Open Forum #18 Harmonising African regulation for cross-border data flows

Tuesday, 7 December 2021 (16:15 CET-17:15 CET)

Moderator: Alison Gillwald

Online Moderator: Mahlet Tesfahun

Panellists: Souhila Amazouz, Michuki Mwangi, Pilar Fajarnes, Pren-Tsilya Boa-Guehe, Lorrayne Porciuncula

Rapporteur: Anri van der Spuy

The session provided an opportunity for the African Union Commission (AUC) to share recent developments pertaining to its Digital Transformation Strategy in general and its Data Policy Framework in particular. It also enabled various stakeholders – including a lively audience – to engage with the opportunities and risks of datafication processes in global South contexts, and to share their views about the proposed policy frameworks. 

Featuring panellists from a diversity of stakeholder groups, including civil society (Lorrayne Porciuncula), NGOs (Michuki Mwangi), the private sector (Pren-Tsilya Boa-Guehe), intergovernmental organizations (Pilar Fajarnes) (stakeholder categories loosely defined), the session explored the importance of putting in place adequate data governance frameworks for both the development of more inclusive digital economies and for enabling more people to participate actively in socio-digital societies on the continent. This is especially the case for women, refugees, people living in poverty, and other marginalised communities on the continent.

Panellists noted that the Covid-19 pandemic has not only highlighted the importance of ensuring equitable digital inclusion that result in meaningful opportunities and outcomes (or digital equity) around the world, but has exposed significant inequalities when it comes to datafication and the global digital economy. This is especially the case in Africa, where low levels of Internet penetration has made the socio-economic impacts of prolonged lockdown periods more damaging than in better connected societies. Finding ways of addressing these inequalities is therefore important, and the African Union Commission’s draft data governance framework endeavours to so in a way that is not only ground-breaking for the continent, but also for the world. As the moderator explained, the framework adopts a data justice conceptual approach to enable the development of a data economy across Africa while addressing the uneven distribution of opportunities and harms in the current global data ecosystem.

Souhila Amazouz, representative from the AUC, explained that the framework was developed using a wholly multistakeholder approach, with participants from various relevant stakeholder communities, and is currently being examined by the AU’s policy organs. The framework builds upon other policy efforts on the continent, including the African Union Convention on Cyber Security and Personal Data Protection (the Malabo Convention), and ultimately aims to support African countries to leverage the transformative power of digital technologies to improve Africans’ lives. It also supports the draft interoperability framework for digital identity, which is currently being considered by the AUC and was also discussed in a separate session at the IGF (see the session report for the IGF open forum #27).

Some panellists warned about the tendency, especially prevalent in the global South, of certain policymakers to opt for data localisation governance mechanisms to address these risks. One panellist, Lorrayne Porciuncula from the Internet & Jurisdiction Policy Network, pointed out that data localisation measures have more than doubled in the past four years. She called for a more informed debate about the nature of data and how we enhance the opportunities while mitigate the risks of data sharing. A data governance approach which embraces considerations like socio-economic growth and development while enabling adequate protection and justice is critical for the continent, and requires thinking beyond data localisation as a narrative.

From a supply side, some panellists argued that investments in training, creativity and innovations on the continent need to be bolstered in order to avoid Africa being primarily a consumer as opposed to a producer in digital economies. One panellist argued that Africa’s data markets currently largely being merely a lucrative market for foreign entities to extract data from, and that Africans need to be empowered to become more than raw products that are exploited for benefit elsewhere.

From a demand side, panellists from Google and the Internet Society pointed to the importance of ensuring that appropriate infrastructure is put in place to enable the technical architecture of Africa’s data economy to thrive. Pren-Tsilya Boa-Guehe (Google) noted that organisations like Google are investing in sub-sea cables to increase network capacity on the continent, while Michuki Mwangi (Internet Society) stressed the crucial significance of ensuring better data flows for optimised performance. Mr Mwangi argued that policymakers need to be engaged to think more critically about points of interconnection rather than countries of interconnection.

To conclude, panellists and audience members agreed on the need to encourage African policymakers to think beyond prohibitive notions of “data localisation” to more empowering, transformative and cutting-edge policies for the continent. Many panellists and audience members congratulated the AUC for its effort to harmonise data policies, which some pointed out to be a rather unique approach to data governance. One audience member noted that the data policy framework could indeed serve as an example to countries in the global north.