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ECA’s ERA 2020 launched; focuses on innovative finance for private sector development

Staff Reporter
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The Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) on Tuesday launched its flagship Economic Report on Africa, titled: “Innovative Finance for Private Sector Development in Africa” which looks at innovate financing as a way of providing solutions to the challenges of private sector financing, hence enabling Africa’s private sector to thrive and drive the continent’s economic growth and recovery; and importantly to increase the private sector’s resilience to the effects of the global coronavirus pandemic.

Prepared by the institution’s Private Sector Development and Finance Division and under the leadership of the Executive Secretary, Vera Songwe, the Report was presented during a virtual launch attended by some of Africa’s most eminent minds in the business and finance sectors, government officials, civil society, academia, representatives of the public and private sectors, as well as development partners.

In remarks made at the launch, Songwe expressed her hope that the analysis in the ERA would allow stakeholders, particularly during, and in the post-COVID-19 pandemic, to look at how financing and innovative tools for infrastructure, agriculture and technology, are designed as the Continent tries to build forward out of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Report examines the innovative financial instruments, practices and policies required to enable African countries to make a step-change in growing the gamut of businesses, including start-ups, micro and small enterprises, social enterprises, professional businesses, exchange-listed corporates, and public-private companies, that will drive inclusive economic growth, create jobs and pathways to better livelihoods for African people. Its key recommendations include regulating the banking and financial services sector; creating financial stability through effective policies; amending and updating financial sector legislation and regulatory policies; and promoting innovative private sector financing.

The report also calls on African nations to embrace the continent’s Digital Transformation Strategy and the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) to streamline policies and regulation.

Furthermore, as the end of COVID-19 is uncertain, the Report calls on African governments to explore the full range of policy measures to stabilize the financial system and enable continued funding of the private sector; increase government capacity; strengthen financial sector resilience; and support all financial innovations that could mitigate the impact of the pandemic on African economies.

Adelaide Matlanyane, Governor of Central Bank of Lesotho, emphasized that infrastructure financing should come from capital markets, pension funds, and other sources of funding, adding, against the COVID-19 backdrop, this was the best time to adopt robust policy frameworks for Africa. “We have to look for adaptable solutions to the unique circumstances of Africa. Governments should be moving to the provision of e-services and adopting technology to enhance financial inclusion,” she added.

Louis Rene Peter LaRose, Seychelles former Finance Minister, said: “The way we look at aid for development needs to change. We need to tap into the private capital markets and be innovative, proactive, risk-takers.

Andrew Mwaba, Board of Directors at the Bank of Zambia, said that Africa needs banking and strong institutions for the market to work. He noted that stock markets present key financing opportunities and the listing of public utilities offers more financing opportunities. He emphasized the need for governments and regulators to relax restrictions to allow foreign investors to provide additional financing.

IrajAbedian, founder and Chief Executive of Pan-African Capital Holdings (Pty) Ltd, said: “The fragmentation of regulation hinders the development of financial technologies (FinTech), which requires scale to be successful. We need to find bankable projects, and to maximize the circular flow of funding on the continent; We have to take consolidation of markets seriously.”

Mohammed Ibrahim from the Ministry of Finance for Public Treasury, Egypt, for his part said: “As we continue grappling with the COVID pandemic, development of the capital markets and digitalization are key ways ahead for the continent. Climate risk and disaster risk finance also play key roles moving forward.”

Mohamed LemineDhehby, Mauritania’s Finance Minister, stressed the need to learn from previous financial crises, adopt responsible investing and take advantage of the benefits of Islamic Banking.

How has technology changed in the past ten years?

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How has technology changed in the past ten years?

By Michael Björn

Predicting the future is easy – we do it all the time. The only tricky part is getting it right. Since it is that time of year again when we publish our annual 10 Hot Consumer Trends – our tenth anniversary of the report – let us look back at a decade of consumer technology trends.

Late in 2011, Ericsson Consumer Lab released the first 10 Hot Consumer Trends report and I remember quickly piecing it together on a plane on the way to a customer meeting. I have been the main author of all our trend reports since then, but this one certainly was written in a different and more innocent age. Nevertheless, with the trend “Social media redefining news reporting” it already pointed to a world ruled by Tweet. And this wasn’t just about gossip columns, the report was crystal clear about serious news reporting being redefined by social networking.

The build out of 4G LTE networks formed much of our thinking back then, and the mobile technologies which would be built on top of them. The smartphone app industry and, in particular, the social media industry was already exploding around this time.

Take Twitter, for example. In 2007, Twitter users were sending around 20,000 tweets per day. By 2010, the numbers had spiked up to about 50 million tweets per day. Between 2014 and 2018, the average time spent on social media apps increased by almost 60 percent, as we found in our social media consumer report.

However, innovation in this space moves fast which makes it difficult to predict what will happen next. In the same report, we found that of the ten most popular social media platforms of 2008, five no longer existed ten years later and only two remained in the top ten.

In late 2012, we launched our second report which more or less exactly repeated a trend from the previous year, something that hasn’t happened since. It was about women driving the smartphone market, signifying that internet use was now massively mass market and no longer a “tech” thing.

The third report in 2013 launched the idea that biometrics would be everywhere, with a trend called “your body is the new password”, something to think about the next time you authorize an online purchase by showing your face to your phone. Four years later, Apple announced FaceID for the first time, based on depth-sensing infrared technology which also formed the basis of Xbox Kinect, launched some years earlier.

In late 2014 we took a big leap into the future with the launch of our 10 Hot Consumer Trends 2015 report and the trend “Mind Sharing” predicting that a wearable device to communicate with others directly through thoughts would be available by 2020. How wrong one can be! Or maybe just a bit too early, given that Neuralink in 2020 showed a pig with a brain implant and OpenBCI announced a brain sensing device that seamlessly attaches to VR goggles.

But the biggest media headlines came with the 2016 report and the trend “AI ends the screen age”. Ericsson says the smartphone will be dead in 5 years, yelled the press in what became almost like a global meme. What we really wanted to highlight was the early signs towards a paradigmatic shift where our everyday internet device eventually sits on our heads instead of in our palms. Hence, we followed that up in the 2017 trends with the idea that we are moving into a world of subjective experiences where AR glasses immerse us in an “augmented personal reality” and we eventually live in a “merged reality” without differing between physical and digital experiences.

In fact, the trend reports of the five last years have been quite much focused on this coming paradigmatic shift, with the 2018 trends highlighting the need for a fundamentally new user interface with “your body is the user interface” and the 2019 trends adding the idea of “my digital twin”  before we wrapped all these predictions into a unified concept as the Internet of Senses in the most recent report.

While we firmly believe that physical reality will continue to merge with a multisensory digital experience going forward, we have decided to focus on a completely different development in our next report. Download it here.

 

Michael Björn is Head of Research Agenda and Quality at Consumer & IndustryLab

 

Ericsson: Intelligent connected machines to be a major part of life by 2030, consumers predict

Staff Reporter
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Ericsson: Intelligent connected machines to be a major part of life by 2030, consumers predict
  • Early tech-adopter consumers predict intelligent connectivity to enable services that go way beyond the mobile broadband experiences of today
  • Consumer expectations on smarter connectivity are higher than for any other connected intelligent machine type
  • These predictions about connected intelligent machines point to opportunities for 5G service providers for new intelligent network services.

Consumers expect connected technology to become more flexible and interactive going forward and see devices enabling more pro-active, and even creative choices in a wide range of everyday life situations by 2030.

The tenth edition of the Ericsson (NASDAQ: ERIC) ConsumerLab 10 Hot Consumer Trends report highlights consumer predictions about the various roles that connected intelligent machines could take on going forward. Each of these roles could be seen as new service areas, opening a range of opportunities for 5G service providers to gradually extend intelligent networks to their customers.

At Ericsson Research, our vision is that advances in AI and cellular communications technology will enable connected intelligent machines to securely communicate across the networks of tomorrow. In the process, they could make the world more responsive to consumer needs than ever before, given that consumers predict intelligent connectivity to enable services that go way beyond the mobile broadband experiences of today.

Based on long-standing global trend research, the ConsumerLab 10 Hot Consumer Trends 2030 report represents the expectations and predictions of 50 million early technology adopters across 15 major cities.

In this study, respondents rated 112 connected intelligent machine concepts, ranging from a human-centered to a more rational perspective. The result is an overview of the 10 roles consumers expect connected intelligent machines to take in everyday life by 2030. Each trend in the report depicts a specific role that such machines could take.

Dr. Michael Björn, Head of Research Agenda, Ericsson Consumer & IndustryLab, and author of the report, says: “I was surprised to see that consumer expectations on smarter connectivity are higher than for any other connected intelligent machine type. The Connectivity Gofers trend includes predictions that devices will intelligently adapt to any signal, with use of cellular, Wi-Fi and fixed connectivity being seamless, as well as smart signal locators that guide users to spots with optimal coverage even in crowded areas.”

“This points to opportunities for 5G service providers to gradually extend intelligent networks to cover a whole range of new services for their customers, and each of the machine roles we present in this report could be seen as a whole new service area.”

“The Community Bots trend, for example, highlights the role machine intelligence could take in providing much needed community services. The Explainers puts forward the idea that all connected devices need to be able to explain themselves to users, and Sustainability bots focuses on the increased need for localized intelligent climate advice going forward.”

“What all of these potential services have in common is that they rely on intelligently communicating across devices and thus puts the networking aspect even more in the front seat than today.”

The 10 Hot Consumer Trends for 2030

  1. Body bots: Get a power-up – 76 percent of consumers predict there will be intelligent posture-supporting suits.
  2. Guardian angels: Three-quarters believe that privacy guardians will help fool surveillance cameras and block electronic snooping.
  3. Community bots: Seventy-eight percent believe electronic watchdog services will alert neighborhood allies to any trespassers.
  4. Sustainability bots: Future weather will be extreme – 82 percent believe devices will share data and warn about local rain torrents or heat blasts.
  5. Home officers: WFH uninterrupted – 79 percent say smart speakers will project noise-canceling walls around the home office space.
  6. Explainers: Over 8 in 10 predict automated financial management systems that explain how your investments are handled.
  7. Connectivity gofers: Smart signal locators will be able to guide you to optimal connectivity spots, say 83 percent of consumers.
  8. Baddie bots: A baddie bot that can be trained to carry out burglaries or attack other people is wanted by 37 percent of AR/VR users.
  9. Media creators: Machines will curate content. Sixty-two percent think game consoles will make original games based on their game play.
  10. Bossy bots: Around 7 in 10 believe that social network AIs will understand your personality and build up a circle of friends that is good for your mental and physical wellbeing.

Read the ConsumerLab Hot Consumer Trends 2030 report here

 

Ericsson Mobility Report: Mobile data traffic in Sub-Saharan Africa to grow by 6.5 times by 2026

Staff Reporter
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Ericsson Mobility Report: Mobile data traffic in Sub-Saharan Africa to grow by 6.5 times by 2026
  • Average traffic per smartphone in Sub-Saharan Africa is expected to reach 8.9GB
  • Sub-Saharan Africa’s mobile broadband subscriptions are set to account for 76% of all mobile subscriptions by 2025
  • Distinct volumes of 5G subscriptions are expected from 2022 in Sub-Saharan Africa

The November 2020 edition of the Ericsson (NASDAQ: ERIC) Mobility Report reveals that mobile data traffic in Sub-Saharan Africa is estimated to grow by almost 6.5 times the current figures, with total traffic increasing from 0.87EB per month in 2020 to 5.6EB by 2026. Meanwhile, average traffic per smartphone is expected to reach 8.9GB over the forecast period.

As the demand for capacity and coverage of cellular networks continues to grow, service providers are expected to continue investing in their networks to cater for this uptake and meet evolving consumer requirements. In Sub-Saharan Africa, mobile subscriptions will continue to grow over the forecast period as mobile penetration today, at 84 percent, is less than the global average. LTE is estimated to account for around 15 percent of subscriptions by the end of 2020.

The Mobility Report reiterates the importance of releasing more spectrum in Africa to expand coverage, improve network quality and encourage mobile adoption.

Fadi Pharaon, President of Ericsson Middle East and Africa says: “This latest edition of our Mobility Report highlights the fundamental need for good connectivity as a cornerstone to cater for this uptake as the demand for capacity and coverage of cellular networks continues to grow across Africa. Investing in network infrastructure and optimizing spectrum assignments to deliver expansive 4G connectivity, paving the way for 5G, are critical requirements to consider in this journey and to accelerate digital transformation across the continent.  We will continue to invest in our technology leadership and offer our state-of-the art infrastructure solutions to help our customers seize the opportunities that connectivity will bring to Africa.”

Over the forecast period, mobile broadband subscriptions in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) are predicted to increase, reaching 76 percent of mobile subscriptions. Driving factors behind the growth of mobile broadband subscriptions include a young, growing population with increasing digital skills and more affordable smartphones. Over the forecast period, distinct volumes of 5G subscriptions are expected from 2022, reaching 5 percent in 2026.

While 5G and LTE subscriptions will continue to grow over the next 6 years, High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) will remain the dominant technology in SSA with a share of over 40 percent in 2026.

Service providers compete with distinct strategies

Within Africa, offering-led is the most common strategy, frequently offering a wide range of services linked to mobile subscriptions such as gaming, mobile banking and insurance. A look at service offerings reveals that offering-led service providers tend to couple network performance with specific use cases and end-user expectations, like promoting the best network for video streaming.

The offering-led strategy is mostly deployed by challengers. The ambition is to be first to market with new offerings. Prominent in this strategy is maintaining a high level of market innovation to capture market share, often with one-for-all offerings, coupled with targeted distribution. These challengers use extensive campaigns and promotional programs to gain traction and capitalize on their “first-mover advantage”.

Offering-led service providers also work with multiple partners in the area of products and services. They typically use modern technology – such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) – in their operations, as well as a wide use of omni-channel strategies for customer experience management.

Service providers offering Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) on the rise

In addition to the need driven by the pandemic, there are three main factors that drive Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) growth. First, demand from consumers and businesses for digital services continues, driving the need for broadband connectivity.

Second, FWA delivered over 4G or 5G is an increasingly cost-efficient broadband alternative in areas with limited availability of fixed services, such as DSL, cable and fiber. Increasing capacity, allowed by greater spectrum allocations and technology advancements for 4G and 5G networks, is driving higher network efficiency in terms of the cost per delivered gigabyte.

Third, nations are fueling broadband connectivity through programs and subsidies, as it is considered vital for digitalization efforts and economic growth.

Download the November 2020 edition of the Ericsson Mobility Report here

 

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