Africa’s Digital Future Needs Governance, Not Just Gadgets
African governments risk overestimating the power of technology to solve economic and social challenges unless digital transformation is backed by strong governance, institutional coordination and clear policy direction, Deputy Governor of the National Bank of Rwanda Nick Barigye has warned.
Speaking at the 2026 3i Africa Summit in Accra, Mr Barigye cautioned policymakers against treating technology as a standalone answer to the continent’s development challenges.
“At times, it is tempting to think technology is the answer to society’s issues. It is not,” he said during a fireside discussion on digital public infrastructure.
His remarks came during a session themed “DPI Success Stories: Lessons from Building and Scaling DPI Ecosystems,” which examined how countries such as India, Ghana, Nigeria and Rwanda are using integrated digital infrastructure to expand financial inclusion, improve public service delivery and support economic transformation.
The intervention reflects a growing debate among African policymakers, regulators and development partners over how to build sustainable digital economies as governments accelerate investments in digital payments, national identity systems, e-government platforms and public service delivery channels.
For Mr Barigye, Rwanda’s progress in digital public infrastructure has not been driven by technology alone, but by governance architecture, long-term state planning and centralised coordination.
“Governance provides clarity. Governance provides vision. Governance provides coordination and the ability to execute very fast,” he said.
Rwanda’s flagship digital services platform, Irembo, now integrates more than 240 public services across more than 40 institutions through a unified system designed to reduce bureaucracy and minimise physical interaction with government offices.
According to Mr Barigye, the platform is built around a “zero trip, zero error” framework, allowing services such as criminal record applications to be processed fully online within hours.
The model offers a practical lesson for African governments: digital transformation is not simply about launching platforms, but about redesigning institutions around citizens, efficiency and trust.
Mr Barigye also warned against fragmented digital ecosystems operated independently by institutions, arguing that duplication raises costs and weakens adoption.
“Shared infrastructure reduces cost and improves efficiency,” he noted.
That message is particularly relevant for Africa, where many digital initiatives remain institution-specific, donor-funded or weakly integrated with wider national systems. The result is often a collection of platforms that may work individually but fail to create a seamless digital economy.
The Rwandan central banker argued that sustainability in digital public infrastructure should be judged by whether systems solve real societal problems, rather than by narrow debates over who funds them at inception.
“The first question should not be who pays for it. The first question should be what societal problem are we solving?” he said.
His comments strike at one of the central challenges facing Africa’s digital transformation agenda. Across the continent, governments are pushing digital identity, payment interoperability, fintech innovation and e-government reforms. But without strong policy alignment, shared infrastructure and institutional discipline, these efforts risk becoming fragmented pilots rather than scalable national or regional systems.
The 3i Africa Summit has brought together regulators, central bankers, fintech executives, investors and policymakers from across Africa at a time when the continent is intensifying efforts to strengthen cross-border financial integration and position itself for the next phase of digital economic growth.
The discussion also comes as Ghana, Rwanda and Zambia prepare to pilot a continental digital trade corridor aimed at improving cross-border payments, identity verification and digital commerce between participating markets.
