 Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for your time. Thank you for joining us. I'm hoping this will be an exciting conversation for all of us to share. Just to introduce my name, I am Dumelo Motodwani. I'm a user and current affairs anchor with ESEA. And I'm proud to host this conversation, hoping that you would also participate. Now I'd like to just introduce, of course, our panelists joining us today. We have on my right Mr. Ibrahim Patel, Minister of Trade and Industry from South Africa. On my left, I'm joined by Ms. Winnie Bianema. She is the outgoing executive director of Oxfam International. She's from Kenya. And we also have in front of me Mr. Laundlitz. You are the head of operations for Uber Technologies. You're from the USA. And we also have on my far left Ms. Olajumoke Adeke, the founder of the Young Business Agency from Nigeria. And last but definitely not least, we are joined by Mr. Moussa Omaro, the deputy director general for field operations and partnerships, international labor organization, ILO. And you're from Geneva. Ladies, gentlemen, thank you so much for your time. Just to kick start our conversation, give a bit of a context into the gig economy, which is our theme for this sitting. I'm sure we can all attest to the fact that the digital platform has offered avenues for formalizing the informal job markets as we're seeing in Africa. And I suppose with that being said, we're seeing a responsibility coming from government and global business leaders to make sure that there are safe labor practices within the gig economy. I suppose my question, just to start off, our theme and our introductions is, can we define the gig economy from our different perspectives in our organizations? But also with that said, what approaches do you think hold the greatest promises to achieve in advance and inclusive as well as a dignified gig economy? Minister, may I please start with you? Well, thank you very much. And I'd really like to make three points in response. The first is the gig economy is happening. Africa is digitizing, not as fast as we need to, not always in the areas we need to, but it is the digital economy is transforming the continent. The second point is it comes with enormous challenges and huge opportunities. Challenges around the disruption to the lives of workers and technology has always been a great disruptor. That's throughout the ages, whether it's the technology we use now to broadcast or to speak or to drive technology by its nature is a disruptor. But there are also enormous new challenges because this is not simply a continuation of all technologies. Artificial intelligence changes the game. Traditionally, machines, technology replace muscle and human beings move to more brain work. What artificial intelligence will do is take more of that brain work and, in fact, digitize it, bring computing power, algorithms and so on to that. And so one's got to think anew about the issues of jobs. So challenges but also huge opportunities. Our lives have always been enriched by and large. I say by and large because there are some exceptions, but by and large technology has been a force for good in society. The challenges with technology has been unequal access to it and unequal development that the technologies that are needed are not always the ones that are innovated and backed and supported. And then the final point I want to make is we, as policymakers, as businesses, as trade unions, as society at large, we can shape the gig economy. Public policies matter. Partnership arrangements matter. And so when we see today a report that was released here in South Africa that says that the gig economy or the digital economy is likely to cause the loss of some 3.3 million jobs in South Africa alone. But it also said with the right policy mix, it can create 4.5 million jobs. So you can have a net gain of 1.2 million jobs. So we need to now say what are the public policies that unlock the new job opportunities? What are the social plans to transition actual human beings? Someone is displaced here. And you won't always find a perfect one-to-one fit, but to get as many people retrained and changed. And so the steps I think is skills enhancement, infrastructure, an enabling ecosystem, access to funding for young entrepreneurs and partnerships, partnerships with the private sector, partnerships more broadly in society. And on education and skills, let me maybe make just this point. It's not just the generic issues. In basic schooling, it's looking at issues like coding, teaching children the language of the digital economy. In higher education and perhaps even high school learning, it's ensuring that learning is no longer as fact-based as it was before that you learn to learn. It has to be more agile, it has to be more adaptive because we don't know, in fact, what are all the technologies of the future. Right. Let me ask you to come in then. I suppose as you give your introduction to the definition of the gig economy and your perspective, please help us also understand the challenges. As you've seen in South Africa recently in past weeks, some of the protest marches that we have seen at the crux of them have been inequality, unemployment. You've been unable to access markets. How do you think, of course, the gig economy also plays a role in those challenges and solutions? Thank you, thank you very much. You know, I start on a point of optimism. There's so much that this gig economy can do for us. Change lives here in Africa to bring jobs that are good, that are dignifying, to bring jobs that, yeah, will put people to work. But what we're seeing is the gig economy taking us right back to Dickensian times, where conditions of work were that children were working in mines, working long hours. And all that is not because of the technology, but because of our governments, our governments. And of course, because of the bullies of Silicon Valley, the big fat cuts of capital, they are out to maximize. And there is no adult in the room to rein them in. So what the minister was saying is music to my ears. We need to have our governments not sitting there watching the gig economy happen to us like it is weather or rain falling on us, but to actually regulate it and regulate it in favor of ordinary people. If I can talk about, and I'm sorry, I'm going to talk about Uber. If I can, because I see them every day, if I talk about it, I wish we could bring the drivers who take me every day here in this room to talk about the gig economy. That's when you'd know. You know, if I talk about someone like Mwangi, a young man, he tells me that he drives a car. That car he drives is owned by somebody else. He's on the platform of Uber. I pay him like $1, literally $1 for a ride near my home. That $1, 20% goes to this Uber platform, the Silicon Valley boss, 20%. Then the owner of the car takes a share of that. Then some goes to fuel and to servicing the car. In the end, this guy sleeps, works 20 or 22 hours in order to get anything. He must work many, many hours. And then he doesn't see even he can't afford a room. So he sleeps. Six of them rent one room. And each one has their hour to sleep or hours to sleep. And they have to get out for the next one. This is the job. This is the job that he has from Uber. Uber has just been losing cases and quotes about these conditions of work. On the one hand, saying that it is a transport company. But on the other hand, making contracts with these people and saying, no, no, no, you're not our drivers. You are businessmen owning your own businesses, just borrowing our platform. Therefore, we can't give you rights. We can't give you minimum wage. We can't give you paid holiday. We need to get governments to step in and say, you are employing these drivers. Give them a minimum wage. Give them a paid holiday. Give them good conditions of work. So for me, I don't have an issue with the technology. I have an issue with our governments who've just decided to sit back and let the rich owners of the technology run away with the benefits and crush millions of people. That's my issue. And we've seen that conflict, especially in media reports where meter taxi drivers have been in conflict with Uber drivers, with taxified drivers. And some of their calls, Alan, I suppose, has been that there's no regulation. There's been a disruption, and they weren't ready for it. They weren't educated. They weren't made aware. But I suppose, as you also gave your introduction, give us some perspective on the value chain. What development is there for the partners that you say you have with the drivers? But also, what challenges have you also, honestly, experienced as a technology company? Yeah, so there's obviously quite a lot to unpack. Yeah, I think we need to address some of your points, maybe, as a starting point. I mean, it upsets me to hear that story that you've just described. That's not the Uber that we want to build across the continent. Thankfully, I can recount a number of positive stories where their examples of drivers who are working for themselves, building businesses, started working for someone else and now own a number of vehicles. In fact, we've got over 59,000 partners across the continent. And in a world which is a real world, where jobs are being shared by traditional industries, by companies that are employing employees in a traditional way, it is very important that we move towards the future. I think a couple of points just speaking more generally. And again, I'll address some of the points that you've touched upon. We think about the future of work under four main categories. The first is accessibility. And that's how can we make economic opportunities more accessible to driver partners? And we do that through technology. Obviously, their checks and their balances that driver partners need to go through to get active on the app. But the barrier to entry is relatively low. Yes, you do need to use a smartphone. You need to get access to that smartphone. But that access point is relatively low. And I believe we've made an industry which is a traditional industry a lot bigger than it previously was. So to Minister Patel's point, this becomes a net contributor towards jobs, which is very much needed in a world where in the South African context, we've got 30% unemployment. The next point is flexibility. And to your example, sounds like there's no flexibility. That being said, we believe that drivers do have flexibility. One of the top reasons, and we've got data which we can share, which shows that one of the top reasons why drivers partner with Uber is because of flexibility. Where they choose when to work and where to work. And no one's telling them what areas they need to be in at what time of day. Another point before you jump in is that we've got something called driving hour limits, which actually limits the number of hours that drivers can spend on the app. To your point, it's not in anyone's interest for a driver to be working 18 hours, 20 hours plus on the app. That's putting their own lives at risk as well as the lives of their passengers. The third point is around protection. And I know this is a theme which has come up. And something which is not often known is that we often drive as driver injury protection. So this is within limitation. And to a point again, that's been called upon both from you and Minister Patel. We are for regulation which governs this more formally because I think if there is formal regulation, we will be able to do more. But the way that things stick today, drivers have injury protection, death and disability cover, medical cover and emergency cover in the event of an accident or an incident. So we are doing our bit to provide social protections. And the final piece is around providing driver partners with skills, where we've got a number of initiatives. We've got a partnership with Old Mutual where drivers get access to financial literacy training. We have a partnership coming up with African Management Institutes in South Africa and Kenya focused on female partner drivers where they're gonna get access to entrepreneurial skills, both virtual and in-person. And this is saying that is eventually gonna be extended to their families. So there are a number of ways that we are trying to walk towards the future in this real world that we live in. All right. I need to also give you a chance, so just to give you a perspective. As I agreed, I'm going to speak in French because I'm more comfortable in French than in English. So I give you the time for, to keep yourself, I would say. So could you read the... What I would like to say, we have spoken about technologies, about flexibility. What I wanted to add is that technology has positive aspects and its progress, of course, so its use will be unavoidable, but we have to master the technology, we have to manage it so that it helps mankind. It has to be in favor for the benefit of mankind. Today, the gig economy that we are talking about resembles the informal sector that we spoke about in the past. There are no official contracts or formal contracts because you are an independent worker. There is no relationship between employer-employee because you do not have an employee in front of you, you do not benefit from social protection, social security, you do not have any working conditions, you do not benefit from a minimum wage. So this does not only apply to the informal economy, but it also applies to the gig economy. So the question we have to raise is not that the gig economy does not create employment or jobs, it does. And in this regard, I would like to say that the International Labour Organization has undertaken a study in the five continents where we interviewed over 500 workers from the gig economy, and this study showed that those who work in the gig economy do not benefit from minimum wage, they do not have social security, they do not have access to training opportunities, which in my mind represents challenges that we will have to find solutions to today. In this gig economy applies to the five continents to wonder what type of regulation we can implement in order to protect the rights of the actors in the gig economy, to protect their rights, whether we are talking about independent workers or associates, we have to ensure that they have rights. And these are the fundamental rights of all workers. They have to be protected. And through this social protection, we have to ensure that they work a number of hours that is set. They cannot work for all these years without any control, any regulation. This is not sustainable, so we have to create a platform to protect these workers. At the level of the ILO, we have an experience that could be used in order to regulate the sector. You know that we have set up a world commission on the future of work or of labor. This world committee has made recommendations in relation to the regulation of digital work and online labor. The ILO has done a lot of work in this area and has promoted the adoption of the Maritime Convention. We have sailors who work all over the world, and we have, thanks to the intervention of the ILO, managed to sign this convention, to get this convention adopted at the global level. So we can intervene, and it is possible to regulate this type of economy. This is what I wanted to say in brief. But to add, on the African continent, where we have access or lack of access to electricity, where there is a lack of access to the digital tools today, the gig economy is not the panacea, it is not the magic bullet, and I think it is still a very limited sector of the economy. We still have the informal sector that employs a much higher number of people. But that is it. So we can regulate this economy. Thank you. A point on regulation. Can we give a chance just for introductions? And then we'll have a discussion as well. Please keep your pointers. But as you answer or rather give your perspective on intros, I'd like you to also talk about the inclusivity or the exclusivity of the gig economy, especially where in the continent we still witness the digital divide. It's exciting that the fourth industrial revolution either has hit us or was approaching us, but I fear that as well we have sort of isolated areas within the continent where not everyone has a smartphone, not everyone has the internet, or even an internet cafe for a community to share, and they are therefore left out of benefiting from this economy. Right. Thank you for that. I think I have a slightly different view in my definition of the gig economy. I truly believe the gig economy has been in existence before we had technology. So in the context I come from Nigeria, the most populous country on the continent, the largest economy on the continent, we have one in five sub-Saharan Africans are, is Nigerian. And what's interesting about that context is right from secondary school you have young students who are, for instance, young women who are baking on the side and making some money. They are taking photography lessons to cover events on the weekends. They go through secondary school, university, start working, and they have these quote-unquote side gigs. And so even though they might have full-time employment, they could be artists, and they draw or paint, be engaged in some form of side hustle, as the young people like to call it. And so that is still a form of gig economy. So I want to underline something that Michelle Omari was saying, that it's considered the informal economy, but in a lot of ways that is the gig economy. What we now have with the advent of technology is the digital, the platform economy, which now creates a different power structure. So where previously it was a transaction right between someone who's able to bake and they give the cakes, they get the money, you have, as Anemarini was saying, we have a company. So let's take Uber based in Silicon Valley that now has lots of power over these, I guess, drivers or workers. There's a power structure that's created and that's when we begin to talk about the need for regulation. That's when we begin to talk about the need for protection because all of a sudden you have an entity that has so much power and is able to, you know, there's not just political power in some cases, but you know, economic power and then they create a need for us to start looking very carefully at the new structures. And so I think it's important for us to recognize historically that we have had the gig economy for a long time, but there are new power structures that are created when we have the digital world and that's something that's important to take note of. A lot of young people, to answer your question about the digital divide, it is real. And for a lot of us who live in the urban areas on our continent, it's very easy for us to forget that close to 70% of our populations live in rural areas. They might not have, as you rightly said, access to smartphones, but increasingly technology companies like Facebook are creating mobile friendly apps and so that they might have a small phone that comes with some of the China phones now come with Facebook apps already on their phones. The reality, I think, is that we see some economic divide but it's not as Mr. Omaru was underlining. It's the digital economy, the platform economy is not making a dent in terms of unemployment rates. In Nigeria, for example, the National Bureau of Statistics for quarter to 2018, which was the last time they published unemployment statistics, put it at 23%. And it's been steadily increasing. I know that Uber came into Nigeria in about 2014 but you can see the statistics that even though you have a number of drivers, several thousand drivers in Nigeria and there are also competitors in this space, you're still seeing that the percentage of, basically the unemployment rates are still increasing. So there is some potential. I think the last point I want to make is that thinking about the digital economy, I like the framework that Clay Christensen of Harvard Business School talks about innovations. And so the likes of the taxi hailing apps like Uber fall into what he calls efficiency innovations. And the essence is that there are efficiency innovations, sustaining innovation. So when we think about iPhones that have the iPhone 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, you're creating, you're generating income, but it's just sustaining the existing market. Taxi hailing apps or Airbnb are just providing some efficiencies. But the last form of innovation is the market creating innovation. And that's what we need. That's going to be the game changer for creating more jobs on the continent. An example that I really appreciate is of Moibra himself. When he first wanted to bring in mobile phone technology in the continent, it wasn't the most, I guess as it is still in Africa, the most conducive for him to bring that technology. But one of the things that he had done was to ensure that he had the, by the mobile phone technology infrastructure, but also where he needed created, you know, brought in his own electricity, brought in his own water, where he needed to provide training and education. And so in that way started, was able to, I think that what was really innovative about his approach, apart from bringing everything he needed to make his business successful, was that he recognized that instead of subscriptions, which many Africans would not be able to afford because of their income level to actually have pay-as-you-go credit. And so those are the types of innovations that will make it dense in unemployment and can, might be a part of the gig economy, but that's, those are the kinds of businesses I think that we should start looking at as what would push the needle in terms of providing jobs on the continent. And due to time, because we've less than 20 minutes left, perhaps we can even open up the discussion, but please keep it as brief as you can, Winnie. Oh, I wanted to raise two other points. One is that, yeah, even in the face of seeing governments just gazing and admiring digital technology, digital platforms, instead of regulating them, there is hope. I have come across some platforms where ordinary people are taking charge, owning them and using them to create jobs for themselves. There's a platform like I heard about called Up and Go. These are cleaning women. They own it for themselves and they use it and they get back 95% of the money they make, only 5% for servicing the platform. So you say, why should Uber take 20% from the monkeys of this world? Yes, that's what I'm saying. Then you have, in fact, I don't know here in this wef, I stay in a posh hotel, but in many countries where I go, I stay in an Airbnb because it's cheaper. But I've thought about, recently I had a strange experience because I got in and the owner said, I have a lovely, cutest dog. Please love my dog. So when I got there, there was a huge animal like this. I can't describe the night, but the point is that I think of, why can't someone also do for us a fair B and B, where the owners of these places are the ones getting the money, not some rich Silicon Valley person who created the app. So I just want to say one last thing here, that another thing about this digital platform is that they're also cheating on tax because they've found a system of taxation where they can just get away without paying their taxes. So you have them really widening inequalities huge because they are making a lot of money. It's not coming back to create new jobs really, good jobs, and it's not coming back into government coffers to roll out social services. I have an issue there. They've been losing cases in courts about this because they are able to say, my intellectual property is sitting in country X, then they create another company in country Y, came on islands or somewhere, then they shift, they say today the intellectual property has moved to another country. Therefore, I'm going to get a tax deduction for the next 10 years. So for the next 10 years, you're not paying taxes. All these tricks that digital companies can't play to avoid plowing back. It's a serious problem. We have to rein them in. Let's ask Minister Ibrahim Patel. I mean, what policies are in place for that, especially with the point around tax avoidance or even evasion? So let me pick up on the earlier point. The traditional gig economy preceded the digital economy. So it's short term contracts, independent contracting, all of that. And I think it was in 2004 that the ILO, the International Labour Organization, brought together the business community, governments, trade unions to say, how do we deal with this? And they developed something that they called a recommendation on the employment relationship, saying in a complex changing world, what constitutes employment? And they identified what they regarded as disguised employment. When you're really employed, but the contractual terms disguise that. Ambiguous employment relationships where it's unclear, it's factually unclear whether you're in an employment relationship or in an independent one. And then finally what they call triangular employment relationships where there are three parties to a relationship. Not just an employer-employee. So the complexity of work has been significantly upped in the digital space. So governments have found ways to deal, not in every country, but in South Africa, we've done some steps to deal with traditional informality. What the digital space does, technology's introduction to the economy does create enormous opportunities. I'm with Winnie about the optimism about technology. And what is required is that our social systems grab that opportunity and give it particularly to young people. And to do it so in a fair way, fairness and solidarity are not only universal values, but they're timeless values. But how they are applied over different centuries and different decades vary. And so if I take the issue of, if I didn't step off the employment relationship to the issue of taxation, our tax systems need to be updated. There's a deep discussion in the World Trade Organization right now about issues like taxation of e-commerce. And there are obviously very different points of view about this. When e-commerce is a tiny part of retailing, it almost doesn't matter. When it becomes the dominant way in which we buy and sell things, it matters enormously for the integrity of the tax base which of course contributes to keeping society together, health, education, all the things that governments need to do to ensure that we future proof society, that we prepare societies for the future. So I think what this means is not only with the employment relationships, adaptation have to take place, but so much other public policies, taxation being just one of it. And skilling is another one. Training is really at the heart of ensuring that people, human beings, get a fair deal out of the new opportunities of the digital economy. So again, I think there are a couple of points there. I think the first is when you have the opportunity to engage directly because I think there's a lot of discussion we're not going to unpack it in this period of time and why raise that is we operate in a transparent manner to your point to anyone in this room who takes an Uber or a taxi if I can talk to the driver. These are not our employees and they're free to say whatever they want. So we can't hide the truth of what's happening. I think another point is we don't believe in a minimum wage which is a topic that's been raised a number of times. I think another point that I'll touch on briefly is the tax piece and I'll use an example from Kenya where in Nairobi in the last two weeks if you've been following there have been parliamentary hearings with a number of Silicon Valley based companies appearing and we were the only company who stood up and said that we are for a digital tax. Others said no we should not be taxed. But we stood up and this is something that we believe that there should be a tax but we believe it should be fair. So these are all things which I think we agree on and I take optimism from that whether that's regulation or digital tax or a living wage these are all themes that we're working towards but the regulatory environment has to be conducive and account for this new world that we live in because I think if we try and do things in the old way we're not going to be able to do things in the old way. I think that's a good question. They say that sunlight is the best disinfectant. Would Uber be willing to publish country by country what it the profits it makes and the taxes it pays publicly country by country. So look I'm not that decision maker so I can't make that commitment. I think we're a listed on that. Exactly. Exactly. So I think with that there is an increased level of transparency. I think this is something which our new CEO has spoken about openly. So again our welcome opportunity I think we've conducted a number of studies across a number of African and global cities and countries where we can release data around driver earnings around driver sentiment. So these are all things which again through technology are available and again the easiest way to do it is to use the driver sentiment. So that's the point we all point getting in the con speaking to the driver. It is important to us. Uber only works if it works for our driver partners. Another big point which was touched upon was the fact that there's competition. If Uber is not providing value to driver partners they'll go to another app and there are multiple apps available. So it's important to us that we do provide the highest value to drivers and riders because at the end of the day ride sharing is a commodity whether we like it or not and we need to ensure that we bring value to riders and drivers. And that's our commitment. All right, Alain. Moussa, you wanted to add please? We've got 10 minutes. I would like to ask a question. I have noted that Uber is using practices that are different to those of other such organizations that you have mentioned the social protection of your drivers. But at the level of Uber is there a right for the drivers to unionize, to join a union movement, to have collective bargaining? This is important at the level of the gig economy that we are dealing with. This is a fundamental right of workers. Minister Patel who is in a room knows this better than me. This is a critical issue. If we want technology to be used for good and to move forward rather than to move backwards, we have to take this into consideration. Since we are talking about technology, it supposes that to use this technology, we need the necessary skills. But to date, traditionally in order to acquire skills, to train people and to acquire the necessary skills for different tasks, we have to do this with the involvement of the employer or the business. But in the case of the gig economy where we employ people on a temporary basis, so basically this is temporary work, how can we ensure that these temp workers know and are kept up to date with the evolution of the sector? What are we going to do in order to upskill these workers? Because today with the model that we are using, we will lag behind I think. It is important to assign responsibility as far as training and upskilling is concerned so that people can adapt to the ways, the various ways in which these jobs are going to evolve. But I think that today the gig economy as it stands does not guarantee this upskilling or these opportunities to train and to upskill. So we will have to of course not just use technology haphazardly but to make sure that it is supported by systems in order to put the human being at the centre of our interventions, protecting the workers, regulating the sector and making sure that training, education, upskilling is taken into account as well. This is an emerging phenomenon and of course as any emerging phenomenon we have to ensure that we regulate this sector whilst respecting the fundamental rights of the workers by respecting their right to privacy, to personal life as well. So these are principles that we have to apply and it is possible to do. I gave you a comparison with the maritime convention that was adopted by the ILO which convention protects sailors who are regulated by various laws depending on the ports that they are using depending on which flag they are working under. So it is very important to adopt international regulations to protect these workers and it is possible and doable but we have to do it in a very intelligent manner by involving the gig economy workers by involving the operators of the sector and by involving of course the governments who are responsible for the regulation of the sectors. Response to that as well. Yes indeed. I think one area that we may not have touched on so far is when we think about the platform economy it is thinking about data that is being gathered and who owns the data. As we think about the fourth industrial revolution as we think about the future of the sector we recognize the place of data thinking about artificial intelligence recognizing that a number of people are saying that data is going to be the new oil. Now if we think about the companies earlier I made reference to a new power structure dynamic we think about data we think about car hailing apps that have information about people's movements about transportation they have information about people's identities. I think to the point that Mr. Amaro was making about protecting human beings and ensuring that workers are protected I think it is also important for governments to also start to consider this issue and concern of gathering data on populations right. So a company like Uber has data about Abuja residents in the urban areas. You have information about Lagos for instance so many companies and as we start to think about the fourth industrial revolution and technology advancing this data then become something that can be traded that can make money and so I think it is important as Mr. Amaro was highlighting that we have emerging technologies it is important to begin to consider what having such data in the hands of private companies on several thousands of national means for the sovereignty of countries but also means in the next 5 to 10 years I think that is important to raise. Well due to time unfortunately we have to wrap up a very important conversation but I would like to thank each and every one of you for participating in this conversation. I think at the crust of our discussion we are hearing more of fair labour practice protection of workers more of a value chain identified so that everyone benefits from this gig economy that is looming into Africa but also just bridging the digital divide and the skills gap is also important in making sure that Africans are empowered in this economy and are not further exploited but thank you so much for your time I appreciate it. Thank you so much for joining us.