room, equipped with computers and a high-speed Internet connection, allows students to follow courses remotely. The data center contains all the educational data produced during the courses, the teaching manuals, etc.
The Minister said her department is already in talks with tech giant Huawei to reproduce the Ivorian model in Benin. This measure aligns with the ambitions of President Patrice Talon, the official said. With e-education, the Beninese government wants to give young learners access to experts, the most current research, and the most advanced knowledge. With digital technology, interacting with education professionals remotely will be facilitated. This will enable the country to gradually build a strong human resource to boost growth.
Muriel Edjo
Gabon will soon have a data center that will manage and store cadastral data, announced the Minister of Housing Olivier Nang Ekomie.
According to Le Nouveau Gabon, the Gabonese authorities deemed this measure necessary in an international context marked by the resurgence of cybercriminal attacks or computer hacking.
For the acquisition of supplies, installation, and configuration of the Data Center, tender documents have been prepared and sent to the Directorate General of Public Procurement (DGMP) for a no-objection opinion.
Gabon also plans to interconnect the provincial land registry offices to repatriate, centralize and process land information to carry out the work on the same information system. On this issue, tender documents have also been sent to the DGMP for a no-objection opinion.
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To increase the safety of boda boda (motorcycle cab) users in Kenya, the government has announced that it will issue biometric plates with a unique color code for each county to facilitate the identification of drivers. The decision was announced yesterday by Governor Ann Kananu.
The plates will integrate information such as the name, identification number, and telephone number of each owner and/or driver, their area of operation, etc. These biometric plates will also be equipped with anti-counterfeiting features such as holograms, watermarks, and laser markers to allow police to easily locate them.
The governor said that this measure will help reorganize the boda boda sector. “This will help us identify the real boda boda riders and the rogues who have infiltrated the industry. Some people pose as boda boda riders yet they are criminals. However, they have assured us that they will identify such elements and have them arrested,” she added. The digital identification of boda boda follows the meeting held on Thursday between the governor and the Association of boda boda on the series of new regulations applicable to motorcycle cabs. The meeting came after President Uhuru Kenyatta (pictured) called for a nationwide security crackdown on rogue boda boda drivers on March 8 after a motorist was assaulted along Wangari Maathai Road in Nairobi County.
“I have given an executive order for petty offenders with documents to have their motorcycles released. However, no boda bodas will get into the city center until we have streamlined the sector,” President Uhuru Kenyatta said, stressing that “your boda boda license is not for you to harass or to strip our women of dignity.”
Adoni Conrad Quenum
In 2008, The Kenyan government started deploying a development vision that runs until 2030. Digital technology, a part of this vision, hadn’t attracted much interest in the past but the narrative has changed now.
Kenya's Ministry of Information and Communication Technology, Youth and Innovation has announced the elaboration of a national digital master plan. The 10-year plan, which was the focus of a validation workshop held last Friday, aims to advance Kenya’s socio-economic development by leveraging technology.
The strategy focuses on the following areas: digital infrastructure, digital services, and data management, digital skills, digital innovation, and digital business. It should help the country create wealth and jobs, in line with its 2030 Vision adopted on June 10, 2008.
Lucy Mulili (picture), Administrative Secretary at the Ministry of ICT, representing the Cabinet Secretary for ICT, Joe Mucheru, explained that “the document draws heavily on the 2019 National ICT Policy, which explains how ICT as a foundation creates a robust economy and thus improves the lives of Kenyans.”
The Kenyan government's strategic actions under the National Digital Master Plan reflect a commitment to advancing digitalization which the World Bank sees as an asset for development–and clearly demonstrated by Covid-19.
Under the new plan, Nairobi is set to, among others, lay 100,000 km of fiber optic cable–52,000 km for the government and 48,000 km for private companies– to provide reliable and affordable connectivity for all. It also plans to provide 1.2 million laptops to schools, train 350,000 teachers in the use of technology, and connect 40,000 schools to a sustainable Internet network. The plan should cost Sh5 billion ($43.7 million) to implement.
Adoni Conrad Quenum
In the past decade, Mauritius has invested heavily in ICT to create a digital economy as announced in 2010. This has helped the country better cope with the economic crisis induced by Covid-19.
The Mauritian government has decided to leverage its digital assets to boost tourism, whose contribution to the country’s GDP plunged by 62.1% in 2020 due to Covid-19. From 19.5% of the GDP and $2.4 billion of revenues in 2019, the sector tumbled to 8.7% and $945.5 million in 2020.
Now, the Island no longer focuses on using the Internet and the web for tourism promotion; rather, it wants to build a robust digital environment to attract location-independent workers.
Last month, Nilen Vencadasmy (photo), chairman of the Mauritius Tourism Promotion Authority, started touring some African countries to sell this new vision. On 26th February, he was in South Africa which is considered an important market; 130,000 South Africans visited Mauritius in 2019.
The Premium Travel Visa is the first digital asset that Mauritius will use to achieve its new ambitions. Launched on November 16, 2020, this one-year renewable residence permit granted to non-Mauritian nationals is accessible online. The Mauritius Economic Development Committee specifies that applicants for this permit must meet several criteria, including not being involved in the Mauritian labor market, proving that the main place of business and the source of income and profits are outside Mauritius.
Mauritius' other digital assets are grouped into a digital ecosystem conducive to remote work. The country ranked 8th in Africa for average mobile Internet speed in January 2022 with 20.59 megabits per second (Mbps), as well as 7th in Africa for average fixed Internet speed with 19.88 Mbps, according to Speedtest Global Index.
As for the cost of the Internet, Cable.co.uk, in its report "Worldwide mobile data pricing 2021. The cost of 1GB of mobile data in 230 countries," ranks Mauritius 5th in sub-Saharan Africa for the average cost of accessing 1 Gigabit (GB): $0.75. The Portulans Institute and STL's Network Readiness Index 2021 rank the country among the best in Africa in terms of Internet coverage. In the International Telecommunication Union's (ITU) Global Cybersecurity Index 2020, Mauritius ranks first in the level of security of its information systems since 2014.
By targeting digital nomads, Mauritius, which plans to "relax the entry protocol in the coming weeks," according to Nilen Vencadasmy, hopes to once more make tourism a strong contributor to GDP, not only by ensuring that the industry regains its previous dynamism but also by attracting quality visitors.
Muriel Edjo
The Congolese government has since 2019 stepped up initiatives to develop the digital economy in the country. Beyond connectivity infrastructure, it has also made the innovation industry – a major job generator- a priority.
The government of the Republic of Congo is working on a specific legal framework for startups. The related bill was approved by the Council of Ministers last March 2. The document was then submitted to Parliament for review by Léon Juste Ibombo (pictured), the Minister of Posts, Telecommunications, and the Digital Economy.
If it is validated, it will foster the implementation of various administrative, financial, fiscal, and measures that will promote the development of tech entrepreneurship in the country. Leon Juste Ibombo explained that the government decided to develop this tool due to "the absence of a specific legal framework for the digital industry, the lack of adequate funding, and the difficulties of access to public procurement as well as the absence of a strategy to promote innovation.” The law provides for a “startup” quality label that will only be issued to young companies that have met certain conditions.
Startups are increasingly gaining ground in Africa. Between 2015 and 2021, the amount they managed to raise increased from $277 million to $5.2 billion. Fintech, e-logistics, e-commerce, e-health, have gained value with Covid-19. As digital transformation has accelerated on the continent, the Congolese government wants to enable local innovators to also benefit from the growing business opportunities.
In its report "2021 Africa Tech Venture Capital", Partech reveals that Congolese startups captured $1 million from investment funds and other VCs in 2021. Senegal, which has been enjoying a startup law since December 28, 2019, saw the volume of funds raised by its startups reach $353 million in 2021. It was $6.50 million in 2016 according to Partech.
The new framework in Congo will facilitate the emergence of more tech innovators and entrepreneurs who will promote a dynamic local industry.
Muriel Edjo