The experts have weighed in on the digital economy and digital divide in the G20, giving voice to where exactly South Africa finds itself in the global geo-digital landscape and what it can learn from other countries.

South Africa’s G20 presidency takes place when the world is facing a series of overlapping and mutually reinforcing crises, including climate change, underdevelopment, inequality, poverty, hunger, unemployment, technological changes, and geopolitical instability.

The country has embraced the theme “Solidarity, Equality, Sustainability” for its G20 presidency, but has also incorporated the spirit of Ubuntu.

On the G20 website, it states: “Countries that attempt to prosper alone amid widespread poverty and underdevelopment contradict the essence of Ubuntu and our collective humanity.”

Tackling the conversation of the digital divide and digital economy, Associate Professor Jonathan Shock of the University of Cape Town’s Department of Mathematics and Applied Mathematics has explained that while we can look to other countries and their strategies, the South African landscape has its own demands.

“Countries like Estonia have surged forward with building a strong digital economy, and there are certainly lessons to be learned from them. Estonia prioritised data protection laws before they built the technological infrastructure on top; they also built national platforms, like the X-Road secure data exchange layer, which foster interoperability, mitigating potentially siloed solutions which don’t speak to each other.

“Singapore has created national digital training programmes (the SkillsFuture credit programme), industry-academia partnerships, and constant monitoring to understand the effects of their interventions,” Shock said.

“India is the country that has most quickly built up a digital ID system, which was rolled out to around 600 million citizens over four years. This has allowed for more financial inclusion in national benefits and unlocked high economic value. However, such a system, if built, has to be done with the appropriate level of cybersecurity awareness,” he said.

“This is a non-trivial task, and there are reasonable questions about privacy, gaps in the legal frameworks, and potential security vulnerabilities.”

Shock explained that it is vital to study how digital economies have been implemented around the world, then adapt these solutions to build our own. He added that AI is a potentially powerful technology when used carefully, and, with training, can empower people to create their own businesses.

“It is easier than ever for someone to use AI to build their own app, create their own digital services, connect with customers or develop effective marketing strategies, but without access to training, those potential entrepreneurs will not necessarily know that such possibilities exist.”

Shock said SA needs to celebrate its diversity and richness, as well as see the need to grow our own digital solutions, which takes investment in personnel, in infrastructure, and in data.

“We need to learn from the mistakes that other countries have made, in how resources are exploited – be they data, energy, or people – and see that there are other ways forward. We also need to understand the importance of data sovereignty and the colonial patterns of data extractivism.”

CEO of LeanTechnovations, Rowen Pillai, said that across the G20, the digital divide isn’t just who’s connected, but rather who can afford to participate at quality.

Pillai explained that even in advanced economies, rural users still trail cities on speed and reliability; in emerging markets, the bigger wall is the affordability of devices and data.

“We should shift from counting towers and instead start measuring meaningful connectivity for metrics like latency, speed, reliability, affordability, and safety at a district level, and tie budgets to closing those gaps,” Pillai said.

“A major part of the challenge is to move from pilots to scale, set outcome-based Scale Gates tied to meaningful connectivity. When a pilot hits district targets on speed/latency/reliability, affordability, and safe use, it should trigger a multi-year rollout via public procurement or blended finance.

“We balance private investment with universal service by modernising Universal Service Funds (USFs) into transparent, outcome-based tenders, pairing spectrum with pay-or-play rural obligations and co-funding neutral-host/backhaul, and by publishing quarterly district scorecards so operators are paid on verified improvements, not just availability,” Pillai said.

“In parallel, align the Digital Economy Working Group agenda: connectivity + digital public infrastructure + Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises ecosystems + equitable AI and require green siting and disclosure as standard, because AI-era data centres compete for the same power and water communities rely on.”

Pillai said that the country should run a two-track strategy to adopt global best-practice governance now, and scale green, affordable compute at home.

“On governance, align local guidance to the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST’s) AI Risk Management Framework (which is practical, risk-based, sector-agnostic) and map cross-border work to the EU AI Act timelines that will matter to our exporters. That gives South African firms clarity without slowing innovation.

“On capability, we should leverage the AI Institute of South Africa hubs, the AI Collective South Africa (or similar) to rapidly build skills in safety, evaluation, and domain-specific AI (health, mining, agriculture), and establish an open evaluation centre that small firms can use to test models and datasets. Then we co-site compute with renewables, publish power and water intensity transparently, and make green PPAs(Power Purchase Agreements) a default for any hyperscale installations,” Pillai said.

“This is how we grow AI adoption while protecting constrained grids and water systems.”

theolin.tembo@inl.co.za

Source link