India, Ghana to use digital technologies to transform economies

Ghana and India are following similar development paths in the quest to develop their economies.

Addressing participants at the on-going Future Investment Initiative (FII) Summit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Prime Minister of India, Narendra Damodardas Modi underscored the need for countries across the world to embrace digital technologies as a way to leapfrog the global dynamics of development.

Prime Minister Modi was of the conviction that India’s commitment towards leveraging on technology for growth was pivotal to its transformation agenda. He outlined some of the initiatives undertaken by the Indian government in its quest to digitise the economy and thus, mentioned some of the programmes, as the issuance of National Identification Cards to all Indians, the use of mobile phone as a payment platforms and digital address systems.

“Undoubtedly, I do not see how any economy is going to catch up with the rest of the developed world without making deliberate efforts to conform to the contemporary trends of leveraging digital technology.

"The world is fast changing and technological innovations should define what a modern day economy should be”, Prime Minister Modi remarked.

Ghana’s Vice President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia who was also at the same event was elated by the conformity of thoughts expressed by speakers at the summit on digital technology as the new dawn for economic development.

In a brief interaction with the media, Dr. Bawumia noted that many of the things India was doing in the digital technological space aligned with the Government of Ghana's economic transformation agenda since assuming office in 2017.

“In Ghana, we have embarked on a progressive drive to issue national identification cards to all citizens. The process has started and expected to complete next year. We have also successfully implemented a digital property addressing system that provides physical digital addresses for every 5 by 5 square meters”, Vice President Bawumia indicated.

Dr Bawumia was of the conviction that the combined effects of the national identity cards and digital addresses would ultimately be the solution to the problems of identification and traceability of persons and property in Ghana. According to him, the interventions are needed to also de-risk the financial sector and help in the economic formalisation efforts of government.

Touching on the financial sector and the need for technological innovation, Dr. Bawumia expressed satisfaction with Ghana’s mobile money payments interoperability system, which recorded over a million transactions in the month of September 2019 compared to the about 150,000 transaction a month at the end of 2016.

Launched in the year 2018, the mobile money interoperability system in Ghana has a payments architecture that allows the movement of funds across banks, mobile wallets and other payments platforms such as ezwich. With this, Ghana attains what it describes as triangular financial inclusion.

The Future Investment Initiative is an international platform for expert-led debate between global leaders, investors and innovators with the power to shape the future of global investment.

The summit focused on utilising investment to drive growth opportunities, enable innovation and disruptive technologies, and address global challenges.