Foresight Africa: Top priorities for the continent 2020-2030

In its Foresight Africa 2020 report, Brookings’s Africa Growth Initiative investigates six overarching themes that provide opportunities for Africa to overcome its obstacles and spur inclusive growth. The report has a dedicated chapter for capturing the fourth industrial revolution including the regional and national agenda which examines how emerging technologies, like artificial intelligence, alongside good policies can improve business, health care, and the livelihoods of all. The chapter further includes viewpoints from different experts on possible agenda to bridge Africa’s digital divide, ways to harness the potential of artificial intelligence in Africa, and a national strategy for harnessing the Fourth Industrial Revolution with special focus on the case of South Africa. Yet, throughout the different chapters, the research showed that the invention, adaptation, and dissemination of new technologies could most likely boost overall productivity and support a more vibrant structural transformation in almost all the other five themes: governance, economic transformation, climate change, and global economy.