The Fourth Industrial Revolution and Africa: A Cure Which Kills the Patient

Decision-making skills in the fourth industrial revolution

“…According to Nene (2018: 3), less than half of the municipal managers and chief financial officers nowadays employed in this country's municipalities meet the minimum competency levels required to perform their functions, let alone the skills needed to manage and regulate the 4IR. Maintaining this situation makes it probable that the 4IR will become a cure that will kill the patient as Benyera (2022) states. Making stakeholders skilled in applying the new techniques offered by the 4IR, able to reflect on the merits thereof, capacitated in finding solutions for potential problems, and competent in steering developments in a desirable direction is the first step in avoiding that nasty outcome.…”

“…The recent book on “Africa and the Fourth Industrial Revolution” by Everisto Benyera (2022) ends with the fatalistic conclusion that “the 4IR will either cure or kill Africa” and given the current global political and economic context, “it will be indeed a cure which will kill the patient, Africa” (Benyera, 2022: 155). Although this seems a probable outcome given the history of Africa during previous industrial revolutions, this paper argues that the outcome could be prevented if we would avoid seeing the 4IR and its impacts as something that befalls countries and instead conceive it as a development that can be and needs to be steered based on adequate decision-making.…”