Strengthening Africa's Digital Infrastructure for Greater Economic Resilience

This report by the South African Institute of International Affairs outlines strategies to strengthen Africa's digital infrastructure to enhance economic resilience. It identifies critical gaps in both 'hard' infrastructure (power and broadband) and 'soft' infrastructure (digital ID and payment systems) and proposes a coordinated continental approach through the African Union and the AfCFTA to reduce fragmentation and attract investment.

• Africa faces significant gaps in 'hard' digital infrastructure, including electricity and broadband. In 2016, approximately 645 million Africans lacked electricity, and by 2022, only 40% of adults in sub-Saharan Africa had mobile internet access. Wired internet is particularly scarce, with only 20 million sub-Saharan African households having a wired connection in 2022, and distribution is uneven, favoring South Africa and Nigeria.
• There is a critical deficiency in 'soft' infrastructure, specifically digital identity and financial services. Nearly 500 million Africans lack any form of identity, and only 30% are formally registered with birth certificates. As of 2018, only 43% of African adults had access to formal financial services, and 83% of micro, small and medium enterprises reported unmet financing needs.
• Digital infrastructure development is currently dominated by multinational technology firms and China's Huawei, which provides 50% of the continent's 3G and 70% of its 4G infrastructure. This reliance, combined with national fragmentation, reduces the leverage of individual African countries in negotiations and leads to uneven infrastructure distribution, often neglecting rural areas and tier-2 cities.
• The report recommends that the African Union (AU) establish continental and regional policy and regulatory forums to create a consistent framework for AfCFTA signatories. This would include an African digital integration policy framework to enable a single digital market and seamless trade, modeled after the ASEAN Digital Integration Framework.
• To address the high risk and low foreign investment in terrestrial cabling, the report suggests the African Development Bank (AfDB) prioritize investment in wired, terrestrial digital networking infrastructure. This would allow national governments to focus on 'last-mile' digitalisation projects.
• The report proposes using blockchain-based social-impact bonds (SIBs) to de-risk last-mile connectivity investments. These smart contracts would remove intermediaries and align private investor returns with the achievement of predetermined social outcomes.
• African governments are encouraged to adopt public digital infrastructure platforms based on the 'India Stack' model. This involves creating specific agencies to develop open-access identity and payment platforms using open-source application programming interfaces (APIs) to increase financial inclusion.
• The report suggests the AU create an African digital integration index, similar to the ASEAN version, to measure digital readiness and progress across the continent's digital economy and society.

APA

South African Institute of International Affairs (2023). Strengthening Africa's Digital Infrastructure for Greater Economic Resilience. https://saiia.org.za/research/strengthening-africas-digital-infrastructure-for-greater-economic-resilience/

Chicago

South African Institute of International Affairs. Strengthening Africa's Digital Infrastructure for Greater Economic Resilience. 2023. https://saiia.org.za/research/strengthening-africas-digital-infrastructure-for-greater-economic-resilience/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=South African Institute of International Affairs |title=Strengthening Africa's Digital Infrastructure for Greater Economic Resilience |date=31 August 2023 |url=https://saiia.org.za/research/strengthening-africas-digital-infrastructure-for-greater-economic-resilience/ |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{southafricaninstituteofinternationalaffairs2023strengthening, author = {{South African Institute of International Affairs}}, title = {{Strengthening Africa's Digital Infrastructure for Greater Economic Resilience}}, institution = {South African Institute of International Affairs}, year = {2023}, month = aug, url = {https://saiia.org.za/research/strengthening-africas-digital-infrastructure-for-greater-economic-resilience/}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }