India's JAM trinity should be applied to Africa, says Mittal

India's initiatives spanning the Jan Dhan-Aadhaar-Mobile (JAM) trinity should be applied to Africa so that a high level of digital connectivity can quickly spread across the continent, Bharti Airtel Chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal said on Tuesday. Mittal is a key member of the B20, the official G20 dialogue forum with the global business community.

- SUBHAYAN CHAKRABORTY New Delhi, 14 March

Speaking at the CII Partnership Summit 2023, Mittal said the integration of the African economy had been chosen by India as one of the legacies it wanted to leave behind as part of its G20 presidency.

Solutions, such as India's digital stack, which is based on digital identity in the form of Aadhaar, leveraging of fintech to move finances and subsidies across the population in a dramatically frugal way and putting a mobile phone in the hands of everybody had served India well and would do the same for Africa.

Despite commanding a continental gross domestic product of $3.2 trillion, the 55 countries of Africa have less than a 2 per cent share of global manufacturing output. Mittal, under whom Bharti Airtel's Africa business now spans 15 countries across the continent, said this showed the potential of Africa to occupy a much larger share of the global economy.