The number is surprising. At the end of 2020, the African continent concentrated 1.3% of the world’s data centers, that is to say less than a hundred structures, half of which are hosted in South Africa. To match the country, the rest of Africa would need 700 new facilities, the African Data Center Association (ADCA) estimated in early 2021. These data centers, which combine computer servers and personal data, are nevertheless the cornerstone of the objective of most African leaders: digital sovereignty.
Having your own digital infrastructure and, therefore, storing your data on site is first and foremost a major economic challenge. “Personal data is the black gold of the 21st century,” confirms Mamoudou Niane, legal director of the Personal Data Protection Commission (CDP) in Senegal. Hosting your own data, reusing it or selling it allows local companies and start-ups, for example, to remain competitive with foreign firms. »
For the manager, storing his data on site is also as beneficial for the State that hosts it as for its neighbors. “A mass of national data promotes intra-community exchange. A data center in Senegal, for example, is an economic integration booster for the entire WAEMU zone [West African Economic and Monetary Union, Ed]. »
Beyond the mere financial benefit, local data centers also guarantee the political and economic independence of the authorities vis-à-vis foreign countries. For Lina Fassi Fihri, associate lawyer at the Paris Bar at LPA-CGR in Casablanca, Morocco, “by hosting their data outside their borders, in Europe and the United States, African countries are taking risks. If for one reason or another – natural disaster, war, diplomatic crisis – third countries decided to cut off access to their data centers, several million African individuals and businesses would lose their data”.
“In addition to this risk of physical loss, the banking, religious or health data of African citizens could be subject to exploitation by economic intelligence companies. According to the lawyer, it is therefore necessary “to initiate real awareness-raising work and to remember that, if the individual owns his data, the State must protect it, to ensure the protection of the community. It is an issue of national sovereignty.”
Especially since Internet access, digitization of public services, e-commerce and banking services have become widely democratized on the continent. In 2021, the Internet penetration rate in Africa was 43%, three times higher than ten years ago.
If the benefits of storing personal data are so great, why is Africa lagging so far? First pitfall, for Salim Azim Assani, founder of the Chadian incubator Wenaklabs dedicated to new technologies, “the energy deficit” and “the lack of connectivity” of the continent.
For the Chadian entrepreneur, everywhere on the continent there also persists “a lack of political vision. Our leaders have a dated view of digital, out of step with today’s aspirations.” Another major obstacle to the emergence of digital sovereignty in Africa is the lack of manpower.
“Recruiting local staff in this sector is very complicated, because the training offer does not follow, and the profiles are therefore not suitable. To see data centers emerge, you need qualified human resources who want to stay in their country of origin, confirms Lina Fassi Fihri. As well as a favorable ecosystem including research centers. »
Despite the difficulties, and aware of what is at stake, a few countries on the continent have taken the plunge. In June 2021, Senegal inaugurated its data center in Diamniadio, near Dakar, with great fanfare. The infrastructure “will make it possible to store the data of the administration, and those of the private sector”, had declared the authorities, and this, in order to “facilitate the dematerialization of the administrative procedures”.
Morocco, for its part, intends to become the leader of the continent. The kingdom already has several dedicated infrastructures and opened, in March 2021, at the heart of the Mohammed-VI Polytechnic University (UM6P), the African Supercomputing Center, the most powerful supercomputer in Africa. Ambitions in the service of data protection on Moroccan soil: last July, Rabat banned the hosting of its sensitive data abroad.
Further east, in Chad, the authorities have developed a partnership with the Chinese giant Huawei, reputed to be close to Beijing, for the construction of a data center in the capital, Niamey. A public-private collaboration “effective” but which “is not the miracle solution, concludes Salim Azim Assani. To be on the safe side, these partnerships should be with local businesses.”