African data highways depend on Chinese infrastructure, while the platforms and services that carry much of the data traffic are often dominated by US-based companies.
That observation came from Prof. Bulelani Jili, Assistant Professor at Georgetown University and a Harvard Law School Faculty Associate, who spoke via Zoom at the Alliance’s June online meeting.
He noted some exceptions, including TikTok, which do not fit neatly into this framing, but his broader point remains that control over digital infrastructures and services is unevenly distributed and African actors dependent on external players.
In this context, Jili identified four dimensions of data: ownership, location, commercial returns, and access. He pointed out that localised data centres did not necessarily resolve ownership issues and their relation to data access.
He outlined two broad approaches to African digital data flows. The first sees data as a source of value, raising questions about who captures the returns from this commodity. The second treats data as a public good and cultural product.
The first approach emphasizes the value of data aggregation, as well as policies on localisation and data-centre infrastructure. The second focuses on common projects, harmonised policies, including access for all, and respect for the claims of the communities generating the data.
Jili also argued that African agency in these debates must be strategic, especially given the digital stack, which spans undersea cables, internet service providers, applications, and users. In this sense, he argued, agency is not simply autonomous or fully self-generated; it is mediated by the infrastructures that enable it.
This allows us to think about agency and dependency as co-produced, with agency understood as a tethered effect rather than a binary opposition, said Jili.
He added that even the United States, despite its many forms of sovereignty, remains dependent on critical minerals from China for computer chips.
Meeting chair Liz Orembo concluded the discussion by highlighting the idea of “managed dependency” as a useful framework for thinking about these issues.