AIRA is pleased to announce the launch of a new policy brief, Governing Digital Public Infrastructure for Rights and Equity in Africa, developed by Pollicy with support from AIRA. The brief is published as a companion to “An Afrofeminist Analysis of Digital Public Infrastructure in Uganda, South Africa and Kenya“, and offers a focused policy analysis of one of the most consequential — and underexamined — questions in African digital governance today: who does Digital Public Infrastructure actually serve, and what does it take to govern it in a way that advances rights and equity rather than undermining them?
Digital Public Infrastructure — encompassing digital identification systems, mobile payment platforms, and data-sharing networks — has become central to Africa’s digital transformation agenda. The brief does not dispute the potential of DPI to expand access and improve service delivery. What it interrogates is the gap between that potential and current implementation realities across the continent.
Several patterns emerge from the evidence. DPI systems are frequently designed around an assumed universal user: literate, digitally confident, securely connected, and politically unencumbered. In practice, this assumed user excludes the majority of people DPI is meant to serve. Women’s digital access is mediated by patriarchal norms, unequal household power, and lower levels of digital literacy. Ethnic minorities face vetting processes and citizenship denials that predate — and persist into — digital ID systems. When infrastructure is built on these unaddressed foundations, exclusion is not an unintended consequence. It is embedded in the design.
The brief also examines the governance environment in which DPI is expanding. Africa recorded 21 internet shutdowns across 15 countries in 2024. Surveillance laws have extended state monitoring capacity in several jurisdictions. Opaque partnerships between governments and private companies have generated legitimate public distrust. In this context, DPI that lacks independent oversight, transparent accountability mechanisms, and accessible redress processes does not simply fall short of its promise — it carries active risks for the communities it touches.
Particular attention is given to gender. The brief documents how discriminatory legal frameworks in several African countries require women to obtain male authorisation to access foundational ID documents. It also examines the less-discussed finding that women’s growing financial independence through digital payment systems has, in some contexts, been linked to increased household conflict and gender-based violence — a risk that DPI policy and implementation planning rarely incorporates.
The policy recommendations that follow are directed at governments, regulators, and civil society. They include mandating gender-by-design frameworks that move beyond gender-neutral mechanisms, dismantling discriminatory legal barriers to ID access, treating digital financial inclusion as an economic right requiring active last-mile investment, and building independent oversight structures that citizens can trust and use.
The full brief is available to download below. We commend it to policymakers, regulators, civil society organisations, and researchers working at the intersection of digital rights, governance, and equity in Africa.
Download the policy brief → Governing Digital Public Infrastructure for Rights and Equity in Africa _ Policy Brief
