12 4.3 SITUATIONAL ANALYSIS FOR DATA ECONOMY IN AFRICA Undertaking a situational analysis of the entire continent with its diverse legal, regulatory and political systems and considering the unevenness of countries’ economic development and digital readiness makes it inherently limited and overly generalised. The purpose of the high-level SWOT analysis is to identify broadly applicable strengths and weaknesses of countries at a regional level and to identify the potential opportunities and known risks associated with the global processes of digitalisation and datafication that characterise the development of data economy for all countries but also what these mean specifically for African countries, within their broader developmental context. Strengths Weaknesses • Foundational regional data governance instruments • Sub-optimal data connectivity and usage • Regional Economic Communities (RECs) to support economic aspects of data policy initiatives • Non-harmonised data governance regime • Regional and continental courts to enable harmonised dispute resolution • Emerging innovation hubs in the region to demonstrate best practices across jurisdictions • Fewer and less developed competition, data and IP laws on data, so there is greater potential for early, rapid continental harmonisation of laws enabling cross border trade • Inconsistencies in the treatment of data in data protection, competition and intellectual property laws within countries • Localisation rules that limit the cross border flow of information necessary for local value creation and establishment of the single market • Resource constraints in the evolution and implementation of data governance frameworks • Inadequate data infrastructure • Insufficient open government data to meet data demand • Inadequate provision, or access to, quality data • Uneven development of data standards. • Low penetration of foundational Digital ID Limited number of Data Protection Authorities (DPAs), many of whom are not well-resourced and/or fully empowered) • Need for cybersecurity capacity