Why Data Governance Trends in Africa are Relevant for CDOs

Developing countries — and consequently their markets — are facing increasing pressure to deal with the exponential growth of data production and use, and the resulting complex challenges this creates for data governance, sovereignty, data protection, and inclusion. 

CDOs should be following these trends as well as regional and international discussions on data policy to anticipate regulatory changes which may have an impact on their organizations in years to come. 

One of the important regions to watch is Africa, where there are growing attempts to leverage the data economy for economic growth and adopt region-wide approaches to create an enabling environment for digital transformation. 

Inconversations with stakeholders from the region, including a workshop in December 2021, a number of priority themes emerged — from potentially creating a pan-African agency for international data policy, the need for trusted environments, data sovereignty, and data justice to capacity building.  

While some of these overarching conversations regarding data governance are relatively recent in the African region, a number of different data policy initiatives have been proposed and implemented, often in a siloed manner, resulting in important consequences for local innovators and CDOs. Many sectors are implicated including technology-related or traditional sectors,  such as agriculture, manufacturing, health, education, etc. Here are some data policy initiatives CDOs and practitioners should pay attention to: 

• The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) As a continent, African countries are seeking to align themselves with the goals of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Agreement. Focused on enhancing inter-regional trade, and perhaps facilitating trade with other blocks, such as the European Union, this trade agreement impacts data governance by, when creating an exception, fostering countries to develop data privacy laws. Furthermore, the e-commerce protocol being negotiated under AfCFTA would, as a matter of course, address cross-border data flows vital to e-commerce, the need for harmonization with intellectual property and competition protocols with regards to e-commerce and the treatment of data which must ensure "equitable sharing of the benefits from the emerging digital economy".  

• Africa Data Policy Framework The Africa Data Policy Framework, recently proposed by the African Union Commission, has focused on the protection of personal data. Some actors in the region have shared a fear that this is leading to the neglect of policy on other kinds of data and the data flows that form vital parts of the digital economy and social system. 

• The African Union Convention on Cyber Security and Personal Data Protection. Also known as the Malabo Convention, and so far ratified by only 8 of 55 countries after six years of its initial adoption, this convention goes beyond cybersecurity and data protection to actually regulate e-commerce in the region, with various operational level implementation obligations. From cryptography to digital signature, this convention tries to do it all. It thus loses the chance to foster the core pillars of e-commerce: allowing for rights respecting data flow. 

• The Policy and Regulation Initiative for Digital Africa. The Policy and Regulation Initiative for Digital Africa (PRIDA)project looks at ways to enhance the level of harmonization of existing digital transformation mechanisms and legal instruments while also strengthening collaboration with national and regional regulators and the ICT & Telecoms sector. PRIDA is a very interesting step to foster yet another core element for the growth of the digital markets in Africa: broadband access. It  does not, however, deal directly with data regulation or governance. 

These consultations in Africa, which are part of a larger project to assess cross-border digital policies in the region, have also shown that actors generally agree that these efforts, despite their positive intentions, generally miss core opportunities to foster a data society in Africa and support leapfrogging innovation. They point to a need to advance on:

• Consumer protection and cross-border dispute resolution for the creation of a trusted digital environment. The unfolding COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the adoption of technology by those with access to it but has exacerbated digital inequality, with compounding effects on those unable to access digital substitutes for work, schooling, business, financial access, and social relief. There is a sense amongst policy experts that consumer protection and cross-border dispute resolution mechanisms could help create an environment of trust as a core basis of the data society.

• Governments and agencies often react to data questions by intervening in policy areas such as data privacy, data protection, digital sovereignty, and data ownership. Some of the experts we encountered reaffirmed our finding that data policies under discussion in some countries of the region operate in silos, and often contradict one another. The lack of a common vocabulary and mechanism representing an institutional and procedural vacuum is a core barrier here and might become a core barrier for the implementation of regional cooperation.

• Frameworks for open (government) data can take the form of law, regulation, policy, or guidance. Countries in Africa are late in adopting open data and shared data for government-created or sponsored data. This might also point to a lack of maturity regarding data governance debates and policy development. Countries in the region thus rank very low in the Open Data Inventory. A lack of sharing approaches by the national governments might also point to the need for further knowledge and skills development. 

The policies and trends in Africa described above reflect the general state of international agendas related to data governance. As core actors and change-leaders in the field, CDOs have important experiences to share in regional discussions on data governance to help anticipate new regulations or contribute their insights to policy tools. Africa remains a key region to watch, and CDOs should be on the lookout for opportunities to shape agile policy frameworks and keep up to date with trends that may impact their data governance experiences in the future.

Tracy Sinkamba Faustin is the International Research & Project Management Coordinator at the Internet & Jurisdiction Policy Network leading a project to map Cross-border Digital Policies across Africa. Carolina Rossini is the Co-Founder and Chief Partnerships and Impact Officer at the Datasphere Initiative. In this blog, they share key data policy trends coming out of Africa that Chief Data Officers should follow. 

Read more about the I&JPN Cross-border Digital Policies for Africa Project here

Read more about the Datasphere Initiative here