The Internet of Things and the sharing economy

This chapter highlights the dynamics accounting for the meteoric rise of the Internet of Things (IoT) and sharing economy broadly, and across sub-Saharan Africa in particular. It focuses on the opportunities and possibilities of the emerging development, while also addressing the challenges that it presents, notably consumer protection, labour regulation, property rights, taxation, and discriminatory practices. The chapter then looks at how sub-Saharan Africa can, and should, ride on the wave of the sharing economy and IoT to deliver on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), tapping into their vast potential to advance the central tenets of the SDGs. It concludes that Africa can seize the twenty-first century among others by leveraging the emerging technologically driven and revised landscape, in the process unlocking previously unused, or underutilized skills and assets, while creating wealth for individuals, albeit in a very flexible manner.