Africa’s Digital Revolution: Opportunities & Challenges

May 6, 2021

The Policy Center for the New South recently partnered with the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center on a pair of reports exploring the theme of technology and its impact on Africa’s political and economic future. In its report, The Impact of New Technologies on Employment and the Workforce: What Are the Implications for Developing Countries, Especially in Africa?, the PCNS analyzes the relationship between technology and employment in African labor markets, responding to the question of whether technology will help or hurt the twelve million Africans per year entering the job market. Taking a geopolitical angle in its report, Partnering for Africa’s Digital Future: Opportunities for the United States, South Korea, and India, the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center covers opportunities for cooperation between African nations, South Korea, India, and the United States to advance digital infrastructure and technology in Africa as an alternative to China.

Speakers
Jalal Abdel-Latif
Ethiopia
Senior Fellow
Jalal Abdel-Latif is Senior Fellow at Policy Center for the New South and Senior Social Policy Advisor, Gender and Poverty, Social Policy Division, UNECA. Jalal has over 25 years of professional experience in the areas of corporate social responsibility, civic engagement, grant making, project design and enhancing the capacities of non-profit organizations. He began his career as researcher and capacity analyst at UCLA African studies center, before working as Grants manager for USA for Africa (the We Are the World project) in California. He was also a co-founder and CEO of Inter-Africa Group, a regional think thank.  He was previously appointed by the late Prime Minister of Ethiopia to serve on the Ethiopian Telecommunications Board of Directors to assist in its moderniz ...
Stephanie Wander
Deputy Director and Senior Fellow, GeoTech Center, Atlantic Council
...
Ali Wyne
Senior Analyst for Global Macro, Eurasia Group
...

RELATED CONTENT

  • August 3, 2026
    This policy paper explores how China’s economic development model—rooted in pragmatism, long-term planning, and civilizational renewal—has become its most compelling soft power asset, particularly in the eyes of the Global South. While critically engaging with Joseph Nye’s original conception of soft power as a primarily cultural and normative force, the paper argues that China’s ability to transform itself from an impoverished postimperial state into the world’s largest trading nat ...
  • Authors
    Edited by
    July 13, 2026
    Available soon on livremoi. The 2026 edition of the Annual Report on the African Economy examines the issue of the valorization of Africa’s natural resources, particularly its mineral wealth. While the continent holds some of the world’s largest known reserves of a wide range of minerals and metals, the objective is not merely to catalogue these resources, but rather to explore the conditions under which natural resource endowments can be transformed into drivers of Africa’s in ...
  • July 3, 2026
    This Policy Paper has also been published in French and Spanish by Le Grand Continent Morocco offers a compelling example of how a middle-income economy can navigate a more fragmented global environment, characterized by weak growth and slower convergence. Since 2022, economic activity has remained relatively strong, with growth exceeding that of many comparable economies. Non-agricultural growth has averaged 4.4% since 2022, around 1.3 percentage points above its historical av ...
  • Authors
    July 2, 2026
    Africa is facing a massive electricity deficit that is impacting its economic and social development, and its ability to catch up with the rest of the world. It is imperative that the continent increase its electricity production to connect the 600 million people who are currently without access and to improve the quality of service for the millions who are suffering from frequent blackouts and load-shedding. Economic development in the 21st century will crucially depend on the digi ...
  • June 26, 2026
    Au Maroc, la problématique des jeunes NEETs (Ni en emploi, ni en études, ni en formation) constitue une urgence nationale, alimentée par 300 000 abandons scolaires annuels. Face à ce défi, le modèle de l'École de la Deuxième chance nouvelle génération (E2C-NG) a démontré sa pertinence en affichant un taux d'insertion exceptionnel de 81 %.Cependant, ce succès institutionnel repose intégralement sur un tissu associatif local aujourd'hui fragilisé. L'analyse inédite des donné ...
  • June 26, 2026
    In Morocco, the issue of young NEETs (Not in Employment, Education, or Training) is a national emergency, fueled by 300,000 students dropping out of school each year. In response to this challenge, the “New Generation Second Chance School” (E2C-NG) model has proven its effectiveness by achieving an exceptional employment rate of 81%.However, this institutional success rests entirely on a local network of organizations that is now under strain. A previously unpublished analysis of da ...
  • June 24, 2026
    Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean have both the potential and the desire to transform their people's lives through Green Industrial Policy. Yet they have long been constrained by structural obstacles embedded in the international system. The current rupture in that system, which ...