Ghana And Zambia Collaborate To Consolidate Digital Economy Gains

A peer project between Ghana and Zambia has been forged to leverage existing digital financial solutions between the countries.

This was enacted after a high-level Zambian delegation visited Ghana to study the country’s successes in digital economy earlier this week.

Facilitated by the United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF), the Zambian delegation visit was to learn best practices and better understand how Ghana’s digital financial services providers and utility providers have successfully rolled out digitalized payments for utilities that have transformed Ghana’s economic landscape.

Addressing the delegation, Mr Charles Abani, the UN Resident Coordinator in Ghana, said such interactions help to explore new ideas and how they might impact the country, stressing that Africa must come together to improve it’s standing on the world stage.

He said COVID-19 had taught the world about the importance of digitization and the need to maximize its benefits, and commended Ghana for its digitization agenda.

He said the UN had allocated huge sums of money for countries to apply for the fund to help in the recovery plan of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Madam Arianna Gaspari, Financial Inclusion Speciality, UNCDF, said about 7,258 youth have been supported through different business performance and credit scoring tools.

She stated that 430 vulnerable entrepreneurs have accessed loans for a value of almost 400,000 dollars through the innovative crowdlending platforms and mobilized 12,000 dollars on formal digital savings accounts from remote areas since March 2021.

The Zambian delegation was made of representatives of mobile network operators such as Zamtel Mobile Money, MTN and Airtel including banks, government ministries and regulators Bank of Zambia, Zanaco, Ministries of Finance, as well as the Energy and Water Development.