Leading the digital and Fourth Industrial Revolutions in Africa

While many scholars emphasize how the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) might leave African countries behind, they often overlook the fact that, as I show in my book Africa’s Fourth Industrial Revolution, some African countries are actually outperforming the rest of the world in certain key areas. For example, Mauritius is the global leader in three key indicators: widespread internet access in schools, e-commerce legislation, and venture capital investors. Meanwhile, Senegal is home to the top unicorn value in proportion to GDP thanks to the billion-dollar valuation mobile money company Wave—Francophone Africa’s first unicorn startup.

Innovations in advanced technologies have allowed African nations to become global leaders in groundbreaking tech: Kenya is now a leader in the mobile money sector with its mobile money service M-PESA, and Rwanda is a leader in the drone delivery of medical supplies thanks to its company Zipline.

These African success stories illustrate the continent’s great potential to lead the way in the 4IR, at both the regional and global levels. Yet Africa’s 54 countries have had and will continue to have very different journeys toward 4IR preparedness given their unique strengths and overall contexts. By analyzing the performance of different African countries in terms of various factors related to the 4IR, important insights can be gleaned. Such insights may be helpful for other African countries to consider as they work to become leaders themselves.  

African countries leading the way

Based on rankings across four indexes that measure 4IR preparedness (the Network Readiness Index (NRI), the Global Innovation Index (GII), the Global Competitiveness Index, and the Global Cybersecurity Index), nine leaders dominate the top 10 in Africa. Mauritius, Tunisia, and Ghana appear in the top 10 across all four indexes, while South Africa, Kenya, Morocco, Egypt, Rwanda, Cabo Verde all appear in the top 10 for at least three of the four.

Kenya, for example, outperforms other countries at a similar income level and ranks high in the world on entrepreneurship, attitudes toward risk, and business dynamism. Best known for its mobile money innovations and their widespread adoption, Kenya is 18th in the world in providing users access to online financial accounts, having found success after rapid digitalization, with ICT as a main driver of growth.

South Africa is ranked second on the continent across three indexes (NRI, Global Competitiveness Index, and GII) and has been a consistent leader in many areas of the 4IR. South Africa leads in market sophistication with strengths in market capitalization, new businesses, and domestic credit to the private sector. The country’s robust research ecosystems are supported by its cutting-edge universities: It is home to eight of the top 10 African universities as ranked by the Times Higher Education Ranking.

Tunisia has focused on building a startup and entrepreneurship ecosystem, implementing its supportive regulatory environment called the Startup Act which has supported 1,040 startups as of 2023 (Startup Genome), and investing heavily in developing scientific research centers, technical institutes, and STEM research and education.

Strategies derived from top performers

The example of Mauritius demonstrates, first, the importance of African countries having robust, comprehensive, and specifically tailored strategies for integrating advanced technologies to advance their goals. Mauritius’ government has been a driving force in implementing the reforms that helped it rank first among African countries in ease of doing business and first in the world for ensuring widespread internet access in schools. In its 2030 Digital Mauritius Strategic Plan, the government highlighted the role of 4IR technologies, and has since embraced advanced technologies to enable over 100 powerful e-services and deploy new technologies for crop breeding and disease diagnoses. A successful strategy such as the one implemented in Mauritius will address how the government can create an enabling environment that encourages innovation and adoption in technology while delivering robust cybersecurity plans, consider how it will reduce gaps in physical and digital infrastructure to help scale technology adoption, and convey how to build the digital workforce skills needed to thrive in the 4IR. An environment that enables the emergence of unicorns should include—as discussed by Ana Venâncio , Winnie Picoto , Inês Pinto—stable and inclusive institutions and ecosystems enabling high-growth ventures; resources such as sufficient funding, human capital, knowledge, and market demand; and quality and affordability of both traditional and digital infrastructures able to accelerate the speed of growth.

Second, African countries should prioritize 4IR implementation at the highest level, with personal commitments from country leadership. Tunisia is a shining example here; its government played a leadership role in investing in education and research infrastructure. In 2023, the Ministry of Education spearheaded a partnership with Classera to launch the digital education platform “Tunis Future School” which plans to provide 2.5 million students with advanced learning experiences. In South Africa, the government spearheaded partnership opportunities at the highest level, including creating a Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, the Technology Innovation Agency, the Technology for Human Resources in Industry Program, and the Support Program for Industrial Innovation—each of which targets different levers of innovation. As highlighted by Ameenah Gurib-Fakim and myself, “investing in science and technology is key to an African economic boom.”

Third, African countries must continue to invest in foundational physical and digital infrastructure such as reliable and affordable electricity and internet access, with an emphasis on digital inclusion. Partnering with the private sector is key to accelerating the pace of expansion, while renewable energy could provide a powerful—and cheaper—way forward to expand this infrastructure and thus enable 4IR adoption.

Fourth, African countries must invest in improving their human capital and closing digital skill gaps. Some examples of leadership and innovation in this area include Rwanda, which has been working to lead digital transformation for 3.9 million students across 4,900 schools by nurturing digital skills among teachers and students and Nigeria, whose education management challenges are being met with a cloud-based solution embedded in EduTAMS, a Nigerian platform that gives educators real-time data on enrollment, payments, and student results, which can help fuel interactive learning.

Despite the narrative that Africa’s challenges will inevitably lead it to fall behind in the 4IR, current and emerging leaders and innovators are paving the path for Africa to become a global powerhouse in the 4IR. By implementing the strategies and foci these leaders are modeling, the benefits of 4IR technologies can spread to other countries and their impacts maximized.

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