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Ethiopia’s ambitious plans to make up for lost digital time

  • min read
    • Digital access in Ethiopia, a country of 110 million people, has long been underwhelming. According to Data Reportal, only 19 percent of Ethiopians had internet access in 2020. The price of the cheapest household internet package is more than an entry-level civil servant's earnings. ICT development expert Dr. Lishan Adam, speaking at the Internet Society's first Ethiopia Internet Development Conference in 2020, thinks monopoly of communications by state-owned enterprise Ethio telecom is a chunk of the problem. He describes it as "unable to meet demand and track global changes" and facing "challenges in quality of services." Despite past government attempts to improve the monopoly's workings, like a 2011 management contract with Orange, little changed Ethiopia's first digital transformation strategy But Ethiopia's digital depression might be about to lift. Nobel Peace Prize Winner and Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed plans to put Ethiopia on a trajectory to a competitive telecoms market, digitalize government services and facilitate innovations like artificial intelligence. He's doing all that by sponsoring the country's first digital transformation strategy, Digital Ethiopia 2025. Approved in 2020, the strategy builds on Ethiopia's global economic advantages, like lower wage costs, and hopes to streamline digital service provision for its main economic sectors like agriculture, manufacturing and tourism. It puts the private sector at the fore and aims to give investment guidance, promote competition and create a favorable business environment. Under agriculture, the strategy highlights the importance of "optimal use of new and emerging technologies to modernize the agriculture sector." Setting sights on precision agriculture and vertical farming, it identifies building a national digital agriculture platform and supporting agricultural technology entrepreneurs as focuses for investment. Towards liberalizing telecommunications Hoping to push digitalization forward, the government plans to sell 45 percent of the state-owned telecoms monopoly to international buyers and license two more service providers. There's also a new regulator whose role is keeping the telecommunications market competitive. Although previous timelines have been repeatedly postponed, Ethiopia's liberalization process has gained attention from global players like Orange, UAE's Etisalat and China's Snail mobile. Although there are concerns the government choice to prevent foreign investment in digital payment services may affect international interest, with under half of the country's 110 million people owning a mobile phone and over 80 percent not yet using the internet, the market potential may make up for that. But the effort has its critics. Ethiopian telecommunications pioneer Terefe Raswork says, "Evaluating the merits and demerits of privatization will be important. We have to weigh all alternatives." Another critic, President of Pan-African Chamber of Commerce and Industries, Kibour Ghenna, says, "Privatization of Ethio telecom is against the interest of the nation and I don't see how privatization will improve business or enhance reforms." Conflict in Ethiopia's northern regions and upcoming elections mean the pace of change will be a political issue. However, there seems to be wide feeling among the public that a competitive telecommunications sector is vital to building an Ethiopian digital economy. Which sectors will benefit? Public services look set to benefit from the strategy through developments like e-government, digital ID and the national payment system. E-commerce may also benefit from a national payment system. The recent launch of the Electronic World Trade Payment platform and online marketplace Jumia positioning to join the Ethiopia market suggests potential. Ventures like the online trade registration and licensing system, electronic single-window customs clearance and electronic tax filing should simplify and speed up business and public sector processes. The business of supplying hardware, software and enterprise solutions may soon grow, with increasing demand for solutions tailored to local regulatory and customer behavior. The digital economy will need data storage and data protection facilities, business-to-business solutions, quality assurance systems and more. Innovation hubs, start-up accelerators and open, collaborative spaces like hackathons will be important for this sub-sector, so it's encouraging to see Orange launch a digital center in Ethiopia, aiming to promote local entrepreneurship and innovation. Cybersecurity's place in nation-scale digitalization Such a wholescale digital push means increased vulnerability to cyberthreats. Ethiopia's national digital strategy recognizes building cybersecurity capability is vital but admits – and sector specialists agree – local cybersecurity capability is limited. Ethiopian firms and government agencies often pay hefty sums to contract external cybersecurity abilities. According to the strategy, lack of data center regulation is a problem too. Public agencies and large private firms like banks maintain in-house data centers, but lack of standardized regulation ensuring data center physical and cyber security means a high threat level. Using cloud-based data storage is often difficult, especially for small and medium enterprises, as service fees are in foreign currency or a fee indexed with the exchange rate. The strategy proposes three solutions to reduce the risk of cyberthreats – coordinated assessment of needs, tailored awareness schemes and creating suitable data models underpinned by regulation. For Nigussie Fikre, an Ethiopian cybersecurity expert based in the US working with major internationals, "Having detailed and well-cascaded cybersecurity strategy at a national level is important. This must be done in a futuristic way and involve all stakeholders, such as private IT firms." As one of the last major frontiers to benefit from digitalization, Ethiopia hopes to see a major transformation in its economy. Its digital transformation strategy aims to improve the business climate and attract the investment needed. Whether Ethiopia's government succeeds in pushing the country through digitalization and making it a viable investment depends on their commitment to reforming bureaucracy, implementing the right regulation and creating credible institutions. For organizations finding themselves behind the curve in digitalization, Ethiopia's strategy model may be an inspiration. Its focus on prioritizing areas for investment, careful consideration of what's best done 'in house' versus contracted out and building cybersecurity awareness through education apply to many businesses around the world, if not all.
it budget

The battle for business buy-in: Three ways to justify your IT security spend

  • min read
    • Proving return on investment in IT security – an almost impossible task for IT professionals. Why? Because they're often found trying to balance budget limitations, while constantly fighting to stay ahead of the evolving threat landscape to protect your business. But times are changing. Companies are starting to treat IT security as an important investment, rather than simply a cost-center. That said, justifying IT cybersecurity investment is still a challenge. So, here are three reasons why it's crucial for businesses to keep their cybersecurity strategy up to date, in terms of both budget and approach. A cyberattack could cripple your business… seriously It's no secret: businesses of all sizes and industries are prioritizing cybersecurity spend. Enterprises now spend almost a third of their IT budget ($8.9M) on cybersecurity, and budgets are expected to rise over the next three years. Both small medium businesses (SMBs) and enterprises predict they will spend up to 15 percent more on cybersecurity until 2022. Why? Because people are realizing that cybersecurity attacks can be devastating. Ransomware WannaCry stopped the production lines of five Renault factories, while a similar cyber-threat, exPetr, cost Maersk – the world's largest container ship and supply company – between 200 and 300 million US dollars. Along with threatening current business operations, cyber-threats impact future-focused initiatives. For example, digital transformation and operational mobility projects require organizations to operate a growing IT infrastructure, meaning they might lose sight of what's happening to their data. Consequently, data could be compromised or even encrypted. The Zepto ransomware, which was spread via cloud storage apps, is a prime example of this threat in action. The cost of dealing with cyberattacks is on the rise – especially when you take into account factors like hiring external consultants, acquiring new software, and dealing with PR risks and litigations, to name a few. With those costs rising and crucial business operations being put at risk, it's no surprise that senior leaders are getting involved in the cybersecurity debate. But it's not just their own infrastructure they have to think about. 2. Your supplier networks are a threat, even when your business is protected Breaches can happen even if your business is protected. Sounds crazy, but it's true. Normally breaches happen through supply chain attacks or as a result of vulnerabilities in third party software. A case in point: American retailer Target. Hackers accessed the company's network through its ventilation and air conditioning vendor, costing them $18.5m. This was followed by the Equifax breach; the company was hacked through a vulnerability in legitimate open source software – software in which anyone can view the code. The hackers gained access to their databases, stealing 145m accounts with crucial client data like names, social security numbers, dates of birth, addresses and even credit card numbers. Equinox had to pay around $700m to settle the breach. Ouch. 3. Protect your business data, wherever it is Cloud services offer many benefits to businesses, from taking advantage of a more efficient mobile workforce, to reducing infrastructure costs and optimizing business operations. Our research shows that 73 percent of SMBs use at least one software as a service (SaaS) hosted business application, while 45 percent of enterprises have either already raised or are planning to grow their use of hybrid cloud in the next 12 months. However, as businesses move more and more data to the cloud, it's easy to lose track of what you're transferring, or where it's kept. Data 'on the go' that's stored outside of the corporate data center – for example, in third party IT infrastructure – is presenting businesses with new security issues and new costs. The most expensive incidents in 2017 to 2018 related to cloud environments and data protection issues. For example, for SMBs, two-thirds of the most expensive cybersecurity incidents are related to the cloud and third party hosted IT infrastructure failures, resulting in an average loss of $179K. That's why it's so important to consider a dedicated level of cybersecurity when moving workloads to cloud platforms. Cybersecurity needs to be a core function of IT infrastructure For businesses of any size, cyberattacks are a risk – many companies today deal with third party contractors, cloud infrastructure and a growing amount of sensitive customer and business data. To reach the right level of cybersecurity, it needs to be a core part of the IT infrastructure. When cybersecurity is a core function, solutions can then be put in place, meaning physical and virtual machines, containers, operating systems and cloud systems can be protected in a flexible way. This is particularly necessary when dealing with visibility on hybrid cloud infrastructure – or cloud systems where multiple parties have access. Last but not least: businesses have to realize their responsibility for data that's stored in cloud applications and platforms. A false sense of safety and relying on providers to ensure security can be extremely costly. Your data is your responsibility so invest in keeping it under lock and key. Article published in 2019, statistics correct at time of publishing.
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