Estonia’s thriving digital partnership with Africa

July 10, 2023

by Blessing Oyetunde

In the bustling streets of Lagos, Nigeria, and across Africa, Bolt quickly emerged, revolutionising transportation in the continent. The all-in-one mobility giant currently has about 900,000 drivers catering to over 47 million customers across its dominant markets in the vast continent of Africa. Yet, it is only one of many success stories of collaborations and socio-economic ties between Estonia and Africa.

Estonia’s engagement with African nations has gained momentum over the past decade, bolstered by high-level visits and cooperative initiatives. Jana Silaškova, Head of Internationalisation of the Estonian ICT Cluster, affirms the fruitful outcomes of these engagements, highlighting invaluable connections and relationships, leading to cooperation projects with countries such as Benin, Kenya, and Namibia, as well as regional organisations like Smart Africa.

The seven-year journey started when the Estonian ICT Cluster embarked on its first foray into Africa, marking a significant milestone in Estonia’s engagement with the continent. Accompanying high-level visits organised by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Estonia during their campaign for the UN Security Council, the ICT Cluster paved the way for fruitful collaborations across various African countries, Jana explains. 

Trade with Estonia in Kenya

While Estonia has long been active in and with Kenya, its trade horizons recently expanded physically to the country with the opening of Enterprise Estonia’s trade office. This move enables Estonian companies to target investments in Kenya’s public and private sectors, fostering economic collaboration. The trade agency facilitates investments in agri-produce, information technologies, and wastewater management, among others, while enhancing export access for Kenyan produce to the European market.

According to Joel Karubiu, the Estonian Trade Development Agency’s Export Adviser in Kenya and Country Representative for East Africa, the collaboration between Estonia and Kenya is a vibrant example of the transformative power of partnerships. He also notes that the success of the cooperation between the two countries paves the way for similar initiatives in other African countries, with the scalability and replicability of projects being critical factors for their adoption.

Commenting on the impact of the physical trade office in Kenya, Joel highlights that it has become a hub of trade inquiries and dialogue, empowering engagement between Estonian and Kenyan businesses and unlocking untapped opportunities for further cooperation. Already, eight Estonian ICT companies, including Cybernetica and Nortal, are actively and aggressively pursuing opportunities in the Kenyan market. 

Namibia’s very own X-Road

Estonia’s collaborations with African countries have yielded tangible success stories, driving innovation and transforming digital landscapes. In Namibia, a pioneering partnership emerged between Estonian IT company Cybernetica and the Namibian Government, resulting in implementation of the e-Government interoperability system Nam-X. 

“Our collaboration with Estonia in implementing the Nam-X system has revolutionised our e-Government capabilities, enabling efficient and secure digital services for our citizens,” says Emma Theofelus, Deputy Minister of Information, Communication and Technology of Namibia. In cooperation with the e-Governance Academy, this venture exemplifies how Estonia’s expertise can be harnessed to propel digitisation efforts in African countries.

Driving Southern Africa’s digital transformation journey

Namibia recognises digital transformation as a key enabler in its long-term vision to become a prosperous knowledge-based, and industrialised nation by 2030. Estonia has a role to play in it. Ms Theofelus affirms that collaboration with Estonia aligns with Namibia’s overall development goals. This stems from the nation’s demonstrated excellence in e-governance and extensive experience, making it a trusted partner for Namibia’s digitisation efforts.

Meanwhile, beyond Nam-X, Namibia’s partnership with Estonia has yielded other positive outcomes in its digitalisation journey. Ms Theofelus cites capacity-building initiatives and engagement platforms as significant impact areas. The collaboration has stimulated increased adoption of digital services within Namibia, generating heightened interest in digital transformation across various entities. 

A multiple-fold cooperation

Estonia’s cooperation with Africa spans various fronts, encompassing growth initiatives, exportation of solutions, and foreign aid for development. This is captured in the nation’s regional strategy for Africa for 2020-2030, emphasising the importance of partnership-based relations and the exchange of e-state expertise. The strategy covers foreign and security policy, economic relations, development cooperation, and humanitarian assistance, and EstDev has been one of its vehicles for implementing these strategies.

EstDev, the nation’s esteemed development cooperation program, is aligned with the development cooperation and humanitarian assistance agenda of the Africa 2020-2030 strategy by facilitating knowledge transfer and supporting initiatives in partner nations. Specifically, by supporting initiatives in e-governance, entrepreneurship, and education, EstDev is helping shape the continent’s digital and socio-economic future. 

Currently, the agency is working actively with four African countries – Botswana, Kenya, Namibia, and Uganda to foster sustainable development. Liina Link, Desk Officer at the Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, notes that selecting specific countries aims to ensure focused action for impact. 

The road ahead: continued collaboration and global partnerships

Overall, Estonia’s partnership with Africa epitomises the power of collaboration in driving digital transformation and innovation. The country’s tailored e-government solutions, ongoing initiatives, and collaborations address critical challenges, while its expertise is a valuable resource for African nations on their digitalisation journey.

Namibia, Kenya, and many others stand as examples of successful collaborations, inspiring similar paths and trajectories throughout Africa. As the continent continues to embrace digital transformation and monumental socio-economic development, Estonia remains a trusted partner and an inspiration for achieving a thriving and sustainable society.

Resource: e-estonia

Four lessons from 20 years of championing digital societies

June 15, 2023

by Peeter Vihma

This spring, the Estonian e-Governance Academy (eGA) celebrated its 20th birthday. Born when Estonia took its first steps of digital transformation, the organisation has been sharing Estonian experience with the world as a leading consultancy. To celebrate its anniversary and to take stock of the experience it has gathered in consulting governments in over 140 countries, at the eGA annual conference 2023 a book, “Twenty Years of Building Digital Societies: Thinking about the Past and Future of Digital Transformation”, written by Peeter Vihma, was presented.

What makes eGA – and the book – special is that experts of eGA whose knowledge is distilled in the book have been personally involved in securing Estonian digital success. To name just some, Arvo Ott, a member of the management board at eGA, was Estonia’s first chief information officer; Linnar Viik, the co-founder of eGA, advised the prime minister on digital affairs in the ground-breaking 1990s, Uuno Valner, senior expert on interoperability ate eGA, was one of the “fathers” of the Estonian X-Road; Liina Hänni, a senior expert of e-democracy at eGA, is the “mother” of i-voting, and so on and so on. Hence, the experience captured in the book reflects not only the state-of-the-art knowledge of e-governance in the world but a very practical and hands-on approach to building digital societies. Here we present four key moments from the book.

Think Big

One of the key messages of the book is that to extract the most public value from digital technology, its implementation should be systematic. People interested in digital transformation are often motivated by advancements or technological solutions such as blockchain, interoperability, services, or any other part of digital governance. However, perhaps counter to widespread expectations, digital transformation is not primarily about technology but about improving the public sector. This requires returning to the drawing board and thinking through what the government is offering, for whom and by whom. Also, the values upon which services and interactions are built are not unimportant. Because as one of the interviewees said, “If you put stupid service online, you get a stupid online service.”

Along with these realisations comes the need to ensure that the whole public sector is aware of the digital transformation. For example, the legal framework that regulates digitalisation should be developed parallel to administrative and technological changes. The book showcases several examples of countries where the involvement of different branches of the government either hinders or advances systemic transformation.

Think Sustainable

To ensure that the country does not paint itself into a corner on its road to digital government, it is vital to ensure that the core technologies and competencies remain at the government’s disposal. Digital transformation is not a one-off endeavour. Digital transformation often advances incrementally in small steps, and after the initial deployment, systems and services need to be maintained and developed. While numerous commercial solutions could be installed quickly, unless the state has full knowledge and control over how the technology works, it could lead to significant unforeseen costs or backlashes. The same applies to technological donations or development aid that can lead to unwanted dependencies. This realisation applies equally to large back office systems (such as interoperability solutions) and citizen-oriented services. In digital service development, for example, civil servants must maintain their knowledge of how the service functions to maintain and improve it as necessary. Hence, while installing “black box” commercial solutions or accepting donations may seem like initially lowering the costs, building domestic competencies and maintaining technological awareness will be more efficient in the long run.

Think People

In digital transformation, like in any other government reform, the number one concern should be how it affects the people. eGA is arguing and working for a human-centric approach to digital governance, where each step should allow more inclusiveness, transparency and comfort for the citizens, not less. These values are not for granted and must be consciously safeguarded. Attention to people includes both making sure that the citizens have the necessary knowledge and capacity to use digital services, but also that civil servants stay on top of their end of digitalization. Digitalisation may improve communications between citizens and the state if these aspects are catered for. This may come in direct participation, as discussed in the case study of the city of Tartu, or in the form of i-voting, where Estonia is the world leader. The book also touches upon the issues of digital vulnerability and responsibility that come with digitalisation. The digital divide is real, but there are clever ways of overcoming them. For example, the book features a case study of Benin which has found a way to introduce digital services to a country with a 40% of illiteracy rate.

Think Secure

Cybersecurity is a growing concern worldwide and a logical consequence of trusting core functions of the state to digital technologies. While it is easy to create a highly secure digital society, the difficulty lies in ensuring that it remains free and democratic. eGA is building on the experience of Estonia and also on the experience of its allies in arguing that achieving cybersecurity is a task that requires cooperation between all branches of the government, but also between the public and private sector and internationally between countries. The cooperation involves both tactical levels through creating cyber-guards (CERTs) or digital training fields that increase digital resilience, but also on a strategic level in ensuring that the legal, political and administrative tools and capacities are understood and shared between those who provide critical (and even not so critical) infrastructure and services.

Cybersecurity is more salient, given that countries have grown digitally mature over the years and have also experienced cyberattacks and malfunctions in various parts of their systems. Also, geopolitics plays an increasingly crucial role in the field of cybersecurity. It is, therefore, not only more challenging to ensure the functioning of the increasingly interconnected digital infrastructure, but it requires also the awareness and basic cyber-hygiene by its users – the citizens. Looking at the future of digital governments, how security and freedom are balanced in the digital realm will be one of the critical global issues.

In the book, these four key messages are elaborated thoroughly and illustrated with case studies ranging from Tonga to the Faroe Islands. The book is available on hardcover and digitally here

Recourse: e-estonia