eBusiness Weekly
Elias Pacheso
“I cannot wait for things to be normal” is something I keep hearing from some people in the business circles. It worries me to hear such talk at a time when the current Covid-19 pandemic has all but changed the way we live and go about our lives forever. Due to the infectious nature of the virus, focus has been on preventing its spread by practising social distancing and self isolation, while the world works on finding a cure and more importantly a vaccine.
Schools closed in March and have not opened in the normal way we expected but life is going on with some children now attending online lessons from the comfort of their homes. As we look for solutions and new ways of getting by our lives as economists and business leaders we must think of innovative ways of ensuring that life goes on and that we find new ways of refocusing ourselves on this new way of living.
As we look at the last two months, we see that there is now some knowledge on how the virus spreads and everyone has been consciously doing what they can to stop its spread or at least to avoid being infected altogether. The economy has suffered as a result of the precautions being taken with most shops only starting to reopen. Other businesses have embraced technology and are servicing their clients online.
When I look at the digitisation or adoption of technology in Zimbabwe I see a significant gap and from an economic point of view if this gap is not closed it will come to haunt us as we will be caught flat footed as a nation.
Despite the adoption of technology as evidenced by smartphone adoption and internet usage in the country Zimbabwe is not taking full advantage of digital platforms. Neither is being proactive in encouraging its use. This is despite the fact that there are high literacy levels in the country which makes adoption or usage of digital systems easy. It is not difficult to see that the countries that have high digitalisation and cheap access to data will come out ahead in coming months as economies begin to reopen.
My article this week will focus on how the Government can double up efforts to ensure mass adoption of technology and unlock the innovation spirit that is evident in our economy. Focusing on the knowledge economy and allowing for it to flourish will bring immense benefits to our already services driven economy.
Even without pumping in money into the economy, the introduction of innovation friendly policies around technology adoption could result in economic activity picking up and allow for the economy to have a soft landing. Why is this important?
The world is moving fast and there is no going back. Technology is changing fast and we must avoid playing catch up because doing so means we are always a step behind.
The world is open today for anyone to innovate and supply products and services and as long as data is expensive or inaccessible we will lose out as a country. More importantly local data connectivity is equally important and should be encouraged. This means that network operators should come up with innovative solutions that allow local traffic to be cheap or free to drive the adoption and use of digital services.
Instead of making money from data, data carrier companies must make money from value added services carried on their data networks. This cannot happen if there are stringent rules and regulations that prevent them from innovating. This means that the regulator and Government must be alive to the fact that reducing the cost of doing business will also help us to revive and create new industries in this new world order.
As an economist I see that we already are in a very unique position to quickly leapfrog other nations if we put in place policies and measures that allow for innovation in our knowledge based economy.
Key to the success of such a programme is the encouragement and empowerment of those who develop content to do so unhindered. Those who have digital skills must be enabled to work remotely on jobs all over the world and be able to receive their payouts.
As we speak the country software developers cannot receive money via visa cards or paypal because of the fact that the country’s financial system is seen as weak when it comes to meeting the minimum standards of payments tracking. Some say it’s also because of the western sanctions.
Just as the country receives inflows from the diaspora, knowledge economy workers working in Zimbabwe on remote jobs can bring in foreign currency. It is the job of the government to ensure that those who wish to work remotely on such jobs get paid and through that the country benefits.
These are low hanging fruits given that the country is full of literate and competent university graduates. These people can work as content developers, digital skilled workers, virtual assistants, support technicians or contact centre assistants all over the world.
Zimbabwe does not presently support the use of cryptocurrencies as it is still researching it and finding ways of seeing how it can be safely adopted. This is equally problematic because a lot of services are now being developed that take advantage of the decentralised nature of such technology.
Digital identity systems are being built on such systems and it’s clear that we are being left behind by not allowing for the adoption or allowing for experimentation.
How can the Government take advantage of the digital economy?
India and Estonia have by far some of the most sophisticated digital friendly economies and achieved this because of the importance placed on interoperability and digital identity.
Without a trusted digital identity and trusted settlement system we will not achieve what these countries have in a short space of time. I am encouraged that the Government put in place measures to enable intermobile money payments last month. This is a good step but is not enough if we want to realise the full potential of digital technologies.
As the world is adjusting to the new normal, countries like Zimbabwe need to do more to catch up and avoid being left behind. The old economy is gone for good and the sooner we realise this the better. It is clear that economies are moving on and adjusting to living with the threat and challenges caused by the coronavirus. We must also adjust and adopt the new normal.
