On the morning of January 22, 2015 I was greeted on Facebook by the world’s youngest billionaire Mark Zuckerberg who was announcing his internet.org initiative launch in Ghana, such relieving and inspiring news couldn’t come at a better time as it had been long announced and no one in Ghana thought the later would be among the first countries to benefit from this initiative, according to Mr. Zuckerberg, Ghana is the fifth country to be connected through Internet.org after Zambia, Tanzania, Kenya and Colombia to further increase the percentage of internet ready citizens which currently stands at a discouraging 12%. According to internet.org, currently only 1 out of every 3 people can go online and they are succinctly asking “why aren’t more people connected?
Coming home to Ghana, a country with data plans running through the roof and smart devices sometimes even more expensive than in the advanced economies few people are digitally connected, few people are disconnected from the globalized world and few people are not benefiting from this knowledge economy. The use and importance of the internet cannot be overemphasized, the internet as we knew it years ago has seen tremendous change and improvement with the influx of advance telecommunication gadgets, technology and protocols making it even faster, more efficient and even more relevant.
The launching of internet.org’s initiative in Ghana will pose many positives for us as individuals and as a country and position us at an advantage to reap various benefits across various sectors of our economy from education, agriculture, health, governance, and even technology itself. Africa suffers a connectivity problem and connectivity clearly remains Africa’s most untapped resource tho shockingly perceived as the “bermuda” of political speech as no body talks about is. In situations where people have smart devices, data is sometimes a challenge sometimes unavailable and sometimes too expensive further cutting out some citizens from the global netizens. I will in the following paragraphs try to connect the gains we MAY harness with this initiative
Education
Education has been one of Africa’s major problems, in reference to the Africa learning barometer, 37 million African children will learn so little while they are in school that they will not be much better off than their 17 million counterparts who never attended school, dire and frightening are the consequences these shocking statistics will have on African economies.
Africans have been said to be over schooled and under educated due to a lack of exposure, information even by the teachers on new teaching methods and by the students on new learning aides, e-learning is breaking barriers that used to be now a student in Tsarley Kope in Ghana can with the help of the internet connect with another student in Houston Texas and share ideas and even inform each other on things they may be missing out on either side of the continent,With the internet barriers are broken even in the near future all we need to do in terms of education would be to educate people on how to use and surf the internet and the rest would be to their imagination. If we are able to better educate our you we have just tied one end of the thread when we are able to expose them to the world to see, meet and interact with the world then we have a better chance at a wholly approach to education.
Agriculture
Agriculture remains key to achieving the poverty targets of the MDGs in Africa. Nearly 80% of the population in sub-Saharan Africa live in rural areas and 70% of this rural population are dependent on food production through farming or livestock keeping for most of their livelihood. Small-scale farming provides most of the food produced in Africa, as well as employment for 60% of working people. Agriculture constitutes the backbone of most African economies, it is the largest contributor to GNI, the biggest source of foreign exchange, and the main generator of savings and tax revenues.
However, agricultural productivity is dropping in sub-Saharan Africa. For example, per capita agricultural production fell by about 5% over the last 20 years while increasing by 40% in other developing countries. As the focus of development assistance shifts towards export-led growth and state support for agriculture is progressively withdrawn, the productivity of small farmers has declined due to low investment in agricultural research, training and extension services. A farmer Cecilia Arimah in an interview recently said “we have been relying too much and for too long on traditional methods of farming. Our productivity is not moving forward year in year out, and we experience serious difficulties in accessing reliable information”
E-agriculture is gradually making strides in boosting harvests and reducing post-harvest losses in many farming communities spread across Africa. Technology and the internet as a whole is championing this cause especially with the influx of startups like Farmerline who are sending information to farmers, to educate them on pesticide, harvesting best practices, produce management, storage, fertilizer application and many more as well as having a 24/7 call center to these farmers for emergency support services in all local languages to the understanding of the indigenous farmers via their mobile phones. Recently in Ghana 35,000 farmers with access to smartphones with inbuilt voicemail in six different local languages subscribed to the platform to help farmers get conversant with technology
Economy
One half of the African continent lives below the poverty line. In sub-Saharan Africa, per capita GDP is now less than it was in 1974, having declined over 11 percent. this can be linked to ill managed resources, unaccounted expenditure, lack of information and innovation and a slack in accountability. While the rest of the world’s economy grew at an annual rate of close to 2 percent from 1960 to 2002, growth performance in Africa has been dismal. From 1974 through the mid-1990s, growth was negative, reaching negative 1.5 percent in 1990-4. As a consequence, hundreds of millions of African citizens have become poor: one half of the African continent lives below the poverty line. In sub-Saharan Africa, per capita GDP is now less than it was in 1974, having declined over 11 percent. In 1970, one in ten poor citizens in the world lived in Africa; by 2000, the number was closer to one in two. That trend translates into 360 million poor Africans in 2000, compared to 140 million in 1975.
The first world countries, if they are anything to go by have used connectivity and the internet to better their economies talk of the technology giants such as Facebook, Google, Apple and the many of the like who are reaping the benefits of investing in connectivity, these businesses are not only contribution to their nation’s GDP but also unequivocally creating jobs for the many who would have been jobless. In 2013 Facebook recorded US$7.87 billion in revenue and assets in excess ofUS$17.89 billion with 8,348 employees, Google recorded revenue of US$59.825 billion in 2013 with total assets amounting to about US$110.92 billion in the same year with 55,030 employees, Alibaba: US$8.50 billion in 2014 assets of US$17.54 billion and 26,845 employees, Samsung US$327 billion in 2013 assets running to US$100.4 billion and 427,000 employees and Apple: US$ 182.795 billion in 2014, total assets US$231.839 billion and an enormous employee base of 98,000 people.
Africa’s economy stands a better chance with technology amidst vast unemployment, poorly managed infrastructure.
Health
Again we have seen super computers diagnosing illnesses and prescribing drugs, latest innovations even checking how long you walk and how much you should be walking to prevent diseases such as heart attacks, diabetes and others have surfaced. During the outbreak of ebola in 2014 in Africa technology was used heavily to inform and educate many Africans on sysmptoms and first aid, furthermore we are aware of how “internet certified” midwives delivered babies just by following instructions on Youtube, Surgeons performing a heart transplant by going back and forth with a surgeon via twitter or even patients checking if drugs they have purchased are the original brand , the opportunities are enormous and the viability is outstanding.
Conclusion
internet.org an initiative of Facebook, Ericsson, MediaTek, Nokia, Opera, Qualcomm, Samsung was launched on august 20, 2013 in Menlo Park, California as a global partnership dedicated to making affordable internet access available to the two thirds of the world not yet connected, and to bring the same opportunities to everyone that the connected third of the world has. Africa needs to place internet connectivity even on a higher pedestal than crude oil, gold, diamond and those clear commodities.
If Africa can be informed Africa can be reformed, if Africa can be educated then Africa can be reinvented.
