There is a strong demand for digital technology within South Africa's public sector, and the situation is mirrored in counterparts across the continent. However, unless policy frameworks are manipulated to adapt, and communication between key role players (including government, private sector) improves, Africa will continue to frustrate itself in not being able to take clear opportunities to leapfrog.

During a breakaway session at the Frost & Sullivan GIL Africa 2017 conference, hosted in August in Cape Town, business leaders and tech professionals said when it comes to innovation, Africa must leverage its own model and not continue to rely on predominantly western models.

This model must also be conducive to co-conversation and co-creation between stakeholders, because traditionally the level of interaction between public and private sectors has been poor, which impacts on the ability to innovate, apply solutions.

Experts explained that the public sector works within tight, predefined frameworks that are not easily restructured and do not generally inspire innovation.

In addition, the sector is under constant pressure arising from the convergence of trends like the rise of millennials, an ageing population and immigrant influx, increased use of big data analytics, personalisation of services, poor user experience and lack of transparency.

The sector is generally reactive in terms of solution integration and application, preferring to abstain from cloud migration, for example, based on the perceived risk around data control and security.

The call from delegates at GILAfrica 2017 was for boundaries to be redefined, and for the sector to adopt a more proactive approach, placing it in a position where it is two or three steps ahead of the game.

Hendrik Malan, Operations Director, Africa, Frost & Sullivan, said, "One of the key challenges and issues that we face is the rate at which we adopt to the digital revolution is to a large degree determined by the quality and enforceability of our policy. So unless the public sector starts responding proactively to some of these challenges, we have a real significant risk to being digitally excluded from global value chains."

Malan believes future value creation will derive from digital innovation and this needs to be protected and fostered in Africa.

"A lot of these policies won't necessarily be very popular because they may be protectionist policies, but as opposed to the mineral boom in Africa and the extractive industries in general, where a lot of the wealth is simply just exported, we need to try to learn from the those lessons from the past and frankly design the policies in order to address the inequalities before they happen. In order to do that, the digital transformation of government is also critical, because the only way that we are going to able to get governments to proactively address policies is by creating open channels of communication and digital platform is an ideal way of communicating real time with your constituencies. And that, to me, is the first step."

These open channels would then serve as a credible and effective way for solution development, more active citizen participation and co-creation of policies that reflect a better understanding of the relationship between investment and return. This would ultimately direct capital towards effective investment and enhance government efficiency towards this policy creation and ultimately service delivery.

"One of the big challenges is that not a lot of people are aware of, is that governments are ignorant with regards to the impact of particular investments and particular policies," Malan continued.

With so much changing so quickly, it is difficult for governments to assess what will work – and this is where data and transparency will help.