19. Digital Governance and State Capacity in Africa: Institutional Challenges in Public-Sector Digital Transformation

The drive towards digital transformation has been a growing part of the agenda for public-sector reform in Africa. Governments are implementing various technologies—such as digital identification systems, online public service platforms, electronic payment systems, data-sharing infrastructure, digital procurement systems, etc.—to enhance administrative efficiency, the access to and nature of public services, accountability, and state responsiveness. However, increasing the use of digital government does not necessarily lead to improved state capacity. The success of any digital transformation relies on public organisations' institutional capacity to coordinate digital transformation, fund and sustain digital infrastructure, build skills, create interoperability, secure data, oversee cybersecurity, and integrate digital investments into everyday administrative operations. The article explores the institutional challenges that explain digital transformation in the public sector in Africa, specifically by looking at the link between digital governance and state capacity. Based on evidence from the African Union, the United Nations, the World Bank, the OECD and comparative digital-government datasets, it claims that the flipside of the digitization of technologies is the decentralization of digital government within the state itself. There is persistent evidence of poor interoperability, digital skills, institutional coordination, regulatory capacity, data governance, cyber security, financing, and citizen inclusion. Meanwhile, there have been tangible advances in online service provision, digital identification, digital payments, and common digital infrastructure in Africa. This analysis thus denies a straightforward technologization deficit explanation. Rather, digital transformation is seen as an institutional-capacity challenge in which technology, administrative organisation, regulations, human resources and political coordination play a part. The article concludes that sustainable digital governance needs to foster a holistic approach to coordination among government bodies, interoperable digital public infrastructure (DPI), improved capacities of public sector, institutionalized data governance, cybersecurity capacities and tools for assessing real service use and administrative outcomes.