“Africa is a digital continent.” It’s a slogan that we keep reading, as if it were meant to confound clichéd views of African poverty. In fact, in 2020, mobile technologies and services already accounted for 8 percent of GDP across sub-Saharan Africa. Several major digital companies have been founded on the continent in recent years.

Kizito Odhiambo, CEO of one of these start-ups, associates the rise of his company with a rather bigger picture. As he puts it, “I firmly believe that Africa can feed itself — I even think that Africa could feed the world. The continent has everything it needs to do so.” Odhiambo thus uses the famous image of a continent that is actually rich in terms of raw materials and young people, a potential that just needs to be realized — today, through modern, digital technology.

But Odhiambo’s advertising promise is little more than a ruse. To understand why, we need to take a look at Africa’s political economy.