5 2.2 SCOPE AND OBJECTIVES Given that data now traverses every aspect of our daily lives, but under very different circumstances across the continent, the framework provides principle-based guidance to member states in their domestication of the continental data policy appropriate to their conditions and proposes a continental instrument or mechanism to integrate and coordinate continental efforts. The Africa Data Policy Framework aims to strengthen national data systems for effective use of data by creating an enabling environment that stimulates innovation and entrepreneurialism to drive the development of data value-driven economies and that facilitates the interoperability of systems and cross border data flows necessary for the realising of the African single digital market. Harmonised across the African markets, this affords the regulatory certainty and the scale and scope conducive to investments required for data-driven public and private value creation with the associated distributional impacts and non-economic multipliers. With regards to the scope of the framework, it is important to bear in mind that the policy is concerned with data governance that includes personal, non-personal, industrial and public data, not only personal data protection that has been the focus of attention internationally and on the continent in recent years. The specific and overreaching objectives of the African Data Policy Framework are to: • enable states to cooperate on matters of data governance to achieve common objectives related to the sustainable development of their economies and societies; • inform and support the domestication of continental policy by African countries; • ensure that data can flow across borders as freely as possible while promoting an equitable distribution of benefits and addressing risks related to human rights violations and other legitimate interests of states such as the fight against money laundering, tax evasion, online gambling, and national security; • foster and facilitate cross border data flows and increase business opportunities while ensuring an adequate level of personal data and privacy; • establish collaborative trust mechanisms to allow for data to circulate as freely as possible between Member States while preserving the sovereignty of Member States and their ability to regulate the digital economy; • enable states, the private sector, civil society and intergovernmental organisations to coordinate their efforts on data issues across the continent to realise a single digital market and compete more effectively in the global economy; • enable competitiveness in the global economy through close and sustainable cooperation by African states, the private sector and civil society through restructuring opportunities to optimise the benefits from datafication of the economy and society; • ensure that data are used in a sustainable manner that benefits society as a whole and does not harm people’s privacy, dignity and security; • ensure that data are widely available within appropriate safeguards for both commercial and non-commercial use; and • facilitate innovative ways to promote public benefits by using data in new ways that would enable the data in Africa to realise the value of data in public sector decisionmaking, planning, and monitoring and evaluation.