The Challenges Facing “Digital Sovereignty” in Sub-Saharan Africa

In the digital landscape of the 21st century, computer coding shapes destinies and connectivity bridges continents, while algorithms open new doors and networks embrace all corners of the globe. China, the United States, and sub-Saharan Africa, the two economic and technological superpowers along with an emerging region embracing innovation and advancement, are closely tied by these digital threads. This is illustrated by Google, the US-based multinational tech giant, which dominates the web search landscape in South Africa, conducting 92.3 percent of searches, and by the Chinese telecom behemoth Huawei, which has been instrumental in building 70 percent of African 4G networks. China and the United States seem to be actively participating in the development space and promoting Africa's digital sovereignty, but beneath this glittering surface lies the shadowy reality of digital colonialism and the harmful power imbalances that have unfolded in the Global South. Their influence reverberates far beyond their borders through economic control, technological domination, and global surveillance capitalism.

China, the United States, and Sub-Saharan Africa share a complex history marked by the influence of colonization. China faced imperialistic intrusions from countries such as Britain, France, and Germany during the 19th century. In the United States, the 13 colonies of Great Britain, the New Spain territories, and the French settlements composed the era of colonization in North America. In Africa, the Scramble for Africa 140 years ago marked imperialist wars and annexations waged by European superpowers exploiting native labor and resources. Fast forward to today’s technological era, in the digital age, the once-colonized have become colonists, taking on digital forms invasion and expropriation in nations that share similar scars, through communication networks that amass data for profit and control.

The modern digital environment is marked by the remnants of imperialism and colonialism. China’s 2013 Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a trillion-dollar soft-power foreign development plan seeking to increase Beijing’s influence in host nations, and United States’ 2022 Digital Transformation with Africa Initiative, a $800 million plan encouraging the execution of a comprehensive digital foreign policy agenda for Africa that can sustain the competitive edge of the United States, allow the technological superpowers to largely control digital flows, giving rise to dependencies for Sub-Saharan economies akin to the international relations that characterized the peak of European colonialism. This dependency hinders the development of indigenous economies, including their industrial capacity and IT sectors, with far-reaching ramifications. As the burgeoning digital colonialism stifles the autonomy and growth of developing nations, it perpetuates an unequal global power dynamic.

With technology from developed countries increasingly being introduced and adopted in Sub-Saharan African nations, local economies face unprecedented challenges and risk being outcompeted. In Johannesburg, for instance, e-taxi applications have begun to replace local South African taxis, with Uber in particular taking a substantial 25 percent commission for each trip, resulting in a significant outflow of revenue from the local economy to foreign companies. These foreign technological companies thus exacerbate the long-standing problem of capital flight from Africa, further limiting the financial resources that could be made available for domestic investment.  

The rise of e-commerce platforms that were founded or backed by Western and Chinese business people—like Jumia in Nigeria, Takealot in South Africa, and Kilimall in Kenya—has also challenged traditional brick and mortar retail businesses in Sub-Saharan Africa, resulting in a 14 percent decline in retail outlets. This shift perpetuates the economic power imbalance and further exacerbates the dependency on external entities, strengthening the dominance of the digital superpowers. As a result, the development of indigenous digital economies and local businesses is hindered, limiting the opportunities for growth and progress within the region.

In the digital colonization of Sub-Saharan Africa, the exploitation of resources echoes the historical extraction of physical wealth during the Scramble for Africa. In today’s digital world this takes the form of the exploitation of data, with multinational corporations and dominant nations leveraging valuable information without adequate compensation or benefit sharing. China, for instance, implements facial recognition technology in various southern African nations, notably Zimbabwe, capitalizing on the data of millions of dark-skinned individuals. These valuable datasets are freely given away, enabling Chinese AI technology firms to advance their capabilities at the expense of African citizens’ privacy and data sovereignty. 

In addition, tech giants such as Microsoft, Google, Pearson, and IBM are flexing their muscles within educational systems across the Global South. Microsoft, for instance, has sought to persuade African governments to replace free software with Microsoft Windows, aiming to discourage the use of the GNU/Linux FOSS operating system in government ministries and schools. This expansion of Big Tech’s influence is rapidly permeating educational systems in Sub-Saharan Africa. Giselle Ferreira and her co-authors, writing from Brazil, note that this occurs “When GAFA [Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple] companies generously offer technologies to disadvantaged students, [and] data is unimpededly extracted and subsequently treated in a manner that renders local specificities devoid of importance.”

The dominance of United States-based technology firms in the Global South also enables the US National Security Agency (NSA) to gain unprecedented access to foreign populations. Such control over data by dominant players in the digital realm opens the door to potential abuses and violations of individual rights. The South African government, for example, needs to rely on the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty to access private information about individuals of interest, even if the individual is a legal citizen of the country. This further limits the local government’s sovereignty in Sub-Saharan African nations by forcing them to rely on key technologies they do not have control over. 

Given the difficulties in producing these technologies and the high expense of acquiring them, Chinese and US technologies have become an essential import for many countries. Many nations, in their haste to get online, have also chosen to disregard the risk: “You can see why when the US said ‘don’t work with Huawei’, the Africans looked and shrugged and said ‘Yeah, that’s not going to happen’,” notes Eric Olander, co-founder of the China Africa Project, a non-profit organization in Shanghai. Many African countries have become nearly totally dependent on foreign countries for technology and services due to the allure of cheap loans and investments.

In the face of digital colonialism’s continued expansion, resistance policies have emerged in Sub-Saharan Africa, aimed at challenging the dominance of external forces and fostering digital sovereignty. For example, in 2013, the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA) was enacted in South Africa to regulate the processing of personal information and safeguarding individuals’ privacy rights. This policy was a step in the right direction, but more active measures need to be implemented in the confrontation against digital colonialism. Efforts towards digital sovereignty have already gained momentum across Africa, with South Africa and other African countries advocating for their rights to control digital resources and data on the continent. Such offenses against the imperial powers signal a united front against digital colonialism, striving to reclaim agency, foster innovation, and establish a more equitable digital future for Sub-Saharan Africa.