Africa to Establish Digital Economy Accelerator Initiative

African countries have agreed to establish the Africa Digital Economy Accelerator Initiative as a continental platform aimed at strengthening collaboration, accelerating digital inclusion and driving sustainable economic growth, following resolutions reached at the Nigerian Government side-event of the just-concluded WSIS+20 UN General Assembly High-Level Meeting held at the United Nations Headquarters in New York.

The decision was contained in a communiqué issued at the end of the three-day meeting, which called on African nations to pursue purposeful, outcome-driven partnerships through Public-Private Partnership (PPP) models to bridge persistent gaps in digital infrastructure, access and digital literacy.

The communiqué underscored the importance of joint reporting on the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) action lines and targets, while encouraging governments across Africa to prioritise the use of regulatory sandboxes to pilot inclusive digital innovations.

It also emphasised the need to deepen grassroots engagement in order to co-create people-centred digital policies capable of reaching underserved and marginalised communities across the continent.

As part of the agreed framework, WSIS+20 will establish regular engagement sessions at the margins of annual national, sub-regional and regional Internet governance forums to ensure continuity, coordination and effective follow-up on agreed actions.

“To ensure coordinated activities among members, WSIS+20 will establish a functional helpdesk of liaisons within participating organisations to facilitate the exchange of relevant data, information and knowledge,” the communiqué stated.

“It will also foster digital transformation and effective data governance in line with relevant African Union frameworks, enabling Africa to move from dialogue to concrete action in closing digital divides through inclusive digital public goods and digital public infrastructure,” it added.

For Nigeria, the communiqué noted that the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) will serve as the coordination secretariat for the country’s multi-stakeholder engagement and lead the implementation of the enhanced Digital Cooperation Accelerator for Africa under the informal, non-binding framework.