International conference: Aid for Digital Trade: Needs and Responses, ICTSD

South Africa - 21 November 2017

Title: E-commerce and the digital economy: challenges and needs in Southern Africa
Author(s): Paper presented by Viviers, W. on behalf of M-L Kuhn and A Parry

Abstract:
With more and more economic activities relying on information and communication technology (ICT) and with Internet access becoming an almost indispensable business tool, there is growing acceptance that the modern economy has become a ‘digital economy’. The digital economy is helping to remove many traditional barriers to, and costs associated with, trade and creating untold new opportunities for businesses (small and large) to market their products and services inexpensively to massive audiences and to perform myriad online transactions. ICT-enabled production is also affording products new types of comparative advantage, thereby helping to bring more small (including female-owned) businesses into the mainstream of the economy.
For a country to join the digital era, it needs to have an ‘enabling environment’, which would typically be characterised by: a policy environment that encourages technological change; effective ICT infrastructure and affordable ICT products and services; an investment climate that welcomes competition in the ICT sector; robust education and training institutions; and sound physical (national, provincial and local) infrastructure. Southern Africa trails behind other regions in terms of its digital preparedness – although performance varies from one country to the next. Furthermore, urban areas are often quite well catered for in terms of ICT investment but in the rural areas, there is still a significant development deficit. Although the dramatic uptake of mobile phones in Southern Africa is helping to narrow the digital divide, the region has much catching up to do.
This paper explores the digital preparedness of the 15 member countries of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), revealing the main challenges and opportunities in the digital arena, and highlighting some key policy imperatives that will enable the region to leverage the power of the digital economy.

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