The ambition to establish an African Digital Single Market raises an immediate question: must every country adopt the same digital laws before businesses, data and services can move efficiently across the continent?
The answer is no.
African countries have different legal systems, economic priorities, institutional capacities and approaches to issues such as privacy, cybersecurity and national security. Attempting to impose one regulatory model on every market would be politically difficult, operationally complex and potentially insensitive to legitimate national interests.
What Africa needs is not complete regulatory uniformity, but interoperability.
“When we talk about harmonisation, people think that we are proposing one law for 55 African countries, but that is far from it,” said Chidera Ike-Okonkwo, Africa Director, Government Affairs and Public Policy, Nina Jojer, while chairing the “Governing the Digital Continent” panel at Hyperscalers Convergence Africa 2026. “The more practical proposition is interoperability, not uniformity.”
Interoperability would allow countries to retain their national laws while agreeing on the minimum standards, processes and safeguards necessary for their systems to interact. It offers a practical way to connect Africa’s fragmented markets without asking governments to surrender regulatory authority.
What interoperability means
Interoperability is often discussed as a technical issue – the ability of two platforms, networks or databases to exchange information. But establishing a connected African digital market will require more than compatible technology.
It will also require legal, regulatory, institutional and operational interoperability.
At the technical level, systems need compatible formats, interfaces and security protocols. At the legal level, countries must determine whether electronic records, signatures, licences and certifications issued in one jurisdiction can be recognised in another. Regulators need procedures for cooperating, exchanging information and addressing cross-border incidents.
Operational rules must also clarify how identity verification, consent, customer support, audit, liability and dispute resolution will work when a transaction involves several countries.
The African Union Interoperability Framework for Digital Identification reflects this broader approach. It covers business, technical, operational and legal requirements while allowing member states to retain control over the design of their national systems. It does not propose a single African identity database. Instead, it establishes the conditions under which existing and future systems could communicate and be trusted across borders. This model can be applied beyond digital identity to payments, cloud services, data protection, cybersecurity certifications and digital trade documentation.
Recognition matters as much as connection
Two systems may be technically capable of exchanging information without their respective governments accepting the legal validity of that information.
A digital identity issued in one country, for example, may be readable by a platform in another country. But that does not automatically mean that the second country will recognise the identity as sufficient for opening an account, registering a business or accessing a public service.
This is where mutual recognition becomes important.
Mutual recognition allows participating countries to accept specified decisions, licences, certifications or instruments issued by one another, provided that agreed standards have been met. It does not require their laws to be identical.
A national regulator may continue to apply higher domestic standards in sensitive areas while recognising that another country’s system provides adequate protection for an agreed category of activity. This can reduce repetitive applications and compliance checks without lowering regulatory safeguards.
President Paul Kagame captured the practical importance of this approach while addressing an African Union event on digital identity: “In the context of the African Continental Free Trade Area, it is critically important for African identity systems to be interoperable.”
Digital identity is only one use case. Mutual recognition could also cover electronic signatures, cybersecurity certifications, cloud security assessments, professional qualifications and aspects of financial services compliance.
The digital-trade framework already points in this direction
The African Continental Free Trade Area Protocol on Digital Trade provides a continental foundation for this work. Adopted in February 2024, the protocol seeks to establish predictable and transparent rules, promote cooperation among state parties and encourage common, open standards that enable systems to interoperate.
Its objective is not simply to increase online transactions. It is to create a trustworthy environment in which businesses and consumers can participate in digital trade across national markets.
Implementing the protocol will require countries to translate continental principles into domestic laws, regulations and institutional processes. It will also require cooperation among authorities responsible for telecommunications, data protection, cybersecurity, financial services, competition, taxation, customs and digital identity.
This is where many continental initiatives encounter difficulty. Political agreement may be reached, but the administrative machinery required to implement it develops more slowly.
As Gimba Mohammed, Director, Government and External Relations, IHS Towers, noted during the policy panel at Hyperscalers Convergence Africa, an agreement cannot deliver its intended result if “the engine that allows African countries to conduct the business” has not been created.
Interoperability is that engine. It converts high-level commitments into the processes companies and citizens encounter every day.
Why businesses need compatible systems
For an African technology company, regulatory fragmentation creates both visible and hidden costs.
A company entering five markets may need separate licences, dat -governance assessments, cybersecurity certifications and customer-verification arrangements. It may also have to redesign its systems to meet different data storage or reporting requirements.
Large companies may be able to absorb those expenses. Smaller African businesses are more likely to delay expansion or avoid certain markets entirely.
The result is a digital economy that remains divided into national markets even when the underlying technology is capable of serving the continent.
Interoperability would not eliminate compliance obligations. It would make them clearer and reduce unnecessary duplication. A company that meets an agreed standard in one participating country could use that approval as part of its entry into another, subject to any additional requirements justified by local risks.
Tony Emoekpere, President, Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria, compared the process to communication between technology platforms: “If there is a clear handshake between one level and another, and clearly defined protocols, then things work seamlessly.”
The same logic should guide regulatory systems. Each authority retains its mandate, but the points of interaction are clearly defined.
Starting with minimum standards
Africa does not need to make every digital framework interoperable at once. A more practical approach would identify a small number of priority areas with strong cross-border demand and measurable economic benefits. These could be tested through pilot programmes involving geographically and economically aligned markets, such as Anglophone West African countries, before being expanded across the wider region and continent.
Digital identity is one. Cross-border payments are another. Trusted mechanisms for transferring data between participating jurisdictions could also reduce uncertainty for fintechs, cloud providers and regional enterprises.
Countries could begin by agreeing on:
- Common terminology and data classifications
- Minimum cybersecurity and privacy safeguards
- Standards for electronic signatures and records
- Procedures for recognising digital identities
- Regulatory contact points for cross-border incidents
- Compatible licensing and reporting requirements
- Mutual recognition of selected audits and certifications
- Clear rules for liability and dispute resolution
These arrangements could first be tested between a small group of willing countries or within regional economic communities. Lessons from the pilots could then inform wider continental implementation.
The objective should be measurable functionality rather than immediate continent-wide perfection.
Trust is the real infrastructure
Interoperability depends ultimately on trust. Regulators must be confident that institutions in other countries will enforce agreed standards, protect sensitive information and respond effectively when problems arise.
Businesses need confidence that approvals will be recognised and that rules will not change unexpectedly. Citizens need assurance that their data and rights will remain protected when they use services beyond their national borders.
Building that trust will require independent oversight, transparent assessments and reliable mechanisms for cooperation between regulators. It will also require sustained participation from the private sector, which understands how regulatory differences affect the design and delivery of services.
Smart Africa has begun developing cross-border data exchange guidelines with participating member states as part of its effort to create trusted, interoperable digital services. Describing the initiative, Smart Africa Chief Executive Officer Lacina Koné said: “We are laying the foundation for a secure, interoperable and citizen-centric digital ecosystem.” Such efforts demonstrate that continental integration can be pursued without constructing a single centralised system.
A connected market without identical laws
Africa’s diversity does not have to be an obstacle to digital integration. The continent can preserve national authority while making its markets easier to navigate.
The practical test is not whether two countries have identical laws. It is whether a citizen’s identity can be verified securely across their borders; whether a business can receive a cross-border payment without unnecessary delays; whether regulators can cooperate during a cybersecurity incident; and whether a company can understand its obligations without rebuilding its compliance system in every market.
Interoperability makes those outcomes possible.
The Digital Single Market will not emerge from one treaty, platform or institution. It will be built through hundreds of deliberate connections between laws, regulators, infrastructure and services.
Africa does not need to erase its regulatory differences. It needs to ensure those differences no longer prevent its systems from working together.
