In a Nairobi informal settlement, a mother no longer loses a morning to a school bursar’s queue. She opens her phone, authenticates with a national ID, and pays fees in seconds. In Kigali, a learner’s exam result arrives as a…
The phrase “digital public infrastructure” used to live in conference halls.In 2026 it has started to look like a work plan. In late June, the United Nations Development Programme launched the Africa Accelerator for Digital Public Infrastructure in New York…
For most of independent Africa, information lived in rooms. Births sat in ledgers. Land sat in dusty files. A hospital record travelled only as far as a clerk could carry it. A trader crossing from Kigali to Kampala carried photocopies…
For years, Africa’s digital transformation story has read like a collection of brilliant but disconnected chapters. One country builds a national ID system. Another launches a payments rail. A third pilots a data-exchange gateway. Each is a genuine win, yet…
For decades, a business in Accra paying a supplier in Lagos had to route the transaction through a bank in London or New York, converting cedis to dollars and dollars back to naira along the way. That detour added cost,…
In a rural clinic in eastern Rwanda, a community health worker once spent hours deciphering faded handwritten notes before deciding whether to refer a sick child. Records got lost, treatments were delayed, and lives hung in the balance. Today, that…
Picture a mother in a remote Kenyan village. She no longer walks kilometres to register her newborn or queue for cash transfers. A quick scan of her digital ID on her phone unlocks health subsidies, school fees, and even farm…
Imagine walking for two hours to reach a government service centre, only to be told by a machine that you do not exist. Your finger is pressed against a scanner. Once. Twice. Ten times. The screen stares back blankly. You…
For decades, Africa’s digital story has been told in terms of deficits — gaps in connectivity, shortfalls in device ownership, and lagging broadband penetration. But a new and more consequential conversation is quietly taking over boardrooms and ministerial roundtables across…
Picture a Kenyan mother paying school fees with a tap on her phone — no queues, no delays, no hidden costs. This is DPI at work. Digital Public Infrastructure, with its instant payment rails, is reshaping how African governments fund,…