Last November in Cape Town, I moderated a session titled “Picking the Right Lane: The Road to Digital Inclusion”.
A year later, I still replay that conversation, not out of nostalgia, but because the questions we asked then still matter today.
We’ve heard “digital inclusion” in every strategy, summit, and press release. Everyone agrees it’s essential; few agree on what it actually looks like.
“Infrastructure is essential, but if it isn’t paired with affordability, literacy, and trust, it becomes another barrier wrapped in fibre.”
To me, inclusion has never been about gadgets or connectivity. It’s about designing systems where people, regardless of where they start, can participate, create value, and shape outcomes.
One year later: What changed, and what didn’t
That afternoon at the EQL: HER Lounge in the Cape Town International Convention Centre, I sat alongside three remarkable leaders: Eng. John Kipchumba Tanui, Kenya’s Principal Secretary for ICT and the Digital Economy; Kate Dewing of Amdocs South Africa; and Sinal Govender of the Allan Grey Orbis Foundation.
We spoke about affordable internet, rural access, women’s participation, and the untapped potential of public-private collaboration. Each insight felt urgent.
And yet, a year later, many of those same challenges persist, not from lack of will, but because inclusion still sits in pilot mode while inequality scales faster than infrastructure.
That isn’t a critique; it’s an invitation.
Across Africa, extraordinary progress is happening, from Kenya’s Digital Superhighway to Nigeria’s broadband expansion and South Africa’s entrepreneurship ecosystems.
The issue isn’t innovation. It’s the alignment of intent. We don’t need to compete for credit; we need to start connecting capacity.
The architecture of inclusion
Inclusion, at its heart, is architecture. It’s how we design data systems, governance models, and market incentives to work together.
At eHealth Africa, where I lead Partnerships & Programs, we see this daily. Whether it’s solarising primary health centres across northern Nigeria or connecting frontline workers to national health data systems, the significant impact emerges only when technology, funding, and governance speak the same language.
The same is true across the digital economy.
Infrastructure is essential, but if it isn’t paired with affordability, literacy, and trust, it becomes another barrier wrapped in fibre.
We can build towers and still leave people disconnected, not because they lack signal, but because the systems around them don’t recognise their realities.
Collaboration as a competitive advantage
The world’s development landscape is shifting fast. Foreign-aid models are being rewritten. Budgets are tightening. Partnerships are being judged by outcomes, not promises.
Within that uncertainty lies a rare opportunity: that collaboration itself is becoming innovation.
Recent analyses from Devex and the World Bank point to a global reset, one where the lines between philanthropy and profit, between donor and investor, are blurring.
That should energise Africa, because it rewards what we already do best, i.e., adapt, co-create, and leapfrog.
Public-private partnerships are no longer charity projects; they are systems accelerators.
When designed transparently, everyone wins: governments gain resilience, businesses gain markets, and citizens gain dignity.
During our Cape Town session, Eng. Tanui said something that stayed with me:
“When citizens trust digital systems, they invest their time, data, and creativity in them.”
That’s the new economy, an economy of trust.
Read also: FG targets 35 million disabled Nigerians in digital inclusion drive
Women as system builders
Too often, digital inclusion frames women as beneficiaries. They are also architects.
Africa’s digital future cannot run on half its talent. From coders to ministers, women are already driving this agenda, but scaling it requires structural recognition, not symbolic visibility.
That’s what made the EQL: HER Lounge special. It normalised women leading technical and policy discussions, not just “women’s panels”.
That shift matters. It signals to every young woman watching that leadership isn’t a seat you wait to be given; it’s a system you can build yourself.
Global headwinds, local resolve
Globally, we’re in an age of volatility, shifting aid priorities, new geopolitics, and big questions about how purpose and profit can coexist.
For African innovators, this might feel constraining. Yet it’s also the perfect environment to show the world what inclusive resilience looks like.
Although headlines debate funding cuts and fragile peace agreements, local actors keep building.
Youth-led enterprises are designing AI education tools. Governments are digitising services. Networks like the African Digital Health Networks are creating shared interoperability frameworks.
These are not isolated wins. They are the architecture of inclusion being built from the ground up.
Inclusion as a mindset, not a metric
Perhaps the biggest lesson since that 2024 session is this: inclusion isn’t a number. It’s a feeling of agency.
When a farmer in Kaduna tracks crop prices digitally, or a nurse in Bungoma updates immunisation data in real time, inclusion becomes tangible.
But it becomes transformative only when those systems are backed by governance that protects data, ensures affordability, and invests in continuous learning.
The goal isn’t to connect people to systems; it’s to make sure systems stay accountable to people.
The road ahead
I keep returning to that simple phrase we once used: “Picking the Right Lane.”
Over time, I’ve realised there isn’t a single lane; there’s an ecosystem of roads: policy, innovation, education, and finance, all intersecting in complex ways.
Our actual work is to design those intersections wisely, so no one gets stranded between them.
The future of digital inclusion will depend on how courageously we share power, data, and decision-making.
Because inclusion isn’t about catching up; it’s about building systems that make fairness the default.
That’s not a destination. It’s a discipline. And it’s the road worth staying on.
Ota Akhigbe is a global partnerships executive and systems architect shaping Africa’s digital and health transformation agenda. She leads Partnerships & Programs at eHealth Africa and serves as a frequent moderator and speaker on inclusion, sustainability, and multilateral collaboration.
