Strengthening the Digital Partnership Between Africa and Europe

This policy brief outlines a framework for strengthening the digital partnership between Africa and Europe. It highlights a significant digital divide, noting that only 28.2% of Africans used the internet in 2019 compared to 82.5% of Europeans. While both regions have strategic goals—such as the AU's Digital Transformation Strategy (2020-2030) and the EU's Digital Europe Programme—progress is hindered by funding gaps, fragmented regulations, and infrastructure deficits. The brief recommends prioritizing 'Digital4Development' (D4D), creating a digital single market in Africa via the AfCFTA, enhancing STEM education, and establishing collaborative frameworks for data sovereignty and taxation.

• Africa faces significant digital divides and infrastructure gaps, with the lowest internet usage rates globally in 2019. Only 28.2 per cent of Africans used the internet, compared to 82.5 per cent of Europeans. Furthermore, 700 million people in Africa lack internet access, and approximately 300 million live more than 50 kilometers away from a fiber or cable broadband connection.
• The European Union is pursuing its own digital transformation through the Digital Europe Programme and the Digital4Development (D4D) policy, the latter of which aims to integrate digital technologies into development policies and relations with third-partner countries. The EU faces its own challenges, including a global digital market share smaller than that of China or the US, and a need to reduce dependence on external technologies.
• The African Union (AU) has established the Digital Transformation Strategy for Africa (2020-2030), which aims to create a digital single market in Africa by 2030. This strategy focuses on building networked and collaborative digital economies, ensuring policy coherence, and developing inclusive digital skills.
• The AU and EU have established several mechanisms for cooperation, including the EU-AU Digital Economy Task Force (DETF) created in 2019. The DETF focuses on four pillars: digital skills, digital entrepreneurship, e-services (such as e-government and e-health), and access to affordable broadband connectivity and digital infrastructure.
• Significant barriers to a successful AU-EU digital partnership include funding shortfalls, capacity challenges within the AU, and fragmented regulatory frameworks. In Africa, these are compounded by 'silo' mentalities within national governments and regional economic communities (RECs), as well as a lack of harmonized policies that hinder intra-African digital trade and the success of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).
• The document recommends several strategic actions to strengthen the partnership, including establishing a 'coalition of the willing' to share global best practices on data, developing an Africa-led initiative on data sovereignty, and reorienting education systems toward Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) requirements by increasing STEM participation, especially for girls.

APA

Webmaster (2020). Strengthening the Digital Partnership Between Africa and Europe. African Center for Economic Transformation. https://acetforafrica.org/research-and-analysis/insights-ideas/policy-briefs/strengthening-the-digital-partnership-between-africa-and-europe/

Chicago

Webmaster. Strengthening the Digital Partnership Between Africa and Europe. African Center for Economic Transformation, 2020. https://acetforafrica.org/research-and-analysis/insights-ideas/policy-briefs/strengthening-the-digital-partnership-between-africa-and-europe/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Webmaster |title=Strengthening the Digital Partnership Between Africa and Europe |publisher=African Center for Economic Transformation |date=3 November 2020 |url=https://acetforafrica.org/research-and-analysis/insights-ideas/policy-briefs/strengthening-the-digital-partnership-between-africa-and-europe/ |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{webmaster2020strengthening, author = {Webmaster}, title = {{Strengthening the Digital Partnership Between Africa and Europe}}, institution = {African Center for Economic Transformation}, year = {2020}, month = nov, url = {https://acetforafrica.org/research-and-analysis/insights-ideas/policy-briefs/strengthening-the-digital-partnership-between-africa-and-europe/}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }