In this article, RIA Research Communications Officer Drew Haller reflects on the key takeaways from the AfIGF 2025 and the persisting tensions of access.
Interventions for building an African Information Society remain caught in a catch-22. On Day 1 of the 14th African Internet Governance Forum (AfIGF) in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, experts gathered at the Julius Nyerere International Convention Centre to discuss strategies for “Empowering Africa’s Digital Future”. Yet the conjunction of internet failure interrupting sessions and streaming, and countrywide bans on X, highlighted the dissonance between Africa’s envisioned future and present reality.
Throughout the three-day programme, numerous sessions echoed these ironies, many sharing the sentiment that access–whether to public data, digital infrastructure, or skills– remains a critical barrier. And even where access is granted, digital illiteracy and distrust in digital technologies curbs its productive use. Resultantly, millions remain disconnected and digital rights remain threatened.
In Day 1’s main session, Accelerating African Digital Transformation, Baratang Miya, UN DPI expert and Founder of GirlHype, was asked which two key policies African leaders should prioritise to build a sustainable digital economy, create more jobs, improve service delivery and foster innovation. She responded, “The biggest challenge in Africa at the moment is access and inclusion. There are two policies that we should focus on: Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) and the African Continental Free Trade Agreement. DPI will accelerate the agreement and improve the economy, making sure that we have access to immediate data, real-time data. When I was co-chair of the G20, one of the things we did was research what’s happening in Africa in DPI, and we found that only 10% of African countries have rolled out digital identity.”
In Africa, universal meaningful connectivity, digital literacy and skills all stand as primary obstacles to developmental initiatives such as DPI’s digital identity rollout, artificial intelligence (AI) advancements and more. The World Bank and After Access Surveys show that African countries score lower than the global average in Digital Skills and Internet Access, and that these inequalities will only grow if we continue to digitalise without redressing injustices like access to the internet, electricity and education. Many African nations teeter on the edge of transformation, but lack the tools and capacity to cross the threshold.
These themes were central to RIA participation in the following sessions:
- AfIGF 2025: Parliamentary Track: Building Truly Inclusive AI Governance Principles
In Day 1’s Parliamentary Track, access as an enabler for transformation was emphasised in our session, Building Truly Inclusive AI Governance Principles. Parliamentarians agreed that AI’s effective and just applications on the continent were restrained by a lack of African representation in its training data, and its governance. Participants spoke of AI’s uneven impacts, visible in the failure of voice assistants to recognise ethnic accents, translate indigeneous languages, or recognise faces with darker skin tones. As RIA researcher Moyo said, “When a system doesn’t recognise my skin colour, that’s a type of injustice. Inclusion is not equal to access.” This problem of access in AI presented a unique policy imperative, and recommendations included the need for regulatory frameworks to be informed by participation from local communities and context-specific assessments.
The value of multistakeholderism for even and interoperable policy implementation
To facilitate such representation, multistakeholder collaboration is critical. This is true not only at the country level, but also across the continent and the globe. AfIGF’s commitment to a “multistakeholder, African-led approach to digital cooperation reflects this. As affirmed in their communiqué: “AfIGF serves as a continental platform for aligning regional digital governance priorities with global processes.” Although the continent’s diversity creates an uneven foundation for uniform policymaking, the AfIGF evidenced that its heterogeneity need not preclude a shared agenda and digital frameworks. On the contrary, homegrown policy rooted in local contexts may be the most effective path forward.
Mechanisms like the Digital Transformation Strategy for Africa (2020-2030), the Declaration of Principles on Freedom of Expression and Access to Information in Africa 2019 | ACHPR, or the African Union Data Policy Framework and the African Union Continental AI Strategy attempt to consolidate a cohesive African approach, making a case for policy harmonisation to achieve continental ambitions like the 2063 vision of a Single Digital Market, while progressing the fulfillment of the global goals outlined in the SDGs and GDC. These mechanisms underscore the importance of multistakeholderism in continent-wide efforts to reform digital rights. Through standardised data-sharing practices, guided policy implementation approaches, and partnered capacity-building programmes, countries with different contexts can address digital problems more evenly. These frameworks reflect that, increasingly, Africa’s technological growth depends on its ability to share resources and codevelop interoperable policies and protocols.
Multistakeholder alignment priorities are illustrated in 3 out of 6 of the key outcomes adopted in the Dar es Salaam Declaration and Action Plan on Internet Governance:
- “Commitment to regional policy alignment and the development of harmonised frameworks to facilitate cross-border data flows.
- Calls for strategic African coordination in global digital policy processes, including WSIS+20, the Global Digital Compact (GDC), and the UN Open-Ended Working Group (OEWG) on cybersecurity.
- Support for multilingual and context-relevant capacity building across all stakeholder groups.”
Data spaces as a case for openness, incentivising growth
The session ‘Toward a Trusted Pan-African Data Space’ demonstrated how regional implementation of the AUDPF could facilitate cross-border data flows that incentivise growth and innovation. This was just 1 in 100 case studies revealing the opportunities associated with the removal of red tape. Positive spin-offs from data sharing included local AI development (which has been hindered by limited access to input training data), leading to local language capabilities in African LLMs, and more affordable and representative AI models.
Other positive outcomes included improved access to data for researchers auditing information environments during elections (an important topic during Orembo’s session on Strengthening Information Integrity), conducting surveys into demand-side citizen needs, or monitoring internet usage and penetration rates. In other sectors, open data spaces could help to realise the African Continental Free Trade Market and widen digital economic participation. Practically, this could mean improved digital payments, wider usage of the M-Pesa or Mukuru apps, easier e-commerce and trading, and the end of the cash-only systems.
In these cases, however, the guidelines that determine datasets’ sovereignty, readability, and transparency will determine their resistance to manipulation, misuse, and misappropriation. In such cases, mutual ratification and agreement on the Malabo Convention’s Cybersecurity rules, for example, are particularly important. On this note, in ‘Aligning National Data Policies witht the AU DPF: Best Practices and Lessons Learned’, Hon. DPS Hassan Gaye said that primary obstacles to The Gambia’s participation in the digital economy included access, policy fragmentation, siloed data and legislation gaps.“We have limited capacity and funding to look at low internet penetration… And then there is the issue of fragmentation and siloed data. Presently, we have different ministries capturing different kinds of data that are not aligned, and not harmonised with our national data.”
In ‘Harnessing AI for Africa’s Development and Prosperity’, a representative from the private sector suggested that, “The collection, creation, and sharing of that data is a core responsibility that should be shared amongst stakeholders.” He went on, “To have the necessary infrastructure and solve some of the legacy problems of digitalisation– like connectivity, local content, access to affordable devices – we need collaboration.” As a modern currency and non-rivalrous resource that underpins all technological initiatives, data’s standardised regulation and availability are a make-or-break before the continent can become not only a recipient of technology, but also its producer, innovator, and regulator.
Next steps: presenting African perspectives on the international stage
As attention shifts to the international Internet Governance Forum in Oslo (June 23–27), African representatives have a vital opportunity to shape global norms. A unified, inclusive vision will be key to reducing policy fragmentation, promoting innovation, and protecting digital rights.
RIA will carry forward the AfIGF’s core insights: that technological systems must be shaped by public-private partnerships and local participation; that real-time digital statistics are vital for policy responsiveness; and that regional policy alignment, through open access, resource-sharing, and interoperability, is critical to realising Africa’s digital aspirations.
Photographs courtesy of Hugo Domingo and Drew Haller
