Alternative Africa

Top Menu

  • Home
  • About Us
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of Use
  • Contact Us

Main Menu

  • Home
  • Arts & Culture
  • Business
  • Environment
  • Politics
  • Sports
  • Reports
    • Africa-Observers
      • Read Reports
      • Submit a story
  • MORE
    • Health
    • News Now
    • World
    • Technology
Sign in / Join

Login

Welcome! Login in to your account
Lost your password?

Lost Password

Back to login
  • Home
  • About Us
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of Use
  • Contact Us

logo

Alternative Africa

  • Home
  • Arts & Culture
  • Business
  • Environment
  • Politics
  • Sports
  • Reports
    • Africa-Observers
      • Read Reports
      • Submit a story
  • MORE
    • Health
    • News Now
    • World
    • Technology
  • Joe Biden says travel bans on UK, EU will stay despite Trump order

  • Nigeria in talks to produce licensed covid-19 vaccine locally, releases $26m as take-off grant

  • Zambia launches crackdown on unlicensed covid-19 drugs

  • Rwanda places capital, Kigali in second lockdown, ends free covid-19 treatment

  • Frontline Chinese medical doctors arrive Ghana to help combat surging coronavirus cases

AfricaBusinessNews Now
Home›Africa›How does the rise of digital commerce, online shopping affect employment in Africa?

How does the rise of digital commerce, online shopping affect employment in Africa?

By alternativeafrica
March 16, 2019
544
0
Share:

London, March 16, 2019 (AltAfrica)-Around the world, the new technologies behind digital commerce have reshaped the physical economy of goods and services, as well as employment.

Digital commerce—or ecommerce, as it’s still commonly known—has not only disrupted entire sectors like retail and travel, it has also undercut policy approaches to areas such as cross-border taxation.

In this way, digital commerce is truly a double-edged sword. The question for policymakers in Africa is whether they can help wield it as a positive force for employment, as the phenomenon advances across their region.

BFA recently conducted a scenario-building exercise to identify the options facing African policymakers and, as we argue in the full report, we believe that there are choices that will make the outcome more positive for employment.

A consumer shops for goods online. Cutting through both hype and despair about the effects of the digital world, domestic policymakers need to understand the channels linking digital commerce with jobs and positive employment outcomes. FOTOSEARCH

Future-proofing digital commerce policies

As they contemplate the need for appropriate policy shifts, policymakers first have to recognise the inevitability of the continued progress of digital commerce, given strong tailwinds such as increased Internet connectivity, and the growing reach of domestic digital payment systems.

Secondly, there are material uncertainties beyond the control of any one African country policymaker in how the international or regional approaches to digital commerce will play out in the next 10 years.

For example, it is possible that agreements could emerge around the complex set of policy issues at the levels of both international and regional bodies. This convergence could create an enabling environment for digital commerce.

In this possible world, national policymakers must seek to influence these wider frameworks as they emerge, with the aim of ensuring that these agreements support the growth of economic opportunity and employment within their countries. But such convergence could not occur in a fragmenting global economy; instead, countries may be forced to adopt their own approaches.

Rather than speculate about which world will result, scenario thinking—the heart of this exercise—is about “future-proofing” policy options within a potential set of different worlds.

Within all these possible worlds, African policymakers face choices about how fast they should encourage digital commerce to grow. Because, while they cannot stop it, they can take steps that may accelerate or slow its development.

How does the rise of digital commerce affect employment?

Accelerating digital commerce alone does not assure positive outcomes for employment. Some researchers have already sounded an alarm around the risk of a “race to the bottom” through global gig work, a growing sector of digital commerce.

Employees previously in formal jobs have become “dependent contractors” and not always by choice.

READ ALSO: OXFORD RELEASES DICTIONARY OF AFRICAN POLITICS

This shift away from formal employment in developed countries challenges national labour law and has already resulted in a rash of lawsuits in the US, UK and elsewhere, to define the shifting boundaries of jobs.

How does the rise of digital commerce, online shopping affect employment in Africa?
How does the rise of digital commerce, online shopping affect employment in Africa?

While gig work is most visible in those countries, the trend is not confined to the northern hemisphere. Cape Town-based research project i2i estimates there are already 4.8 million African so-called “platform” workers.

At the international level, there are also emerging public and private initiatives that will bring consumer pressure to bear on the practices of gig platforms, akin to the Fair Trade initiative.

As an example, the UK-based Fairwork Foundation, established in 2018, will certify online labour platforms, “using leverage from workers, consumers and platforms to improve the welfare and job quality of digital workers”. While welcomed, these initiatives are clearly not enough to assure more positive labour outcomes.

Cutting through both hype and despair about the effects of the digital world, domestic policymakers need to understand the channels linking digital commerce with jobs and positive employment outcomes.

Our research found evidence of three such channels. The first is direct employment in the expanding ecosystems forming around super-platforms.

For example, Amazon is now the second largest private employer in the US. Africa’s largest super platform—Jumia—is modest by comparison. But it too is rapidly expanding, with its “J-Force” of field agents expected to exceed 100,000.

The second channel runs through the effect of digital commerce in reducing barriers to entry and scale for smaller enterprises.

The evidence for this comes mostly from China, where researchers have found that small and medium enterprises (SMEs) founded around the enterprise zones known as taobao villages in China are more likely to be newer, founded by outsiders to a region, and also require far less working capital because of how merchants are paid.

Through the third channel, digital platforms reshape the nature of work itself. This is most visible in the effects of international gig platforms, from Taskrabbit to Uber.

These and others are rapidly emerging in Africa and they hold out the prospect of, not only providing a pathway from informal to formal employment, but also greatly improving the productivity of the informal job sector itself, which is seen as a major economic advantage.

Introducing and encouraging the iWorker

Policymakers could be able to leverage digital commerce to close the gulf between the conditions and benefits of formal work and the simple income offered by informal work.

To do so, Africa’s policymakers could embrace the notion of an iWorker: That is, a working-age digital consumer, who could become a producer selling goods, or services online.

By our estimates, extrapolated from the International Labour Organisation’s projections of the labour force to 2030, there could be between 29 million and 80 million iWorkers in Africa by 2030, out of a total labour force of some 600 million. Most of them will be young.

For this growing group, digital commerce platforms can offer a new route to progressive formalisation. These platforms can act as hubs for provision of online education.

Registered workers could receive access to portable packages of nano-benefits, as well as online recourse mechanisms, if not paid as per digital contract.

But these kinds of positive outcomes aren’t likely unless countries reconsider whether their national labour and tax laws, among others, are supportive; and whether their vocational education systems are geared to supporting the skills necessary to thrive in digital commerce.David Proteous is the founder and chair of BFA, while Amolo Ng’weno is the CEO and East Africa regional director of BFA

SHARE ON:
TagsAfricaBusinessDigital CommerceEmployment
Previous Article

Oxford releases Dictionary of African Politics

Next Article

New Zealand right-wing terrorist, Brenton Tarrant charged ...

0
Shares
  • 0
  • +
  • 0
  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

alternativeafrica

Related articles More from author

  • BusinessNews Now

    Ivory trade to be banned in UK ‘to protect elephants’

    October 6, 2017
    By alternativeafrica
  • News Now

    CHAN 2018: Libya open with 3-0 win over Equatorial Guinea

    January 15, 2018
    By alternativeafrica
  • BusinessNews Now

    This is the best time to invest in Mozambique

    March 12, 2018
    By alternativeafrica
  • News Now

    SLFA President Isha Johansen set aside amid inquiry

    October 25, 2017
    By alternativeafrica
  • News Now

    Girona’s Michael Olunga becomes first Kenyan to score La Liga hat-trick

    January 13, 2018
    By alternativeafrica
  • News Now

    The boxer not wanted by Nigeria or UK

    January 12, 2018
    By alternativeafrica

Leave a reply Cancel reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

You might be interested

  • AfricaBusinessNews Now

    South Africa introduces special 6-month coronavirus grant for the unemployed

  • AfricaHealthNews Now

    39 students in Egypt test positive to covid-19 on first day of final exams

  • AfricaBusinessNews Now

    New report says Africa is world’s next big growth market

Timeline

  • January 19, 2021

    Joe Biden says travel bans on UK, EU will stay despite Trump order

  • January 19, 2021

    Nigeria in talks to produce licensed covid-19 vaccine locally, releases $26m as take-off grant

  • January 19, 2021

    Zambia launches crackdown on unlicensed covid-19 drugs

  • January 19, 2021

    Rwanda places capital, Kigali in second lockdown, ends free covid-19 treatment

  • January 19, 2021

    Frontline Chinese medical doctors arrive Ghana to help combat surging coronavirus cases

  • Popular

  • Comments

  • Lagos govt confirms first case of deadly coronavirus infection in Nigeria

    By alternativeafrica
    February 28, 2020
  • Keynote Address of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo at 2018 Oxford Africa Conference

    By PSJ Africa
    May 14, 2018
  • Morocco begins regional integration by connecting Casablanca Airport with High Speed Train

    By alternativeafrica
    January 4, 2020
  • Kenyan govt pressure Facebook for data on Kenyan users

    By alternativeafrica
    November 20, 2019
  • Nigeria: 32,000 capacity Lagos rice mill to start production in 2020

    By alternativeafrica
    December 23, 2019
  • The return of fortress conservation: why excluding people means biodiversity conservation will fail – Future agricultures
    on
    October 16, 2020

    Inside the training camp of Akashinga, Zimbabwe’s armed, all-women anti-poaching rangers

    […] In parallel to ...
  • The return of fortress conservation: why excluding people means biodiversity conservation will fail - The Zimbabwean
    on
    October 12, 2020

    Inside the training camp of Akashinga, Zimbabwe’s armed, all-women anti-poaching rangers

    […] In parallel to ...
  • Ethiopia joins Africa's Artificial Intelligence revolution | Alternative Africa
    on
    October 2, 2020

    Spending on Artificial Intelligence Systems in Africa, Middle East to top $374 million in 2020

    […] Many African countries ...
  • The 5 most popular Africans 2020
    on
    September 25, 2020

    Celebrating Congolese doctor Jean-Jacques Muyembe, the man behind breakthrough of Ebola cure

    […] Dr. Jean-Jacques Muyembe ...
  • Millitants in Central Mali Set Jail Ablaze in Attack Killing Two | taktik(z) GDI (Government Defense ...
    on
    August 11, 2020

    Fifteen gendarmes killed in another attack on Mali camp

    […] attack fol­lowed a January ...
AlternativeAfrica.com is an independent Pan African News Website dedicated primarily to influencing the negative narratives about Africa. We hope to do this by focusing and showcasing the many developmental strides sweeping across the continent.

Read more >>>

Contact Info

  • 22 Laburnum Court, Laburnum Road, Mitcham London, CR4 2NA, United Kingdom
  • +44(0)2036320939 | +44(0)7535019197 | +44(0)7305356327
  • info@alternativeafrica.com
  • Recent

  • Popular

  • Comments

  • Joe Biden says travel bans on UK, EU will stay despite Trump order

    By alternativeafrica
    January 19, 2021
  • Nigeria in talks to produce licensed covid-19 vaccine locally, releases $26m as take-off grant

    By alternativeafrica
    January 19, 2021
  • Zambia launches crackdown on unlicensed covid-19 drugs

    By alternativeafrica
    January 19, 2021
  • Rwanda places capital, Kigali in second lockdown, ends free covid-19 treatment

    By alternativeafrica
    January 19, 2021
  • Lagos govt confirms first case of deadly coronavirus infection in Nigeria

    By alternativeafrica
    February 28, 2020
  • Keynote Address of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo at 2018 Oxford Africa Conference

    By PSJ Africa
    May 14, 2018
  • Macron in Ivory Coast to launch anti-terrorism academy

    By alternativeafrica
    December 21, 2019
  • Kenyan govt pressure Facebook for data on Kenyan users

    By alternativeafrica
    November 20, 2019
  • The return of fortress conservation: why excluding people means biodiversity conservation will fail – Future agricultures
    on
    October 16, 2020

    Inside the training camp of Akashinga, Zimbabwe’s armed, all-women anti-poaching rangers

    […] In parallel to ...
  • The return of fortress conservation: why excluding people means biodiversity conservation will fail - The Zimbabwean
    on
    October 12, 2020

    Inside the training camp of Akashinga, Zimbabwe’s armed, all-women anti-poaching rangers

    […] In parallel to ...
  • Ethiopia joins Africa's Artificial Intelligence revolution | Alternative Africa
    on
    October 2, 2020

    Spending on Artificial Intelligence Systems in Africa, Middle East to top $374 million in 2020

    […] Many African countries ...
  • The 5 most popular Africans 2020
    on
    September 25, 2020

    Celebrating Congolese doctor Jean-Jacques Muyembe, the man behind breakthrough of Ebola cure

    […] Dr. Jean-Jacques Muyembe ...

Photostream

    Follow us

    • Home
    • About Us
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms of Use
    • Contact Us
    © Copyright Alternative Africa 2019. All rights reserved.