March 18, 2021

Report Explores the Role of Mobile Technology in the Humanitarian Sector and How It Is Shaping Humanitarian Action

"The global economic crisis that followed widespread lockdowns has worsened this desperate situation, stretching humanitarian budgets to their limits and forcing humanitarian agencies to reimagine their operating models and do more with less," according to a report published by the GSMA Mobile for Humanitarian Innovation (M4H), a program working to accelerate the delivery and impact of digital humanitarian assistance. "In this context, the role of mobile technology and opportunities for humanitarian organizations to digitize humanitarian assistance have become more prominent. For those affected by crisis, mobile technology has never played a bigger role – connecting people with loved ones and enabling access to health information, financial services, social protection interventions and humanitarian assistance."

With the support from the UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO), this report documents the progress of the M4H program and partners in 2020, highlighting the key trends impacting the humanitarian sector in this unprecedented year, and summarizing the activities and outcomes of research, the M4H Innovation Fund, strategic partnership projects and advocacy efforts. In addition to the FCDO, the M4H program is funded by the GSMA, a UK-based organization representing the interests of mobile operators worldwide, and its members.

The report presents the following achievements during 2020:
  • "Sparked innovation: The program contracted eight new grantees under round three of the M4H Innovation Fund, bringing our portfolio to 22 grants in total (including the inaugural Disaster Response round). To date, M4H Innovation Fund projects have directly impacted the lives of 714,000 people, with four grantees scaling or replicating in new contexts (Lumkani, Refunite, Mercy Corps and Flowminder).
  • "Facilitated five new partnerships between MNOs and humanitarian organizations, reaching a total of 19 partnerships. The portfolio of projects implemented by M4H has impacted 454,000 people in humanitarian contexts who are now better able to access and use life-enhancing mobile services.
  • "Replicated two business models in new countries, training mobile money agents on Humanitarian Code of Conduct principles (MTN Rwanda and Uganda in partnership with Alight) and providing digital financial literacy training for female mobile money agents (in partnership with Grameen Foundation).
  • "Became a stronger thought leader. M4H published 10 reports, translated from English into an additional four languages. In 2020 alone, M4H reports were cited 36 times and downloaded around 15,000 times. Of note was the Digital Lives of Refugees report, which was downloaded 3,146 times and cited 21 times by stakeholders such as UNHCR, UNDP and ODI.
  • "Highlighted the messages of M4H at 30 in-person and online events globally, 12 of which were organized by the GSMA, reaching over 600 people.
  • "Influenced policy change in Kenya, unlocking access to vital mobile services for recipients of a digital ID project led by the Kenya Red Cross Society (KRCS). We documented the steps and events that culminated in a policy shift in Uganda that enabled approximately 600,000 refugees to legally register for mobile services in their own name.
  • "Provided capacity building training to over 150 policymakers representing over 16 governments and intergovernmental bodies, including The World Bank and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU)."

The report also presents five "prevailing trends related to the role of mobile technology in the humanitarian sector and how they are shaping humanitarian action. While few of these trends are new," explains the report, "COVID-19 brought many of them into sharper focus."

Trend 1: The pandemic has accelerated the need for inclusive digital humanitarian assistance

"COVID-19 has been a catalyst for rapid change and innovation in humanitarian action, sparking action and debate across the entire humanitarian sector. This has included calls for reform – to more locally led action and decolonized approaches to aid. In parallel, the power of mobile technology to enable communities to express their needs and to inform their decision making and choices was recognized by more actors, shining a light on the importance of mobile technology in the lives of people affected by crisis. In the face of COVID-19, humanitarian actors and mobile operators had to adapt to a grim new reality. As humanitarian needs grew, so did restrictions on movement and physical contact, making it more difficult to provide services to affected populations in person. Very quickly, demand grew for delivering humanitarian assistance digitally."

Trend 2: There is a greater focus on digital ethics, privacy and data protection

"While the fast-paced digitalization of humanitarian assistance provides many benefits, it also carries risks. The inability to access or use digital tools can mean that the benefits of digital and financial inclusion are not realized, or worse, lead to exclusion from basic services and vital information (see Trend 3).

"Ethical questions around the digitalization of humanitarian assistance also include respect for individual privacy and personal data protection. Since both are considered an integral part of protecting life, integrity and dignity, it is of fundamental importance for humanitarian organizations."

Trend 3: Accountability to affected populations and inclusion are being prioritized, raising awareness of the digital divide

"Digitizing services can offer transformational benefits to people affected by crisis. However, it can also inadvertently exacerbate inequalities, due to digital divides (such as the digital gender and disability gaps among refugees). This is a particular risk for groups who are disproportionately affected by humanitarian crises and have distinct needs, such as women, the elderly, ethnic minorities, persons with disabilities and those who lack formal identification. The digital divide has long been a major obstacle to digital humanitarianism, but COVID-19 has triggered a step change in the awareness of digital divides, their intersectional dimensions and the importance of addressing them.

"It is imperative that mobile-enabled products and services are designed with and for the most marginalized recipients, as this will allow humanitarian actors and mobile operators to better understand their perspectives, experiences and feedback. This is in line with Grand Bargain Commitment, a 'Participation Revolution,' to include people receiving assistance in making decisions that affect their lives. Human-centered design and other inclusive methods are key to being accountable to the populations that humanitarian actors have a mandate to serve. M4H has been providing guidance for the humanitarian sector and MNO partners to adopt these methods, from making mobile technology more accessible for persons with disabilities to understanding the user journeys of mobile money-enabled cash recipients."

Trend 4: A climate emergency is underway

"Over the past decade, 83 percent of disasters triggered by natural hazards were due to extreme weather, and climate-related events killing over 410,000 people. In the past year alone, catastrophic climate-related events, including bushfires, wildfires, tropical cyclones, record rainfall and locust plagues, touched every corner of the globe. Communities affected by conflict are disproportionately impacted by climate change, which intensifies humanitarian needs, increasing displacement, disrupting food production and weakening healthcare systems.

"These events have reinforced the need for better preparedness and response capabilities, and the role of mobile technology in addressing the climate emergency, from mitigation to response and recovery. Through the Humanitarian Connectivity Charter, M4H has continued to work with MNO members to ensure telecoms infrastructure is resilient to extreme climate events."

Trend 5: Digital cash assistance is proving to be a scalable solution

"The volume of cash and voucher assistance (CVA) has doubled over the past few years, accounting for 17.9 percent of all humanitarian assistance in 2019, up from 10.6 percent in 2016. The COVID-19 pandemic not only increased the amount of CVA delivered, but also accelerated the shift from physical cash to mobile money-enabled cash assistance. Because measures to contain COVID-19 have limited mobility and personal interactions, physical distribution of cash and payments instruments have become riskier and more difficult. The provision of digital cash through mobile money is considered one of the most effective digital tools in the COVID-19 response, with the ability to work at scale for humanitarian payments, as well as social safety net payments, if enabling regulation is in place.

"In addition to supporting several initiatives e.g. Social Protection Approaches to COVID-19: Expert advice helpline (SPACE) and partners with digital cash assistance, in August 2020, M4H launched a global partnership with the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP). The three-year collaboration focuses primarily on the use of mobile money to deliver digital assistance through cash-based transfers, with the aim to save lives in global emergencies, including pandemics and natural disasters."

As for trends to watch in 2021 and beyond, the report says "There are countless other important trends that we have witnessed in 2020. An integral piece of M4H's work is identifying and understanding the potential of frontier technologies, such as AI, blockchain and big data, to improve humanitarian action." What is more, "The program is continuing to pilot and scale such technologies through the Innovation Fund and Strategic Partnerships projects, while also testing new and innovative partnership models that are critical for long-term sustainability. Trends and lessons from these frontier technologies and partnership models will be shared in the year ahead."

The report importantly notes: "As the humanitarian landscape continues to change in response to the shifting nature of crises and funding patterns, it is clear that the humanitarian sector will increasingly rely on mobile operators, the wider private sector and governments to help deliver impactful services for recipients and advance technological shifts through policy innovations."

Moreover, "In a year of uncertainties, mobile technology has remained essential and proven crucial."

What mobile services do see providing value in the humanitarian sector and shaping humanitarian action?

Aaron Rose is a board member, corporate advisor, and co-founder of great companies. He also serves as the editor of GT Perspectives, an online forum focused on turning perspective into opportunity.

March 16, 2021

Serving the Community and the World: The Opening Chapter of My Journey as an Entrepreneur

The following is a guest post by Mafade Aygoda.

Born and raised in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia's capital, I gained an interest in business while watching my parents venture into multiple enterprises. As a child, I was involved in helping and supporting them. If I was not doing school work, I was performing different tasks to support their businesses.

My father was a shoe shiner when he first arrived in Addis in his late teens. He always had big visions and big business ideas. My mom, on the other hand, was good at finance and detail-oriented. She was extremely focused and disciplined. While my parents failed in different business ventures, they also learned from these failures to build many successful businesses.

To me, entrepreneurship means doing the unthinkable, finding a path in places people avoid and consider to be hard. It is about making the difficult and complicated things simple and easy. It is about venturing down roads less traveled for a specific purpose.

Immigrating to the United States as a young adult, my first few years in America were difficult. I felt lost and alone. I struggled with the English language. But as soon as I started going to school and started to see faces and stories of people from different parts of the world, my life became colorful. I never lived in a place so diverse. To this day, the diversity of this country is my favorite part of America.

When people learn of my Ethiopian heritage, they often ask: "Where is a good place to get Ethiopian food?" Seattle has a large and vibrant Ethiopian community. And as such, the city was seeing a rising interest in vegan and vegetarian food. Ethiopian food was desired not just by the Ethiopian community, but by the general population. I saw an opportunity to establish a business that would provide not just delicious Ethiopian food, but would do so while providing impeccable customer service and building value in the company's brand by deploying effective marketing strategies.

With the advisory support of Aaron Rose, who has over 25 years of experience building successful businesses worldwide, I took the plunge into entrepreneurship by forming Koba Ethiopia, LLC in Seattle, Wash. I was frustrated by the lack of cultural representation I saw in Seattle's Ethiopian community. Most of the Ethiopian restaurants served delicious food, but there was a lot of room for improvement with respect to customer service, marketing and branding.

The initial focus of Koba Ethiopian was in food delivery and pop-ups while searching for a permanent space to establish Seattle's premier Ethiopian restaurant. Shortly after the launch of my business, I was able to establish Koba Ethiopia's brand identity and promoted the name to a large audience who expressed excitement about seeing a modern and simple approach to Ethiopian food. However, I continued to struggle to find a dedicated space for the restaurant due to the high rents.

With the food delivery business, I disliked the restrictions of serving a limited number of customers based on location. In addition, I was operating the business alone. I quickly realized that if I continued along this path, I would not be able to solve the problems so many new ventures encounter such as attracting new customers or managing my finances. I knew that I had to pivot quickly before I ran out of cash.

Abandoning the idea of food delivery or a restaurant, I learned that having an ideal location is often the key determinant in a restaurant's success and even the rent for the worst location in Seattle was beyond my budget. Therefore, I pivoted Koba Ethiopian to an e-commerce platform. Separately, I launched Shades of Injera, a media platform that is deeply rooted in celebrating differences in cultures, perspectives, and stories. Shades of Injera's mission is to inspire and connect one another in a way that is intentional and purposeful. I believe the more we know about ourselves and others, the better we connect.

This past January, Aaron, who is taking a more active role in my company's operations, and I decided to rebrand Koba Ethiopian, LLC to simply Koba, LLC (Koba). We are also rebranding the e-commerce platform to Koba Roots. As a strategic move, Shades of Injera will become a division under Koba alongside Koba Roots.

We are not abandoning Koba Ethiopian as this platform will continue to show a simplified approach to Ethiopian food and culture. The goal is to inspire people to incorporate Ethiopian food and culture into their everyday life.

We are building Koba Roots to be a leading online retail and lifestyle platform. We are focusing on creating and sourcing products that are simple, green and sustainably-made. The e-commerce platform will have a dedicated space for products inspired by the world's unique cultures. We want to find simple ways to inspire people to incorporate apparel and home goods from around the world. The picture on the right of the Gaby Dress is just one of many items that will be made available through Koba Roots.

Aaron uses this analogy with respect to entrepreneurship. "Launching a business is like jumping into the deep end of a pool not knowing if you have the swimming skills to survive or jumping into a dark abyss not knowing what lies at the bottom. With the right support, however, and with much luck, you can survive."

As a child, I had dreams to become a lawyer, pharmacist or engineer. In doing so, I had hopes this would impress my dad and our community. While I attended different schools, I struggled to find my purpose and to discover the things that I enjoy and excel at. I am happy with the fateful decision to enroll at Seattle University where I received a degree in business administration. In launching my own business, I discovered my passion for helping people experience different cultures through fashion, food and design while sharing our unique perspectives and stories.

The past four years as an entrepreneur has been full of trials and tribulations. But it has also been an amazing experience that I continue to embrace each and every day. I am excited by what the next four years (and beyond) will bring in this amazing journey.

Mafade Aygoda serves as founder and chief executive officer of Koba, LLC. She may be contacted at Mafade@KobaRoots.com

March 15, 2021

'Homemade Manhattan Bar Book': A Bartender's Story of Sharing His Love of Making People Happy With Drinks

"Turning Perspective Into Opportunity" is the focus of this forum. Jason Rothman, who lives in Citrus Heights, Calif. with his wife, Nicole, and their cat, SusieQ, turns his perspective into opportunity by publishing his first book, Homemade Manhattan Bar Book: Create craft cocktails at home with more than 50 recipes, tips, and techniques from a real working bartender.

I first met Jason in 2014 during his time working as a bartender at the Rainier Club, a private social club in Seattle, Wash. I took an instant liking to him as he possessed impeccable customer service skills. He treated each customer (club member) as if he went into the bartending industry to serve them (a quality I learned to appreciate from my father, which you can read . Not only did he remember details about the customer such as their favorite drink (Lagavulin scotch for me), but Jason recollected details including the member's family, hobbies, profession, latest trips, etc. Essentially, he demonstrated a gift for building relationships.

After his departure from the Rainier Club, Jason kept in touch with me. We occasionally met at his residence just to chat and share a drink (always appreciating that he kept a bottle of Lagavulin on hand). And after returning to his native California, Jason maintained the connection through social media. It was through a post he made on LinkedIn that prompted me to purchase his book.

Edited by Matt Tidwell, I very much enjoy reading Jason's book. Many people find making drink an intimidating process: Do I have the right equipment? How do I measure the alcohol? What type of ice should I use and when should I use it? Should I use fresh juices or juice concentrate? What is a jigger or muddler? What type of glass should I use? Should I shake or stir the drink? Jason provides answers to these questions and many more.

One insightful piece of information that Jason provides is: "Shake a cocktail with citrus, otherwise stir it up. Shaking is hard on a drink. It adds a lot of air which is great for a Margarita, but ruins a Martini or Manhattan. Stirring breaks down the same amount of ice as shaking but it gives the drink a smooth feel. Some drinks you want smooth, and some you want bubbly."

When given the opportunity, there are a set of questions that I ask while conversating with book authors. Recognizing that the purpose of the book is to share his perspective as a bartender with readers, I desired to learn more about what led Jason to take on a project of publishing a book. In an email message, Jason provided me with a response to the following six questions. 

What prompted the idea of writing your book?

JR: "I had all these recipes in my head and when the first shutdown happened, I wasn't sure what was going to come back. Some friends suggested that I make videos, teach online bartending classes. I mentioned that I would need to write something first. I was a nobody. A bartender in Sacramento Calif. I wrote down 50 recipes that I think are some of the most important cocktails to know, and it all grew from there. We were also in the first shutdown [to slow the spread of the coronavirus pandemic], and writing the book helped keep me grounded."

When and where did you write? Did you set a daily writing goal?

JR: "Once I had the recipes I wanted and the tips I needed to tell people, I decided that if I write five recipes a day, that I would have all 50 done in ten days. It took less time than that, because once I got going, I wrote a lot more each day. I mainly wrote in my kitchen, and my backyard, in the morning hours, with a few marathon days where I just kept writing. I had a good friend edit my book, and he taught high school composition for many years before becoming a principal. Then It took time to rewrite. Then I had to take photos of every cocktail, and put it all together as a book. In all, It took nearly six months of almost daily work to get it published on Amazon."

What was the hardest part of writing for you?

JR: "The hardest part of writing is putting something on the paper when you have nothing. Hemmingway said that the first draft of anything is shit, and I always keep that in the back of my mind. Put something down. It may be crap, but get it down. Come back to it and make it good later, but get something down to start. IT was also hard to lay the manuscript out in an ebook form. I didn't think of all the 'other' stuff I had to do to get the book published myself."

What did you learn about yourself in the process of writing your book?

JR: "I learned that everyone has self-doubt, but you have to fight through that and believe in yourself. It's also okay to fail. I started three other books in my life and they never got past page 30. This one came together without much trouble. Sometimes you have to abandon a project and sometimes you get to see it through to the end."

What advice would you give aspiring writers?

JR: "I would say this to all content creators of all mediums. Just try it. Try creating something. Even if you hate it, you still learn from it and get better the next time. Now that my book is done, I put out drink recipe videos on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. Some videos do well and some don't, but I keep putting them out because in totality, it is gaining an audience that likes the content I release. I have no idea why some videos get 20,000 views, and some only get a few hundred. I just keep putting them out. Same with my book. I started writing recipes and restaurant stories for a "second" book. If it becomes something, great. If not, well I still improve my story-telling skills."

If you were writing a book about your life, what would the title be?

JR: "I don't know what I'm doing, but I keep doing it anyway: The Jason Rothman Story."

The recipes from Jason's book are easy to follow. In addition, he is producing videos which demonstrate his love of making people happy with drinks. While National Margarita Day falls on February 22nd, my wife and I enjoy this drink during the hot summer months. 


To help celebrate St. Patrick's Day on March 17th, Jason demonstrates the ease of making a Tipperary Cocktail.


And the Espresso Martini is absolutely delicious. (Vodka + Kahlua coffee liqueur + espresso = what is there not to love?)


I appreciate the art of making an alcoholic beverage. Part of the enjoyment of consuming a drink is watching how it is made. Like cooking a your favorite dish, however, there is something rewarding about making your own cocktail.

In addition to his website, you can follow Jason's latest cocktail concoctions on Facebook, Instagram, TikTocTwitter, and YouTube.

Among the recipes Jason provides in his book, which is your favorite?

Aaron Rose is a board member, corporate advisor, and co-founder of great companies. He also serves as the editor of GT Perspectives, an online forum focused on turning perspective into opportunity.

March 9, 2021

China Will Seek to Enhance Relations with Africa in 2021 and Beyond, Says EIU Report

In a report that explores the evolving relationship between Africa and China, The Economist Intelligence Unit says relations between the two "have been tested by the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic that spread across the continent in 2020. Disruption to national and international travel, trade and investment caused a synchronized downturn in all but a few economies in Africa. However, the Chinese government and some Chinese companies are making shrewd moves to build goodwill in the region, protect their strategic interests and set the foundation for stronger commercial engagement in the years ahead."

Titled Taming the dragon: new frontiers of co-operation, below are the report's key findings:
  • China will seek to enhance relations with Africa in 2021 and beyond, with a fresh focus on agriculture, environmental issues, the digital economy, healthcare provision, industrial capacity, regional connectivity and free trade and national security;
  • The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) will continue to drive international connectivity with major developments in the pipeline to enhance trade facilitating infrastructure;
  • Enhancing food security is high up the list of policy priorities in both Africa and China. Engagement in African agricultural ventures increasingly characterized by corporate mergers, acquisitions and joint ventures involving private companies;
  • Digital expansion will be boosted by the completion of a cross-border fiber-optic cable in Pakistan, forming the backbone of China's Digital Silk Road; and
  • China will seek to engage in more bilateral and collective free-trade deals, presenting the potential starting point for more in-depth trade and investment ties.

"China has worked hard to establish a solid footprint across Africa through years of high-level political engagement and the provision of access to much-needed project finance and expertise," the report explains. "Chinese companies have delivered thousands of transport, power and telecommunications projects in Africa over the past two decades. China has also supported export-oriented industrial park developments and taken a dominant position in many African markets for products such as competitively priced consumer goods, building materials, plants and machinery, and electronic equipment."

Impressively, "The value of Chinese construction contracts in Africa has topped US$40bn every year since 2011 (surpassing US$50bn in 2014-17), and for years the number of Chinese workers in Africa has been close to 200,000 (although this slipped from a high of 264,000 at the end of 2015 to 183,000 at the end of 2019), according to the National Bureau of Statistics of China." The EIU further says that "[t]his level of expatriate staffing reflects extensive Chinese engagement in Africa—expertise that is required, given the scale and complexity of some Chinese ventures in Africa, employment conditions attached to Chinese loans and foreign direct investment (FDI), and loose expatriate employment regulations across much of Africa. Interestingly, recent leading information revealed that both Chinese and local firms operating in the construction and manufacturing sectors in Angola and Ethiopia tended to employ just as many Chinese workers as local ones, paid them similar amounts and trained them to similar standards."

"China is the region's single largest bilateral trader and provider of foreign capital in the form of commercial loans and FDI," the report notes. "Over the past two decades loans and FDI have been directed towards transport, power, extractives and telecoms projects, as have smaller but increasing amounts to manufacturing, finance, business services, and health and education." Furthermore, "Resource-rich countries, including Angola, Algeria, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Egypt, Nigeria, South Africa and Zambia, have been major beneficiaries. Countries on the eastern seaboard, including Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania, have received finance for major industrial and transport-sector projects. The financial splurge looks likely to continue, although financial forays may be more selective and even more diverse in the years ahead, given Chinese financial exposure to some parts of Africa coupled with China's own evolving strategy and needs."


"An interesting feature of China's financial engagement in Africa is the primacy of loans extended to the region over FDI flows," according to The EIU. "This could suggest that Chinese companies have tended to be more risk averse when it comes to Africa and may have attempted to minimize operational risks linked to political and regulatory issues. However," as indicated in the chart above, "the gap appears to have narrowed in recent years, possibly suggesting that China has become more confident about a more hands-on and exposed approach to its engagement. Whether this is true—or will last, given the impact of Covid-19 on African financial stability—remains to be seen."

On the topic of free trade and industrial development, "A new feature of Africa's evolving commercial relations with China could well be the emergence of more bilateral and collective free-trade deals. Mauritius became the first African state to launch a bilateral trade deal with China when a free-trade agreement (FTA) between the two countries came into effect in January, marking the first step in a potentially new direction for Sino-African relations in which Mauritius could well act as a catalyst and template for other free-trade deals in Africa. Currently, 13 African countries (Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, Uganda, Nigeria, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, South Africa, Seychelles and Mauritius) have bilateral investment treaties with China, which could morph into more comprehensive trade and investment agreements in the years ahead." As illustrated in the image on the left, "China has also developed industrial parks and free-trade zones in a wider range of African countries, as well as an evolving network of special economic zones across Africa, which present the potential starting point for more in-depth trade and investment ties."

"In addition to this," the reports says:
China has expressed support for pan-African and sub-regional free-trade arrangements that seek to build larger markets and more integrated supply chains on the continent For instance, China is supportive of the enormous African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) agreement, which began its initial implementation phase in January. China considers the AfCFTA and other smaller sub-regional agreements as 'win-win' situations, at least in the short to medium term. These FTAs necessitate infrastructure development and industrial know-how (including more and better highways, railways, seaports and airport infrastructure) and industrial know-how, which are areas where China excels on the continent. However, regional FTAs could create competition for Chinese manufactured products in the longer term. A clearer picture will emerge surrounding the impact on Sino African relations of the AfCFTA and other regional FTAs once rules of origin are better established for the provision of African goods and at what level external tariffs are set for Chinese imports. At present, China does not appear overly concerned and is more eager to exploit the opportunities that Africa's regional FTAs look set to create.
Regarding telecommunications and the Digital Silk Road, The EIU points out that "China dominates the market for smartphones and feature phones (traditional-style push-button mobile phones) in Africa, and this is unlikely to change soon. Chinese companies offer affordable prices and tailored products to African markets that provide a clear competitive edge."


"Transsion and Huawei, together with Xiaomi, Oppo and a few other minor players," as reflected in the chart above, "provide more than two-thirds of registered smartphones and an even larger share of feature phones in Africa. A dominant and expanding handset presence is just one part of China's strategy for the telecoms sector in Africa, which has and will continue to drive the rapid spread of mobile data and voice services across the region."

The report further asserts that "Even more crucial to China's future engagement in the telecoms sector in Africa, and a key pillar of its broader commercial strategy, is control over existing hardware and the rollout of next generation technology. Chinese companies including Huawei, ZTE and China Telecom are major providers of backbone and last-mile technology in Africa with an eye on wider rollout of mobile and fixed-line infrastructure. Huawei may have been excluded from key telecoms infrastructure contracts in North America and Europe, but the company has deep roots in Africa that provide it with a solid and seemingly irreversible foothold to pursue expansion plans in the region."

What is more, "Information and communications technology (ICT) services could receive a boost in 2021, as China will soon lay the final stretch of a cross-border fiber-optic cable in Pakistan that forms the backbone of its Digital Silk Road and will support China's digital expansion across Africa." As illustrated in the image on the left, "The cable will connect to the submarine PEACE cable in the Arabian Sea that links to various entry points in Africa, providing countries participating in the BRI with enhanced access to the Chinese tech sector while reducing reliance on western-developed and controlled cable services. Data centers, smart cities, 4G expansion and possible 5G introduction are on the menu and will help to shape Chinese involvement in telecoms and other business areas across Africa in the years ahead."

The report, however, notes bumps in Sino-African relations lie ahead:
Concerns have escalated over the past twelve months regarding African debt exposure to China the potential loss of sovereignty over strategic assets and resources following failure to make payments. However, China has proved reasonably flexible in postponing and restructuring debt repayments so far in countries such as Angola, Ethiopia, Kenya and Zambia. In the case of Kenya, in January the government secured a six-month debt-repayment holiday worth around US$245m, although China had taken a tough stance; the potential for a debt for asset swap with regards to the Port of Mombasa port looked a real possibility until fairly recently. To date, China has signed debt service suspension agreements with a total of 12 African states and has provided waivers of matured interest-free loans for 15 African states under the G20 Debt Service Suspension Initiative, and more could follow. However, Africa's current financial difficulties are not easily solved, and debt restructuring has largely kicked the problem down the line in the hope that economic conditions improve and financial strains ease. 
My colleagues in Africa concur with The EIU's assertion that "Anti-Chinese sentiment within some African populations is simmering below the surface, with citizens resentful of Chinese economic influence and the lack of higher-value job creation for locals associated with some Chinese investments." The report adds that "[t]here is a perception that ruling elites in Africa are complicit in Chinese predation of national resources and the displacement of African workers and products by Chinese substitutes. Whether or not these feelings are justified, the developments of 2020 increased tensions and elicited a response from China to appease its critics. For instance, the trip to Nigeria [this past January by Wang Yi], the Chinese foreign minister, incorporated efforts to smooth relations that had frayed following reports of Africans being targeted for Covid-19 testing and forced quarantine in Guangzhou, China. These sentiments will be hard to shake off, and further outreach efforts should be expected to help pave the way for future trade and investment."

Business leaders and investors looking at opportunities in Africa may find value of the report's concluding paragraphs:
China is on a new geopolitical and economic drive in Africa, and countries across the region stand to benefit substantially from Chinese interest in the region in terms of industrial and technological development, regional and international connectivity, and global value-chain integration in the years ahead. Currently, Africa remains receptive to Chinese engagement, recognizes the benefits that could accrue, and is actively seeking Chinese economic support, which bodes well for Sino-African relations. However, securing Chinese commitments is not a given, and achieving the best possible deal will require that African governments and companies hone their bargaining skills and fully value what they have to offer.
The direction of travel appears to be setting the foundations for an increasingly busy two-way street between Africa and China. This will undoubtedly throw up challenges for corporations from Africa and those based elsewhere in North America, Europe, the Middle East and other parts of Asia. However, evolving Sino-African relations will create more and new business opportunities that can be exploited by non-Chinese entities. Chinese companies will consolidate their presence in the region but do not have exclusivity to trade-facilitating infrastructure, industrial parks, power-generation sites, IT infrastructure, or consumer markets—whether or not they have helped to build or finance these.
I have witnessed the increased engagement of Chinese businesses in Africa over the past several years. While the FDI is greatly needed, particularly for those African countries possessing an abundance of natural resources, there has been negative outcomes including the use of Chinese workers rather people from local cities and villages, corruption resulting from weak government institutions and opaque contracts with Chinese firms, and unsafe working conditions and environmental degradation. I have also seen a rising number inexpensive goods and crafts manufactured in China dumped in local markets throughout Africa, which makes it difficult for local manufacturers to sell their products.

With respect to the continent's digital economy, many tech services require an operating license granted by a government agency. I have seen local entrepreneurs being denied a license in favor of a competing company from China. A friend from Ethiopia once asked for my opinion about launching a fintech company based in the country's capital of Addis Ababa. While I agreed that there are few companies operating in this sector, I advised him that he should be mindful of Chinese companies deploying similar services in the country and throughout the east Africa region.

These challenges notwithstanding, the African continent possesses as large youthful population and a (slowly) rising middle class looking for more sophisticated consumer products and technology services. What is more, African businesses understand they will need to invest in tech services in order to better compete with their domestic competitors and access export markets oceans away.

Is it a better investment to support a local African company or a larger Chinese corporation that has robust plans for entering the African economy? I see pros and cons for either, but perhaps "both" is the best answer. What do you think?

Aaron Rose is a board member, corporate advisor, and co-founder of great companies. He also serves as the editor of GT Perspectives, an online forum focused on turning perspective into opportunity.

March 8, 2021

347 African Tech Startups Raised $1.4 Billion in 2020, Says Africa Tech Venture Capital Report

347 African tech startups raised a total of US$1.43 billion in 358 equity rounds in 2020, according to the 2020 Africa Tech Venture Capital Report published by Partech Partners, a venture capital firm with offices in San Francisco, Paris, Berlin, and Dakar. This was an increase of 250 rounds by 234 startups in the previous year, which represents a year-over-year (YoY) growth rate of 44% in deal count.

"This is quite remarkable," the report says. "In such a challenging year, more startups have closed rounds than in any previous year. Activity has grown by almost half. No other region in the world has seen anything like this. The global interest for the African tech ecosystem remains strong even in the context of the global crisis driven by the pandemic."

However, not all is rosy. The equity funding raised by African tech startups in 2020 totaled US$1.429 billion compared to US$2.02 billion in 2019, a YoY decline of 29%. As the report explains: "Despite a strong growth in activity, the total amount raised by African startups decreased for the first time after nearly a decade of accelerating growth. While it is still higher than 2018 and before, this sharp drop clearly marks the impact of the pandemic and subsequent lockdowns."

What is more, "Activity has drastically reduced for mega rounds (above US$50M), barely grown on large-size deals and accelerated on venture-type rounds."


More encouragingly, however, "As the table above shows, the activity level has increased for almost any deal below the US$50M size. Deals between US$200k and US$1M have actually almost doubled, keeping up with previous trends. The main drive for the lower total amount of equity funding raised seems to be the disappearance of mega-rounds. Indeed, when we exclude rounds above US$50M, this total equity amount raised is flat between 2019 and 2020. Thus, this explains to a great extent the drop in funding amount."

Focusing on a breakdown by country, the report maintains that "As in previous years, VC Funding is still concentrated in few markets, but we see strong signs of diversification as half of African countries are now in play."
  • Nigeria remains Africa's top destination with US$307M invested (21% of all equity funding) with Kenya following closely behind with US$305M.
  • Egypt completes its rally toward #1 in equity deal count, with 86 deals (+83% YoY), almost a quarter of the continent's VC transactions.
  • African VC investment remains centered around 4 top countries attracting 80% of the volume invested. However, we see more diversification as Ghana reaches a solid #5 spot, with a 102% increase in equity funding to reach US$111M and in total an unprecedented 26 countries have attracted capital.


As indicated in the image above, fintech is still the leading vertical with 25% of funding (despite a 57% YoY drop in volume). The 2020 highlight, however, is on the rising investment in the digitization of key economic sectors with agritech (US$179M), logistics and mobility (US$157M), offgrid/energy (US$148M) and health tech (US$141M).

"When we further breakdown funding in each vertical by markets, it's clear that investors in each vertical focus on a few countries":
  • "Fintech investment is quite concentrated with Nigeria (38%), Egypt (28%) and Ghana (13%) attracting together nearly 80% of all the funding in this vertical.
  • "Agritech is even more concentrated with 79% of the equity funding in this vertical flowing into Kenya. However this is partly driven by a single large deal at US$85M.
  • "Nearly half of Enterprise funding goes to South Africa. And the same applies with half of funding in Logistics, Mobility and Edtech flowing into Egypt."

Focusing on gender, the report reveals that female-founded startups raised 13% of the rounds in 2020, a four point decrease from 17% in the previous year. But they accounted for 14% of the total equity funding just above 13% in 2019.

Moreover, female-founded startups raised US$204 million in equity funding in 2020, a 22% drop from the previous year. Interestingly, startups in Kenya accounted for 65% of this amount keeping with a similar trend in 2019 when 78% of funding to female-founded startups occurred in Kenya.

As for giving a breakdown of the investors, "Africa's tech ecosystem is not only attracting more investors (+24% YoY), but they are also more committed to the market, with 108 of them involved in 2 or more deals and 22 very active in 5+ deals." Furthermore, "443 unique equity investors were involved in the 359 equity rounds raised by African startups in 2020. It was around 87 when we started tracking this metric in 2017, a 5x growth in 3 years."

"Looking at the investors' distribution per stage, early stages' attractiveness is strongly confirmed with 421 active investors involved in Seed+ transactions (228 rounds), 229 investors in Series A (through 86 rounds), 80 investors in Series B (29 rounds) and 43 active investors in the 16 Growth rounds."

Partech Partners provides the following explanation to its methodology noting that the firm reports on tech and digital VC equity deals above US$200k, in African startups:
  1. The numbers are about equity deals. This means Partech excludes everything else: grants, awards, prizes, conventional debt, venture debt, loans, Initial Coin Offering (ICO), non-equity/technical assistance, post-IPO and M&A deals. Examples: Twiga Foods US$29.4M debt from IFC announced in Oct 2020 is not counted. Lumos Global's debt round of US$45M from DFC announced in September 2020 is also not counted.
  2. The numbers only include equity funding rounds higher than US$200k. This includes deals that Partech categorize as Late Seed (Seed+) to Growth stage equity rounds. Angel deals and smaller Seed deals below US$200k (numerous on the continent) are omitted voluntarily. Example: Credit startup Swipe's round of US$120k funding from YC as part of the W20 batch in March 2020 is not counted.
  3. Partech focuses solely on VC deals that are in the tech and digital spaces. This means Partech only count companies where the value is built around digital technology. Example: In May 2020, the Series A of US$11.2M of insect-based feed and fertilizers company, NextProtein, was not counted.
  4. The firm covers African start-ups that they define as companies with their primary market, in terms of operations and/or revenues, in Africa but not based on HQ or incorporation. When this company evolves to go global, Partech will still count it as an African company. Example: Gro Intelligence’s US$85M Series B round is counted as an African deal, as it was founded in Kenya before expanding to the USA.

Having been engaged in the African market as an investor for over two decades, I am encouraged to see the steady rise in the number of tech companies that are raising funds as well as the increasing number of investors who are investing in the continent. As addressed in previous posts on this forum, I remain optimistic on the potential opportunities in high-growth sectors including fintech, agritech, digital health, e-commerce, connected devices (Internet of Things or IoT), and logistics technology and mobility. Challenges remain, however, including the disproportionate number of female-founded startups receiving support from investors. While not mentioned in the report, challenges I have encountered as an investor in Africa include systemic corruption, burdensome government regulations, and an inadequate supply of infrastructure, just to name a few.

What do you think of the report's findings? Which sectors will present the greatest opportunity for investors in Africa?

Aaron Rose is a board member, corporate advisor, and co-founder of great companies. He also serves as the editor of GT Perspectives, an online forum focused on turning perspective into opportunity.

March 6, 2021

Workbook Designed to Help Companies Build Disaster Resilience

The previous post on this forum focused on a conversation between Linton Wells II, Ph.D., an Executive Advisor at George Mason University's Center for Resilient and Sustainable Communities (C-RASC), and Annie Mustafá-Ramos, who manages the Puerto Rico Science, Technology & Research Trust's Resiliency and Business Innovation Program (RBI) about building sustainability and community resilience through local businesses in Puerto Rico. During his remarks, Dr. Wells referenced "The Business Disaster Resilience 101 Workbook," a tool jointly produced by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation and The UPS Foundation. The workbook is part of the the Resilience in a Box program, a collaborative partnership between the two aforementioned organizations as well as the World Economic Forum (WEF), CENACED, and the Disaster Resistant Business (DRB) Toolkit Workgroup.

"Small businesses are both highly vulnerable and without adequate resources with which to focus on taking preparedness actions," the workbook notes. "After a disaster, about 40% of small businesses will not reopen. An additional 25% close their doors over the following two years. Resilience in a Box is designed to give businesses the information crucial to readying themselves for any event that may occur: to survive and thrive, so the communities can survive and thrive."

Developed in Turkey as a pilot to help small businesses get better prepared, and to develop tools and training that can be easily exported to other countries, Resilience in a Box is based on best practices and designed to educate newcomers on Business Resilience. Consisting of three elements: Tools, Training, and Resources, the Resilience in a Box provides resources that will guide a company "toward addressing preparedness issues while building in the flexibility to handle potential business interruptions." 

What is more, "Resilience in a Box tools are designed to lead every business--even one with no disaster experience or understanding--towards improved resilience. The tools were developed with three levels: Basic, Intermediate, and Advanced. The Intermediate level builds upon the Basic tools in order to get businesses better informed and able to readily determine specific actions that will enhance their resilience against all hazards and potential interruptions. The 101 Workbook is an Intermediate level tool as it provides more detailed business readiness guidance, tips, and resources to assist companies by addressing their own assets before a disaster occurs."

According to the workbook, "Every business, no matter what type or how large, consists of critical assets. These are the building blocks of every business that, if taken away, would cause disruption and potentially catastrophic losses. To simplify identification of the critical assets, all have been condensed down into six categories: People, Data, Operations, Inventory, Equipment, and Buildings.

"The various components of these assets will vary from one business to another, but these six critical categories exist in some form or another in all companies. Assets will differ between businesses, although same industry types share more commonalities."

Based on my experience of creating corporate risk mitigation strategies, I concur that "Understanding what your critical assets are will assist you in identifying where your business is vulnerable to interruption. If most of a business' revenue comes primarily from its inventory, then a business should prioritize protecting or fortifying this asset from damage and losses from disasters such as a flood, earthquake, or fire."

In addition to the 101 Workbook, I appreciate the "Top 20 Tips for Business Preparedness" document that is part of the Resilience in a Box program's Basic Level:

GETTING STARTED

1. Build a Team to create your plan
2. Get Top Level Buy-in
3. Keep your disaster plan simple

PROTECT OPERATIONS

4. Gather critical documents & information needed for decision-making
5. Identify and then prioritize your critical operations and processes
6. Identify your hazards – the potential disruptions to your operations
7. Build Your Plan and create a "Grab-n-Go" case

PROTECT PEOPLE & RELATIONSHIPS

8. Maintain Contact lists – Update emergency lists for your employees, vendors, suppliers, and key contacts
9. Recruit employee volunteers to become trained emergency responders
10. Stockpile essential emergency supplies
11. Take the message home: Develop a prepared workforce – business readiness doesn’t end at work

PROTECT BUILDINGS, EQUIPMENT & DATA

12, Back up and protect your vital records and data
13. Take action to mitigate potential impacts to your equipment, buildings, and facilities
14. Protect your inventory and storage before it is lost to the disaster and you have nothing to sell

PROTECT YOUR BRAND

15. Establish and maintain communication in a crisis to ensure that your employees, suppliers, customers, and the public are getting the facts directly from you
16. Cultivate Partnerships

PUT YOUR PLAN INTO ACTION

17. Exercise and test your plan
18. Keep your plan updated
19, Implement the plan
20. Connect with the local economy

The 101 Workbook states: "After a disaster, countless stories can be told of small-to-medium sized businesses who relate stories with one common regret, 'I wish I had done something in advance.' For them, it was too late. It is not too late for you and your business to take action. Read this 101 Workbook and pick one step, then do it! Your business will be better prepared. Start now!"

I invite you to share your experience on how your business is building disaster resilience.

Aaron Rose is a board member, corporate advisor, and co-founder of great companies. He also serves as the editor of GT Perspectives, an online forum focused on turning perspective into opportunity.

March 4, 2021

Building Sustainability and Community Resilience Through Local Businesses: A Puerto Case Study

Through my experience working in Haïti, a country that shares the Caribbean island of Hispaniola with the Dominican Republic, I witnessed how some businesses remained operational despite the destruction caused by natural disasters such as hurricanes or earthquakes, or humanitarian disasters resulting from political or economic crises. Building resilience against all potential hazards or disruptions is an underlining reason for the enterprises' survival.

While Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory located just over 400 miles east of Haïti, is more developed with a 2019 gross domestic product (GDP) per capita (PPP) of $36,054 compared to to latter's per capita GDP of $3,034, according to The World Bank, the former faces the same natural disaster vulnerabilities. Now the coronavirus pandemic has ravaged the economies of all Caribbean nations and territories. I recently watched an informative discussion entitled "Be Prepared to Bounce Forward Better: Building Sustainability and Community Resilience Through Local Businesses: A Puerto Rico Case Study," which presents many useful points on understanding resilience and how a business can utilize it to withstand disruption.

Leading the discussion, Linton Wells II, Ph.D., an Executive Advisor at George Mason University's Center for Resilient and Sustainable Communities (C-RASC), explained that "resilience is the ability to have coping capacity plus the ability to adapt, which in the long-term may be referred as the ability to anticipate something, to withstand a disaster, to recover from it, which is coping capacity, and then the ability to adapt." There are three kinds of resiliency, according to Dr. Wells: resilience for cultural (is the organization willing to stand up and keep fighting when its under stress?), operational resilience (networks and communication sufficient for transmitting key messages, internally and externally), and infrastructural (understanding the dependencies among communication, power, and water, and how those affect a business). "Resilience is not just bouncing back to the pre-crisis status quo. What you want to do is leverage the stresses and shocks so that you actually wind up stronger. Be prepared to bounce forward better and that's what we are trying to build through resilience."

Dr. Wells also points out some people combine or confuse security and resilience. "They are really quite different. Security is how you lock things up and hunker down to keep bad things from happening. Resilience says I know bad things are going to happen, so how do we achieve the organization's goals under any level of shocks and stress, how do we fight back, how do we emerge stronger."

According to Dr. Wells, resilient capacity, which should not be confused for a program or strategy, is "actually a capacity of an organization" and "a function of leadership and has to be build at all levels. You have encourage resilience among your people from the board of directors to the people on the shop floor. It needs to be nurtured. It needs to be made sustainable. And treat it as a positive business asset that should be resourced." I appreciate his assertion that a more resilient business will be a stronger one. And as a result, it will be more likely to withstand disruption.

How do you learn from when bad things that happen? "Learning only happens when behavior changes," said Dr. Wells. "It's not enough to write a report. It's not enough to write an after-action review, You actually have to cause people to change behavior if you're going to truly learn the lessons. And this means you have to be able analyze shocks and see what's going on."

During his remarks, Dr. Wells referenced "The Business Disaster Resilience 101 Workbook," a tool jointly produced by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation and The UPS Foundation. The 101 Workbook provides more detailed business readiness guidance, tips, and resources to assist companies by addressing their own assets before a disaster occurs. I will publish a future post on this forum focusing on this useful tool.

In responding to Dr. Wells' question on how she is using education and mentoring to build a more resilient, sustainable commonwealth, Annie Mustafá-Ramos, who manages the Puerto Rico Science, Technology & Research Trust's Resiliency and Business Innovation Program (RBI), said the courses and training sessions are helping Puerto Rican businesses to not just continue with their previous activities, but to pivot and adapt to other disasters they may encounter in the future. The program was created in 2017 as a result of disaster (Hurricane Maria) that devastated Puerto Rico.

According to the RBI's website, the program's mission and vision is "To foster a Resilient Business Community on the Island. Enhance the innovations that create business resiliency from entrepreneur development and SBIR (Small Business Innovation Research) program applicants." Administered by the U.S. Small Business Administration, SBIR and the Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) are programs to support scientific excellence and technological innovation through the investment of Federal research funds in critical American priorities to build a strong national economy.

Among the work during the covid-19 pandemic, Ms. Mustafá-Ramos noted that over 1,500 individuals experienced the courses. Senior executives and lower-level employees alike, from represent businesses of all sizes, were able to create a resilience plan. In addition, the courses provided the opportunity to train professors, civic leaders, and nonprofit organizations and provide them with the tools to help businesses create a resilience plan.

As a result of the restrictions imposed by the Puerto Rican government to prevent the spread of covid-19, Ms. Mustafá-Ramos explained that service businesses such as hotels, restaurants, and retail shops were greatly impacted financially. However, the operational restrictions created an opportunity for businesses to adapt and pivot. Prohibited from serving customers in their establishment, restaurants pivoted to become a "ghost kitchen," which is a professional food preparation and cooking facility set up for the preparation of delivery-only meals. Brick-and-mortar retailers entered the world of e-commerce. Originally delivering in-person courses only, Ms. Mustafá-Ramos pointed out that people throughout the world were able to attend the resilience courses online.

Looking into the future, she said that investors should consider investing in Puerto Rico, which will generate much-needed jobs and stimulate economic development for the commonwealth." Puerto Rico "is a place to do business and this is the moment." I appreciate her enthusiasm.


Have you created a resilience plan to protect your business before disaster strikes?

Aaron Rose is a board member, corporate advisor, and co-founder of great companies. He also serves as the editor of GT Perspectives, an online forum focused on turning perspective into opportunity.

March 2, 2021

Corporate Leaders Need to Improve Their Ability to Respond to Evolving Cybersecurity Threats by Nation-States

"Cyber-security is rarely far from the headlines, but reporting tends to focus on big events rather than a general growth in attacks and the evolving domain of conflict," The Economist Intelligence Unit (The EIU) says in a report entitled Securing a shifting landscape: Corporate perceptions of nation-state cyber-threats. Furthermore, "As the world becomes more interconnected, nation-state incursions that steal, destroy or damage information, or that spy on or embarrass their targets, are a growing concern among policymakers and corporate executives alike, with more countries facing accusations of either conducting or sponsoring such attacks."

Being more engaged in the cybersecurity industry over the past few years, I concur with the report's assertion that "[t]he shifting landscape of state-sponsored threats—and how stakeholders respond to them—will have a major impact on how firms operate and what they perceive to be the best way to mitigate threats. This is crucial as cyber-attacks increasingly target new sectors and different types of data."

As Cybersecurity Tech Accord, an advocacy organization that sponsored the report, notes:
The data in this report captures how private-sector leaders and security experts across different industries from around the world are grappling with the rise of nation-state threats online, how they have seen these threats evolve and where they see the trends going. The results are sobering. Not only do private-sector leaders increasingly recognize nation-state threats as posing significant risk to their organizations, but the problem is only expected to get worse in the years ahead. This marks a fundamental shift in security planning. While every organization historically has had to give at least some consideration to its security practices—both physical and digital—it is unprecedented that private organizations on this scale should have to steel themselves against attacks from the most sophisticated actors: governments.
The report is a result of 524 executives surveyed "in November and December 2020 and input from leading security experts. All survey respondents are in senior roles and familiar with their organization's cyber-security strategy."

What is more, survey respondents come from Asia-Pacific (Australia, China, India, and Japan), Europe (France, Germany, and the United Kingdom) and the Americas (Canada and the United States), with a minimum of 150 respondents in each region. They all sit at director-level or above and come from companies with more than US$500m in global annual revenue. A wide range of industries are represented in the survey, led by IT and technology, retail and consumer goods. Half of respondents are from IT/tech or cyber-security functions.

The EIU "assesses corporate perceptions of nation-state cyber-threats. It finds that companies have become aware of the challenges posed by such threats and are concerned about them; however, their ability to respond to evolving risks may be lacking." Below are the report's key findings:
  • "Firms' confidence in their ability to handle nation-state threats may be overstated. Companies recognize the threat posed by nation-state attacks and demonstrate a high degree of confidence in their ability to face them. This confidence may be inflated, however, according to experts interviewed for this report."
    • Interestingly, "Executives in Asia show a subtle but noticeable trend of both greater concern and greater readiness than their European and North American counterparts."
  • "Concerns over nation-state threats have evolved to encompass more factors. Cyber-attacks were once primarily viewed as a financial risk. Now, however, nation-state attacks also often target confidential materials and other important information (such as medical data), as highlighted by recent sophisticated breaches. Our survey respondents recognize this shift and view nation-state actors as a rising future threat.
  • "Greater political will, at home and abroad, is crucial to combating the issue. Executives and experts view stronger cyber-security legislation and regulation as key ways to cultivate a safer cyber-environment, followed closely by stronger international agreements, which have been elusive to date.
  • "The covid-19 pandemic has led to growing opportunities for cyber-incursions, especially to gain a foothold in the vaccine race. Experts interviewed for this report all note an increase in foreign actors trying to exploit weaknesses to gain access to sensitive pandemic-related data, particularly in sectors such as healthcare."

"It has become clear that nation-state cyber-threats and their attendant breaches are unavoidable," the report explains. "Instead of trying to protect everything, many organizations have in recent years defaulted to a risk-management mindset of trying to protect the most important data and information in the company rather than trying in vain to protect everything. Moreover, an ad-hoc, company-by-company approach leaves many gaps."

In addition, "There is a need for actions that can both strengthen defenses and reduce the incentives for nation-state attacks, starting with greater political will and partnerships between both the private sector and governments and between countries. Many countries have tried public-private partnership (PPP) models to resolve the challenge, but to little avail."

The EIU presents the following five key steps as a call to action in a new cyber-landscape:
  1. "Realize the extent of the problem. Even when alert levels appear high, prominent examples of purported nation-state attacks show that many organizations need to realize that the threat may be larger than their current ability to defend themselves.
  2. "Recognize the evolving nature of the threats. Given that recent nation-state cyber-attacks increasingly target confidential materials and crucial information across a wider range of sectors, organizations across industries must prepare for potential attacks on types of data they would not have previously expected.
  3. "Identify potential pain points within the organization. The covid-19 pandemic illustrates the ability of malign, sophisticated and foreign actors to exploit gaps. These weaknesses should be clearly identified and addressed, even though the most sophisticated attackers will find a way in if they work hard enough.
  4. "Create partnerships for the future. Political and business leaders need to co-operate more proactively to craft both domestic and international agreements on cyberspace norms.
  5. "Encourage governments to do more. Companies can work with governments to increase transparency around nation-state threats, raise awareness of the issue and build capacity to deal with it."

Among the 25 questions respondents responded to, 47.1% said they were very concerned about their organization falling victim to a nation-state cyber-attack (33.4% said they were somewhat concerned). 39.9% percent of respondents said they were much more concerned about their organization falling victim to a nation-state cyber-attack today compared with five years ago (39.5% responded that were somewhat more concerned).

With respect to "Through which of the following types of infrastructure do you think a nation-state cyber-attack would most likely enter your corporate network over the next five years?" 60.7 percent said the cloud environment followed by employee computers/laptops (47.3%), hardware infrastructure (e.g., servers) (46.6%), and mobile phones (27.1%). (Figures may not add up to 100% in some cases due to rounding or because more than one option could be selected.)

On the topic of risk mitigation, I appreciate the following responses to: "What steps has your organization taken to prepare for a potential nation-state cyber-attack?"
  • Increasing investment on cyber-security-related technical measures (44.1%)
  • Improving training and education of employees (37.4%)
  • Designating a person or team to be in charge of cyber-security across the organization (31.3%)
  • Establishing or enhancing corporate policies regarding nation-state cyber-attacks (25.8%)
  • Increasing investment on risk management or legal advice (25.8%)
  • Establishing or enhancing corporate processes regarding compliance with national cyber-security regulations or policies (25.6%)
  • Committing to a set of standards (as issued from an international organization, industry body, etc.) (23.7%)
  • Designating a person or team to be in charge of addressing nation-state cyber-attacks specifically (21.0%)
  • Engaging in international discussions on stability of cyberspace (19.7%)
  • Regular information exchange with the government (19.5%)
  • Other (0.2%)
  • None of the above (0.2%)

Another key question is "What are the most concerning potential consequences of a nation-state cyber-attack on your organization?"
  • Leak of confidential material(s) (44.3%)
  • Loss of crucial information (37.2%)
  • Financial loss (31.1%)
  • Reputational loss for the organization as a whole (24.8%)
  • Loss of business continuity (20.6%)
  • Personal liability for my organization's senior leadership (15.5%)
  • Loss of competitive advantage (15.5%)
  • Other (0.2%)
  • Not sure (0.2%)

Disappointingly, only 21.4% of respondents said the board of directors is primarily responsible for setting their organization's overall cyber-security strategy. This was followed by CEO at 24.4%, CIO/CTO or equivalent (24.2%), and CISO or equivalent (9.0%). One of the board's key responsibilities is to identify and mitigate risks that may negatively impact the company's operations or revenues. In an article about organizational resilience, Linton Wells II, Ph.D., an Executive Advisor at George Mason University's Center for Resilient and Sustainable Communities (C-RASC), wrote: "Successful corporate directors are keen to build resilience. Only senior leadership, supported by the board, has the breadth of vision and the experience to address these issues comprehensively." Preparing a company to deal with a nation-state cyber-attack should be a board's priority for building resilience.

Lastly, the report includes the following quote by Charles Carmakal of Mandiant, a division of FireEye, a Milpitas, Calif.-based cyber-security company: "The SolarWinds supply-chain attack caused the industry to rethink how they manage third-party risk. What's different from previous nation-state attacks was the level of sophistication and scale of this operation." As I learned from my colleague, Emmanuel Lehmann, a cybersecurity expert, during times of disruption and in the wake of significant incidents, corporate leaders need to understand the challenges of nation-state cyber-threats.

What steps has your organization taken to prepare for a potential nation-state cyber-attack? What are the most concerning potential consequences of a nation-state cyber-attack on your organization?

Aaron Rose is a board member, corporate advisor, and co-founder of great companies. He also serves as the editor of GT Perspectives, an online forum focused on turning perspective into opportunity.