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Africa’s growing digital economy is attracting increasing interest from global technology investors, but regulatory fragmentation and multiple approval processes remain significant barriers to deploying capital across the continent.
A single digital infrastructure project, such as a data centre, can require approvals covering telecommunications, environmental standards, data hosting, financial services and national security, often involving several government agencies.
Speaking at the ITW Data Cloud Africa 2026 summit, Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, director-general of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), said governments must move away from fragmented regulatory structures and provide investors with a more coordinated interface.
“Investors don’t want to deal with ten different government departments,” Inuwa said during a high-level panel on aligning policy with digital investment. “They want to see one government.”
NITDA advocates shift from regulatory silos
The convergence of cloud computing, high-density data infrastructure and generative artificial intelligence is exposing the limitations of traditional sector-by-sector regulation.
NITDA is therefore promoting a horizontal regulatory approach that establishes broad standards covering areas such as cybersecurity, data privacy and cloud sovereignty, which sector-specific regulators can subsequently apply to their respective industries.
The agency says the approach is already demonstrating its potential. Under Nigeria’s National Sovereign Cloud Initiative, the Central Bank of Nigeria adopted NITDA’s core regulatory baseline when issuing a single financial-sector circular.
The approach reduces the need for financial institutions to navigate separate requirements across multiple agencies, replacing them with a unified regulatory standard.
Standardised rules could unlock cross-border investment
Inuwa also highlighted the need for greater regulatory alignment across Africa, where differences among the continent’s 54 countries can increase the cost and complexity of deploying digital infrastructure.
He called for standardised data classifications that clearly distinguish sovereign in-country data, public cloud assets and hybrid infrastructure models.
Such interoperability could allow regulators in different African markets to recognise compliance assessments carried out elsewhere. This, in turn, could facilitate cross-border data flows while reducing the need for technology companies to undergo similar certification processes in every jurisdiction.
For international investors, greater regulatory consistency could improve predictability and reduce some of the compliance costs associated with expanding digital infrastructure across multiple African markets.
NITDA positions regulation as a market enabler
Addressing concerns that African regulators can sometimes be perceived as focusing primarily on taxation and revenue generation, Inuwa said NITDA’s regulatory mandate is intended to support market development.
“We do not charge for regulations,” Inuwa emphasised, explaining that the agency operates under a “Regulatory Intelligence Framework” aimed at encouraging market participation rather than extracting fees.
He said NITDA’s priorities include creating markets, developing local capacity and providing investors with the predictability required to commit capital over the long term.
The panel brought together regulatory and industry stakeholders, including Caroline Okafor of the Nigeria Data Protection Commission, Tony Izuagbe Emoekpere of the Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria, Mercy Ndegwa of Meta and Eng. Dennis Chepkwony of the Communications Authority of Kenya.
Co-regulation could strengthen Africa’s digital investment environment
NITDA’s push for co-regulation reflects a broader need for African governments to make regulatory systems more coordinated as investment in cloud infrastructure, data centres, artificial intelligence and other digital technologies accelerates.
A more interoperable regulatory framework could reduce administrative friction, strengthen compliance certainty and make it easier for investors to deploy capital across borders.
For Africa’s digital economy, the challenge is increasingly not only attracting investment but also creating the regulatory infrastructure that allows that capital to move efficiently and sustainably.
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