The German Development Cooperation in Ghana (GIZ) has partnered with the Ghana Chamber of Technology to heighten Ghana’s Digital Transformation Agenda.

Ghana’s aim of advancing the agenda especially amidst the Covid-19 pandemic is expected to receive massive support from the German Development Cooperation in Ghana via a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between Digital Transformation Center of GIZ and the Ghana Chamber of Technology (GCT).

The two parties met on Wednesday at the La Palm Royal Beach Hotel to sign the MoU to expedite Ghana’s digital transformation drive.

In Africa, Ghana is largely considered the leader in the digital transformation agenda. Spanning from the establishment of Google’s first Africa Artificial Intelligence Lab in 2019 to Twitter’s quest to set up in Ghana this year, the country has gone several notches ahead amongst other African nations in attracting foreign tech giants. 

The country has chalked significant success in its digital transformation agenda in the last decade.

Key milestones such as the digitalisation of the passport office, digital addressing system, paperless ports, mobile money operability, and many others have increased the productivity and growth of the Ghanaian economy.

GTC’s partnership with GIZ is to provide a huge opportunity for the country to leap frog in the provision of efficient public services such as health, education, revenue generation, creation of new jobs for the growing unemployed youth, protection of human rights and freedoms.

According to CEO of Ghana Chamber of Technologies, Dr. Augustina Odame, “the country’s digital transformation journey from the inception of mobile money to the widespread availability of digital payment across the country and the growing number of Ghanaians employed within the space is a wonderful opportunity of leveraging technology to democratise crucial services and opportunities to all Ghanaians, regardless of their geographic and demographic’’

She further indicated that the contribution of the Information and Communications Technology sector to Ghana’s GDP was estimated to be 9.8% in 2019.

One key aspect of Ghana’s economy to have benefited from this digital transformation agenda is the Mobile Money Industry.

The high penetration of mobile money and increased digital payments in the country for productivity and growth of the Ghanaian economy.

The Bank of Ghana last year reported that 38.5 million people have mobile money accounts while 17.1 million of these accounts are classified as active translating to about GH₵569 billion worth in transactions.

The 2020 total transactions represented about 84% growth from the value recorded in 2019. These figures demonstrates how the growth of our economy is gradually relying on digital structures in bringing meaningful changes to business and society at large.

It is GIZ’s goal to strengthen Ghana’s Digitalization Agenda by building a strong partnership with the private sector, a good collaboration with stakeholders in Ghana from government, academia and civil society and innovative approaches.