Navigating Africa’s Digital Partnerships in a Context of Global Rivalry

Policy Brief No. 180 — October 2023

Navigating Africa’s Digital Partnerships in a Context of Global Rivalry Folashadé Soulé Key Points → Growing geopolitical rivalry between the world’s biggest digital players has led African actors from the private and public sectors to adopt a mix of pragmatic approaches to negotiate digital partnerships to achieve their goals. → Africa’s choice of China as its preferred partner for digital infrastructure has more to do with China offering a suitable mix of financial and technological value and the lack of viable Western alternatives, than geopolitics. → African governments must leverage collective bargaining and subregional economic blocs in their engagements with technology providers to maximize their negotiations for infrastructure and services. → Trust, transparency, clarity in regulations and collaboration between governments, private sector companies and civil society, are key to successful partnerships that promote economic growth and digital development.

Introduction Rising geopolitical tensions between the world’s biggest digital powers, including China and the United States, have added a new layer of complexity to Africa’s relations with external partners as the continent grapples with the urgent need for digital development. The Negotiating Africa’s Digital Partnerships policy research project,1 hosted at the Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford, and supported by the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI), looks specifically at how African governmental actors negotiate and manage partnerships in the digital sector with new and rising partners (specifically around digital connectivity, infrastructure, digital governance positions in multilateral organizations, and establishing digital norms domestically and regionally) in a context of great power rivalries. Through a series of interviews with African ministers, senior policy makers, private sector executives and civil society actors, the project gathered valuable insights into these digital partnerships from the vantage point of those in charge of building and maintaining these strategic partnerships in both francophone and anglophone Africa. Findings suggest that the geopolitical competition has not gone unnoticed by African actors, impacting how they navigate these global rivalries at the

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See www.geg.ox.ac.uk/negotiating-africas-digital-partnerships-interviewseries.

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Navigating Africa’s Digital Partnerships in a Context of Global Rivalry

Published on Oct 12, 2023

Centre for International Governance Innovation

As African governments focus on developing their digital infrastructures, choosing global partners depends on which one is best able to meet their national digital priorities. But increasing tension between geopolitical rivals and digital powers, such as China and the United States, has made the decision-making process even more complex. As part of the Negotiating Africa’s Digital Partnerships policy research project, African ministers, policy makers and other stakeholders were interviewed to determine how these partnerships are negotiated. The interviews revealed that China has played a major role in Africa’s digital economic development. As a key strategic partner, China offers more affordable options than its Western counterparts through financing backed by Chinese grants and loans that have enabled the development of network infrastructure and internet access across the continent. The policy brief concludes with recommendations on how African governments can get the most from these partnerships.