Data Sovereignty in Africa

Date
Section
OoD
Document Type
Statistical Operational Documents
Keywords Description Background
Africa’s digital transformation is accelerating. The African Union’s Digital Transformation Strategy places digitalisation at the centre of the continent’s development agenda[1]. In 2025, Global System for Mobile Communications Association estimated 416 million mobile internet users in Africa, equivalent to a mobile internet penetration rate of 28 per cent, while the International Telecommunication Union put overall internet use on the continent at about 36 per cent of the population[2][3]. The Africa Data Centres Association estimates that Africa still accounts for only 0.6 per cent of global data-centre capacity[7]. Public trackers reported 43–44 African countries with data protection laws by early 2026, depending on methodology, and 38 fully operational data protection authorities[14][15]. The governance challenge is therefore no longer only about connectivity; it is also about who governs, stores, secures, and derives value from African data.
For purposes of this brief, data sovereignty means the right and practical ability of a State to govern data generated within its jurisdiction through its own laws, institutions, technical controls, and economic policy choices[4][5]. It has four interconnected dimensions: legal jurisdiction, institutional control, economic sovereignty, and security/confidentiality
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