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On April 27 2021, Mr. Lacina Koné, Director General of the Smart Africa Secretariat, a non-governmental organization registered in Kigali, and Mr. Christian Yoka, Regional Director for the French Development Agency (AFD) in East Africa, signed a grant agreement aimed at strengthening and harmonising Africa’s data protection frameworks.
The 200 000 euros grant from AFD will help Smart Africa establish a harmonized framework for the protection of personal data in African countries, with reference to the Malabo Convention, and in light of other international and regional frameworks such as the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation, or the Paris Call for Trust in the Digital World.
The funding will specifically allow:
• An analysis report on the main challenges of harmonizing applicable legal frameworks in Africa
• A framework document that will serve as a guideline for Smart Africa Member States to develop country-specific data protection and policy strategies
• A series of recommendations to the African Union in the fulfilment of its mandate under the Malabo Convention.
“The partnership that Smart Africa has with AFD is essential in advancing the vision of transforming Africa into a Single Digital Market. Data protection is at the centre of everything that we do. The principles of data protection are important in ensuring that we introduce technologies that protect our people and our institutions and that encourage innovation and progress, thereby achieving the concept of ”privacy-by-design” in all our ecosystem”, said Mr. Lacina Koné, Director General of Smart Africa.
“Digitisalisation of public services fosters good governance, reduces business costs and stimulates Africa’s economies. In this context, we strongly believe that the harmonization of digital regulatory frameworks will pave the way for businesses and investments in the digital economy, especially in key infrastructure like data centres”, said Mr. Christian Yoka, Regional Director Eastern Africa at AFD.
This will be carried out by a working group on data protection, established by the Smart Africa Secretariat. The working group will bring together member countries, data protection authorities, private sector representatives, technical partners under the leadership of the Smart Africa Secretariat and the stewardship of the republic of Senegal. This working group will support current efforts towards a harmonized data protection framework, which will aim to define guidelines for all the Smart Africa Alliance member states that wish to develop data protection policy strategies.