Apps Aren’t a Magic Solution to Underdevelopment in Africa
Tech start-up leaders are touting digitalization as the path to prosperity in Africa. But the continent’s economy remains heavily based on exporting its unprocessed raw materials. In this context, new apps are only a way of managing poverty, not ending it.
Workers, including women and children, work in a cobalt mine in the Mwenga territory of South Kivu province in the Democratic Republic of the Congo on July 14, 2023. (Augustin Wamenya / Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
“Africa is a digital continent.” It’s a title that we keep reading, as if it were meant to confound clichéd views of African poverty. In fact, in 2020, mobile technologies and services already accounted for 8 percent of GDP across sub-Saharan Africa. Several major digital companies have been founded on the continent in recent years.
Kizito Odhiambo, CEO of one of these start-ups, associates the rise of his company with a rather bigger picture. As he puts it, “I firmly believe that Africa can feed itself — I even think that Africa could feed the world. The continent has everything it needs to do so.” Odhiambo thus uses the famous image of a continent that is actually rich in terms of raw materials and young people, a potential that just needs to be realized — today, through modern, digital technology.
But Odhiambo’s advertising promise is little more than a ruse. To understand why, we need to take a look at Africa’s political economy.
Sorry, but this article is available to active subscribers only. Please log in or become a subscriber.