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Addressing lack of public engagement in Africa’s data governance practices

Public participation is an integral aspect of ensuring effective and advanced data governance practices. African countries are largely in need of strong and efficient data governance systems. To build such systems, there is an urgent need to carry the public along in policy formation, development and output. A prerequisite for active public engagement in data policy making is a citizenry that is aware and knowledgeable about data issues.

This brief was authored by Tomiwa Ilori, Sone Osakwe and Adedeji Adeniran

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Harnessing The Potential of Demographic Dividend In Sudan

Sudan has transitioned to the era of demographic dividend. Yet, evidence from various sources shows that adequate policies have not been put in place to enable the country to achieve this dividend. While there are indications of progress on policies geared towards achieving demographic dividend, a lot more needs to be done. Hence, after assessing the challenges and opportunities presented by the demographic transition in Sudan, this policy brief recommends five strategic policy areas needed to adequately position Sudan for a demographic dividend. The policy areas cover policies on education, health, economic growth, and political commitment.

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The Potential of Accelerated Education Programmes in Solving the Out-of- School Children and Youth Problem in West Africa

In many countries, myriad policy efforts and initiatives have been launched toward achieving the goal of Education for All. These include: grass-roots lobbying for the importance of schooling, political declarations for universal access to education, introduction of school fees abolition initiatives, and/or pro-poor education financing frameworks, among others (UNICEF, 2018, p.2). Despite these efforts, too many children are still excluded from schooling. One of the most recent statistics on out-of-school children and youth (OOSCY) shows that globally, 258  million children and youth are excluded from education, 59.1 million of which are of primary school age, 61.5 million of lower secondary school age, and 137.8  million of upper secondary age (UIS, 2019). Half of the world’s OOSCY population are concentrated in fourteen countries alone, nine of which are in sub-Saharan Africa and of which five are from West Africa including: Nigeria, Ghana, Mali, Burkina Faso and Cote d’Ivoire (Milan & Nicholas, 2015). Nigeria ranks highest among these five in terms of its number of out-of-school children, currently reaching up to 10.5 million.

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Curtailing State Extremism In Data Governance

There is an increasing level of attention and growing conversations at the national, regional and global levels, around the imperative for a more effective set of rules and regulations to guide the use and sharing of online data and digital footprints of individuals, firms and governments. The rationale is that a framework of policies and strategies is essential to address the inherent risks emerging from the recent data revolution. Emerging threats range from abuse and misuse of technologies and new communication media, lack of accountability from digital platform firms at the core of the data ecosystem, national security concerns, cyber crime, and user privacy issues. Such policies are intended to make digital platform firms accountable for how data is collected and used to generate insights, stored, shared and protected in order to engender trust in the data ecosystem.
In recognizing the importance of data governance, a grave challenge lies in determining the most appropriate approach to adopt, bearing in mind that the goal is not to “over regulate” which could stifle innovation, nor abuse governmental powers on these issues. Several approaches and frameworks for data governance are emerging in this respect on the African continent.

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Facilitating Finance and Global Trade for Small and Marginal Farmers in Africa

Agriculture has been an integral part of the human society, the most persisting productive human engagement across times and space. Globally, about 5 billion hectares are classified as agricultural land (comprising native as well as cultivated pasture). Of this figure, 25 percent is accounted for by the industrialized countries, an amount that at the global scale, has only little scope for expansion. Conversely, South, East and Southeast Asia account for only about 20 percent of the global agricultural land, while Sub-Saharan Africa accounts for about 18 percent. Global agricultural population is also reported to stand at around 2.6 billion people. In Africa, particularly, no less than half of the continent’s labour force is employed under agriculture, all pointing to the significance of agriculture as a sector in the human productive business and general development. Sadly, despite its contribution to the continent's development, agriculture in Africa suffers from a severe funding deficiency.

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