{"id":17328,"date":"2020-09-28T12:39:39","date_gmt":"2020-09-28T12:39:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highatlasfoundation.org\/?p=17328"},"modified":"2021-02-04T13:59:43","modified_gmt":"2021-02-04T13:59:43","slug":"digitalization-enough-ideas-more-action","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress-haf.ddev.site\/digitalization-enough-ideas-more-action\/","title":{"rendered":"Digitalization: Enough Ideas, More Action"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Weekly Debate: Embracing Digital Cooperation.<\/em><\/p>\n As a part of the Debating Africa-Europe series, participants debated about the following topic: \u201cA new era of digital cooperation: Embracing Africa and Europe\u2019s 4th industrial revolution.\u201d<\/p>\n The debaters for this edition were Jutta Urpilainen, the European Commissioner for International Partnerships, Dr. Amani Abou-Zeid, African Union Commissioner of Infrastructure, Energy, ICT and Tourism, Thierry Breton, European Commissioner for the Internal Market, and Lacina Kon\u00e9, General Director and CEO of Smart Africa. Dharmendra Kanani, Director of Insight at Friends of Europe, moderated the presentation.<\/p>\n At the start of the discussion, the debaters expressed the importance of a transition to digitalization<\/a>, referring to the COVID-19 pandemic. The global crisis impacted all countries, obliging them to do everything from home. This had a positive impact on the digitalization vision since it made people around the world grow accustomed to the digital era, where nearly everything can be managed online.<\/p>\n Dr. Amani expressed her confidence in Africa\u2019s ability to shift to the all-digital phase before the assigned date, which is 2030. She believes in the creativity of African youth, who are always confronting challenges with brilliant ideas even though they may lack resources. However, she stated that the connectivity and internet coverage problems as well as the expensive prices of the internet will be the biggest challenges that Africa will continue to face.<\/p>\n One-third of Africa is connected to the internet while the remaining two-thirds are not able to –either because of the expensive costs of internet and digital devices or because the area where they live is not included in the internet coverage network. This is a difficulty that they cannot overcome by themselves. All these reasons state that the energy infrastructure in Africa is the biggest challenge, but these challenges will make the change possible, as they are the driving force that encourages youth to be more creative.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Participants from around the world are attending the Africa-EU Debate.<\/em><\/p>\n