Guest blog by Aliyu Aboki, LEG ’23
One of the best decisions I have made in a long time was applying for and gaining admission into the Harvard Leading Economic Growth course. It has given me the ability to analyse my growth problem, Nigeria’s Limited Broadband Infrastructure, as if it is like a 2015 journey or an 1804 journey, select between Solution and Leader Driven Change (SLDC) and Problem Driven Iterative Adaptation (PDIA) as solution to the problem. I learned about the role of technology in development and the role of knowhow as the slowest form of technology which has a major effect on the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
The first key idea I will take away from this course is the application of the Atlas of Economic Complexity which is a research and data visualization tool used to understand the economic dynamics and new growth opportunities for every country worldwide. It lists the product sectors and the percentage availability in each country, the change in products composition from 1995 to 2021 highlighting exports and imports with visualizations in the form of tree map, geo map, time map and global share. The tool made it possible for me to view Nigeria’s composition of exports, global market share, market space which made it possible for me to deduce the growth strategic setting, recommended strategic approach, implications, and summary.
The application of the atlas provided the bedrock to discovering insights on my growth problem as the main causes can be attributed to the Government, Process, KPIs, Environment, People and Technology as shown in the fishbone diagram below.
The other ideas are measuring whether a high-potential opportunities for diversification missing some public good, rethinking of organizational structure to be more information-intensive, learning, and adaptive in identifying the problem, discovering organization(s) that would be needed to engage to address a growth challenge and find out if they can be categorized as ‘high bandwidth’ organizations, how I might help them build or establish their ‘high bandwidth’ capabilities, strengths and weaknesses of an action-learning oriented iterative approach to pursuing a growth strategy.
In participating in the course, I discovered that the entry point for the immediate policy action of my growth problem should be with the network providers where questions will be asked to discover the root problems which will inform the government on how they can help achieve the vision they have for the expansion of broadband service. Their requests include the federal government should engage with the state government so that appropriate sites can be allocated easily in local villages which has been a major challenge, education of the locals on the benefits of the installations to them because of misinforming that leads to unacceptance and in some extreme cases vandalization, reduction of importation taxes on equipment for the installations which is almost half the cost of the purchase price. They will appreciate it if taxes can be reduced because that will allow them to bring in more equipment, install them in more locations thereby giving more people the opportunity to use broadband while analysts confirmed that the government will get more revenue in the long run because the reduction on importation taxes will be recovered from the increase in revenue of the network providers.
Two ideas that I might deploy to create new know-how in my context are foreign direct investment (FDI) of firms moving within and across countries and between business networks, including neighbouring countries and those with strong business, social, and cultural connections. When the Nigerian government implements the policies requested by the networks, the economic environment will improve thereby increasing the FDI. One fact about networks is that they work towards having a presence in neighbouring countries so that their know-how can be easily available when needed. Furthermore, the corporation between the two neighbouring networks could encourage the governments to agree easily on bilateral relations such as payments settlements which will be beneficial to both. Finally, any new know-how created in one country will be discovered by the neighbour first and they will want it too. This was the case in the late 1990s before Nigeria established GSM networks and there were reports that it was available in Benin Republic. The reports created a burning desire in Nigerians which led to the creation of GSM in the early 2000s.
The most counterproductive idea in my context is focusing on education as schooling vs. knowhow. The focus on education does not increase the output of the country but reduces it because the time that would have been spent on working physically has been used to study. Knowhow unlike education is the process of applying the practical knowledge with the aid of energy to get an output, so the higher knowhow is applied, the higher the output. The application of knowhow will surely increase the broadband coverage of Nigeria.
To use the ideas I have discovered in this course, I will start with the area that is most accessible by convening people into a discussion of the problem at the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) because they are the organization responsible for creating an enabling environment for competition among operators in the industry as well as ensuring the provision of qualitative and efficient telecommunications services throughout the country. I would ensure the convening comes from the Federal Government by a policy mandate through the Minister of Communications and approved by both the National House of Assembly and the Senate. This will give the convening the required legal backing and show the importance of the task to the country.
It might not be possible to convene such a discussion in the coming week because policies don’t get easily approved by the government. No matter how good and beneficial a policy, there is always opposition, and it takes considerable time and energy to change their position which is very important if such policy were to succeed. The good fact though is that the structures would have been laid down by the implementation group to ensure success.
The measures to capture the expected success of the team will be based on the iteration of increasing broadband coverage in Nigeria from 25% total and 5% rural to 30% total and 8% rural in the first year and 25% total and 11% rural in the second year, this is what the problem solved should look like. This success can be achieved by building new relationships with the investors by ensuring that they can have easy contact with the team when they need so that information can be transmitted when required. New relationships need to be built with the manufacturers of the equipment being used because if they can be convinced to establish a manufacturing plant in the country or at least and assembly plant, the project will run more smoothly saving the country foreign exchange and increasing the capabilities of the workforce in the sector.
To capture the legitimacy success, there is need to ensure all the institutions involved in approving the policy are briefed frequently on the progress of the execution of the plans and the impact it is having in the completed locations. This can best be achieved by allowing a member of the organisations on the team.
The main authorizer would be the president of the country in conjunction with the house and senate legislatures. They would evaluate the policy in terms of the benefits and cost to the nation and compare it to the proposal submitted by the team. To convince them the proposal much be perceived to have high impact which will elevate Nigeria. The implementation strategy would be explained in a simple way they will understand by comparing it to other methods and highlighting countries where it has been implemented with success.
This is a blog series written by the alumni of the Leading Economic Growth Executive Education Program at the Harvard Kennedy School. 58 Participants successfully completed this 10-week online course in December 2023. These are their learning journey stories.