India keen to share its indigenously developed digital stack with African nations

The Business 20 (B20) Council on African economic integration, headed by Sunil Mittal, Chairman, Bharti Enterprises, has recommended that India’s digital stack, including biometrics, Jan Dhan technology and mobile connectivity, can be leveraged with the African nations. It will help raise digital connectivity in the continent. Inquiries have already come from the African officials.

The B20 is the official G20 dialogue forum with the global business community, and its recommendations are often incorporated in the G20’s work programme. The council will soon share its recommendations at the B20’s final upcoming final meeting in August.

African integration has evinced a special interest from Prime Minister Narendra Modi since it is an area where he wants to leave a legacy, Mittal said.

“India wants to use this as an opportunity to project its soft power, rather than as an economic agenda or a business opportunity to populate as many countries across the globe, and especially the global south with the Indian stack,” Mittal said.

Mittal has been closely associated with the continent since 2010 when Airtel Africa began operations. It now has the largest geographical and economic footprint in Africa among Indian corporates, serving 14 markets, primarily in east and central Africa. With a total user base of 140 million as of end-2022, the company is the second-largest in the African continent.

Equally, it is also the second-largest carrier in terms of subscribers in Africa’s largest economy — Nigeria owing to its cheap data plans. With 54.6 million data customers and 31.5 million customers using mobile money, Airtel Africa is positioning itself to tap the vast well of consumer demand for these services.

“A lot of money was also given to Africa to upgrade its tech, and harmonise its tariff codes. But it still did not happen,” Mittal said. The B20 is therefore taking into account past experiences to chart a quick roadmap towardsintra-continent trade.

Finding the funds needed for implementing the B20 recommendations, usually a challenging task when it comes from Africa, may be a smaller problem than earlier. While G20 nations have promised to prioritise the economic development of the global south, funds have been scarce till now.

Mittal, however, stressed that a large corpus of funds had been identified by the B20, which has already been committed. In 2022, the United States announced plans to invest at least $55 billion in Africa over the next three years. The funds will be utilised to implement the B20 recommendations.

Based on a news item in Business Standard