Russia and Africa: A Shared Strategy for IT Solutions
The 2nd Global Digital Forum on October 8 brought experts together for the workshop “Projects Across Economic Sectors: Current Challenges and Opportunities for Cooperation With African Countries.” Participants discussed practical steps toward digitalization, sharing experience between Russia and African countries, and developing joint e-government projects.
African countries are working to provide their citizens with access to healthcare, education, financial services and government services. However, rapid population growth and uneven infrastructure development make this a difficult task. Digital solutions can help expand access to services and reduce the cost of delivering them, but the continent still lacks sufficient experience in digitalization. Russia is ready to support African countries with mature digital products and serve as a partner in joint projects.
Nikolay Golovko, a leading expert and head of the Digitalization Department at the Center for African Studies at the Faculty of World Economy and International Affairs of HSE University (Moscow), presented a knowledge-sharing hub focused on e-government. According to him, the program was launched in 2022 with the support of HSE University.
“Every country in the world has faced the need for digitalization and has accumulated a great deal of experience. Some governments have succeeded, while others have not. We believe that countries need to share their experience, so we created this platform,” he explained.
The speaker emphasized that digitalization is directly linked to digital sovereignty. Digital sovereignty is a country’s ability to control and manage its national digital environment in the interests of its own population. According to the speaker, this includes security, the resilience of critical systems, control over sensitive information and the development of national technological capabilities.
Nikolay Golovko also spoke about the challenges African countries face when implementing e-government and announced a pilot tool, Solution Finder, which will help match Russian IT solutions to specific needs.
“We are ready to work shoulder to shoulder to make sure artificial intelligence serves the people of a particular country rather than becoming a destructive tool,” Nikolay Golovko said in conclusion.
Nathaniel Mongare, communications director of Kenya’s ruling United Democratic Alliance, supported Russia’s approach to equal partnership:
“We do not want solutions to be imposed on us. We want to create solutions together with our partners. In the past, we had a very negative experience with partnerships, when we were colonized and lectured on how things should be done. We need a model in which everyone contributes and solutions are developed jointly.”
Mongare noted that Africa is the world’s youngest continent, while countries such as Kenya have had considerable success with mobile payments and cryptocurrency:
“If there are companies in Russia working with cryptocurrency, know that Kenya is open for business,” the speaker added.
Participants from the Democratic Republic of the Congo highlighted the acute shortage of funding and qualified personnel. At the same time, as one of the speakers emphasized, the Congo also does not want to import ready-made solutions and intends to develop them jointly with its partners. The country currently has to use solutions from multinational companies that are poorly adapted to its local realities.
In the end, participants agreed that digital cooperation between Russia and Africa has enormous potential, and that the success of such projects requires a clear understanding of local challenges, infrastructure and how local institutions operate. The speakers agreed to continue the dialogue and invited African companies to work together on the platform for sharing experience in e-government development.
