For much of the twentieth century, state power in Africa was measured in kilometers of rail and asphalt. Today, the infrastructure of governance is invisible. Across the continent, governments are racing to build Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI)—the interoperable identity systems, payment rails, and data exchanges that will define the twenty-first-century social contract.
As Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) becomes central to how African governments deliver services, manage identity systems, and facilitate economic inclusion, it promises to connect millions to essential services: healthcare, education, social protection. But if they are poorly designed or badly governed, they can just as easily leave people out.
System Error: The Human Cost of Flawed Digital ID
Uganda’s National Digital ID (Ndaga Muntu) shows this tension clearly. In 2021, it excluded over 20% of citizens from healthcare due to digital ID errors. Refugees, stateless persons, the elderly, and rural communities were especially affected, being locked out by rigid registration requirements, technical failures, and no way to appeal.
Similar tensions are witnessed in neighboring Kenya, where a $60 million Huduma Namba digital ID rollout unfolded behind closed doors in 2019. The government contracted IDEMIA, a firm Parliament had banned for a decade, without public consultation; and when organizations such as Kenya Human Rights Commission and Nubian Rights Forum demanded transparency and data protection safeguards, they were treated as adversaries, not partners.
These examples raise a central question: can Africa build digital systems that genuinely serve people, or will DPI become another infrastructure of inequality, inaccessible to the vulnerable and insulated from democratic oversight?
The African Union now recognizes DPI as essential for inclusive development – seemingly becoming the backbone of 21st-century governance. At its best, DPI promises efficiency, inclusion, innovation (reducing bureaucratic friction), extending services to the unreached, and creating platforms for enterprise and participation.
This promise is already taking shape with several DPI initiatives across the continent. Nigeria and Kenya have advanced digital ID systems. Ghana is building a national data exchange. Rwanda is using real-time health dashboards, Mozambique had 59,000+ birth certificates and 42,000+ IDs issued during a pilot of integrated civil registration and ID mobile brigade campaigns in Cabo Delgado and two other pilot provinces, while mobile money in Côte d’Ivoire and Uganda is transforming how millions transact and save.
The telecom sector demonstrates how private sector leadership, coupled with supportive policy environments, can drive inclusive connectivity, showing that when governments build the “rails” (regulatory frameworks, policies, and incentives) and leverage private sector financing, innovation can scale effectively.
Fragmented Data and the Struggle for Interoperability
The reality however, is more complex, with the progress coexisting with serious gaps. Over 550 million Africans still lack official ID, internet access remains uneven and often expensive, digital literacy is low in many regions, and data systems are fragmented and difficult to connect. The recently completed DPI Summit 2025 highlighted that cross-border interoperability remains a challenge, with trading even across regional economic blocs proving difficult.
Little wonder, Africa has the lowest DPI coverage in the world: fewer than half of African countries have any DPI system in place, compared to over two-thirds globally. Where DPI does exist, its politics quickly become visible.
By 2023, Uganda’s digital ID had excluded 23% of eligible citizens from health and social services, with refugees, rural women, and older people hit hardest. In Kenya, rights groups challenged biometric surveillance in court, contesting procurement secrecy and absent data protections. In Nigeria, local organizations have campaigned for fairer and more inclusive voter registration. In Senegal, civic tech groups track whether digital social assistance reaches intended recipients.
These are not isolated incidents. Together, they reveal a pattern: when DPI is designed and deployed without transparency, accountability, or meaningful participation, it becomes a tool of exclusion rather than inclusion. This pattern of exclusion is unfolding within a broader geopolitical context that also shapes how DPI is built and governed.
The New Scramble for Africa’s Cloud: Sovereignty in the Balance
Africa’s digital public infrastructure is emerging in what could be described as a “new scramble for data and cloud markets,” where foreign companies are increasingly involved in building and operating critical systems and infrastructure. Kenya’s recent USD 1 billion digital ecosystem agreement with Microsoft and G42 is one example. The deal includes building a large green data center in Kenya that will host a new Microsoft Azure cloud region for East Africa.
The promise and the geopolitical risk of such arrangements is evident. On the one hand, this brings investment, computing power, and skills development. On the other, it raises concerns about long-term dependence, bargaining power, and how much control African states truly have over their data.
These tensions are amplified by weak and uneven governance. Many countries still face regulatory challenges such as fragmented or outdated digital and data laws, under-resourced regulators, and limited independent oversight.
At the same time, other stakeholders such as civil society remain under-represented in DPI governance: recent work on CSO engagement in DPI finds that fewer than a quarter of African CSOs are involved in independent evaluation of digital ID, payment, or data-exchange platforms, leaving major decisions to governments and large vendors with little public scrutiny.
This imbalance is particularly concerning given that effective multistakeholder engagement not only builds legitimacy but also strengthens government efforts by integrating diverse expertise and perspectives.
As one participant at the DPI Summit 2025 noted, “it’s about me being able to participate in my local government,” a reminder that inclusion must be embedded in policy. Africa’s DPI trajectory is therefore defined by dual realities: growing adoption of digital IDs, data exchanges, and payment rails, alongside structural risks of exclusion, opaque outsourcing, and rights-blind design.
Engineering Trust Through Regulatory Sandboxes
Whether DPI becomes a bridge or a barrier in Africa will depend less on the technology itself and more on how it is governed and whether people trust it. Emerging repeatedly at the 2025 DPI Summit, trust was referenced as the most critical factor for DPI success, with delegates emphasizing that much of the work on DPI is fundamentally relational.
People tend to trust what they can understand – which raises a crucial design question: how do we intentionally create spaces where feedback, transparency, and participation are embedded in the process, and where one can identify and address risks before systems are rolled out nationwide? It is in this context that tools that move participation from rhetoric to practice are critical.
Regulatory and operational sandboxes offer a practical way to change this. Instead of “deploy now, fix later,” sandboxes create a controlled, time-bound environment where governments, regulators, technologists, civil society, and affected communities can test parts of DPI before large-scale deployment.
This can include digital IDs, payment rails, or rules about how data is shared between agencies. Evidence from fintech and AI sandboxes shows that these spaces can clarify rules, reveal exclusion or privacy risks, and refine consent, redress, and business models early in the process.
In Africa, well-designed sandboxes could help adapt DPI policies to local realities, build trust through real engagement, and ensure systems are co-created with the people they affect: aligning digital ambition with sovereignty, safety, and inclusion.
Looking ahead, Africa’s next digital decade will be shaped not just by whether DPI is adopted, but by how it is imagined, tested, and governed. Getting this right means investing in the people and institutions who design and oversee these systems, not only on the technical side but also on human rights, inclusion, and risk management.
It also means DPI cannot remain a closed conversation between governments and big technology providers. Clear information about system design, procurement, and data use; strong accountability when harm occurs; and concrete efforts to inform and engage citizens are essential if trust is to be earned rather than assumed.
Ultimately, the future of DPI in Africa will hinge on one simple but demanding condition: trust. People will only rely on digital ID systems, payment platforms, and data exchanges if they believe these tools protect their rights instead of threatening them.
Sandboxes offer one of the most practical ways to build that trust, by allowing risks to be tested openly and safeguards to be adjusted before systems go live. If African countries invest in sandbox approaches that are genuinely participatory and transparent, they can let innovation grow alongside oversight, and make sure that trust is built through evidence and shared experience, not just official promises.
The post Bridges or Barriers? Governing Africa’s Digital Public Infrastructure appeared first on The Datasphere Initiative.