OUR STORY

The Coalition for Digital Africa is an initiative conceived by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) that launched in 2022. The Coalition is a unified force driven by a common goal: to accelerate the expansion of the Internet in Africa and support the growth of the region's digital economy. Moreover, the Coalition for Digital Africa is working to make it possible for people across the continent to use the Internet in their own scripts and languages.

We are on a journey toward economic empowerment, creativity, and digital inclusion.

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Unleashing Potential on the African Continent

Africa is in the midst of a significant digital transformation. With the world's youngest population (65 percent of its population is under the age of 35),Internet usage in the region has surged over the last two decades, rising from 1.2 percent in 2000 to 43 percent in 2022. This astonishing rise is driven by a digitally sophisticated, educated, and motivated urban workforce with a natural preference for online services.

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Together, we are creating a positive change.

The Coalition for Digital Africa is an alliance of organizations with shared goals and a strong spirit of collaboration. We work together to foster an environment of resourcefulness and innovation, where technology skills are developed, and individuals are enabled to take full advantage of the Internet's abundant potential. By implementing local initiatives with governments and other stakeholders, the Coalition enables the Internet community in Africa to take an active role in global multistakeholder policymaking processes by providing capacity-development workshops and expert guidance.

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Collaborating for a Common Vision

Amid this transformation, the Coalition for Digital Africa has emerged as a unifying force bringing together diverse stakeholders whose primary objective is to capitalize on this potential and accelerate the growth of Africa's Internet ecosystem. We aim to facilitate economic growth by bringing communities and cultures closer together, overcoming knowledge and technology gaps, and cultivating partnerships to build the framework for a successful digital future.

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Coordinating Our Efforts: The Role of ICANN

As the architect of the Coalition for Digital Africa, ICANN is at the center of this innovative endeavor, providing the secretariat function. In this role, ICANN coordinates the Coalition’s collaborative efforts to achieve common goals. ICANN contributes to shaping a digitally inclusive future for Africa drawing on its deep knowledge and dedication to the global public interest.

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Unleashing Potential on the African Continent

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Collaborating for a Common Vision

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Together, we are creating a positive change.

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Coordinating Our Efforts: The Role of ICANN

What

WE DO

What WE DO

The Coalition supports the growth and sustainability of the African digital economy by ensuring a stable, resilient, and secure Internet. Our goal is to foster innovation and entrepreneurial endeavors that expand Internet infrastructure while also boosting technical competence.

Our strategy includes local activities carried out in partnership and collaboration with governments and other stakeholders including capacity-development workshops; providing ad hoc advice on Internet matters such as connectivity infrastructure, meaningful connectivity, and digital literacy; and supporting participation in multistakeholder Internet policymaking processes.

Our Guiding

PRINCIPLES

The set of principles below seeks to define the shared goals for participants in the Coalition for Digital Africa, that, when practiced, will foster clear and effective implementation. The end goal is, ultimately, to ensure that the Internet continues to grow safely in Africa, in a stable manner, to bring communities, cultures, and economies together.

The Coalition for Digital Africa, an alliance of global and regional groups that share the same values – a commitment to one free, open, and universal Internet, and to ensuring access for the next billion Internet users.

The mission of the Coalition for Digital Africa is to bring more Africans online by supporting the development of a robust and secure Internet infrastructure, including the unique identifier systems, in Africa.

The overarching goals of the Coalition are to support the development of the Internet infrastructure to foster the growth and sustainability of Africa’s digital economy, and to promote the digital transformation of Africa.

In joining the Coalition for Digital Africa, partners of the Coalition shall commit to collaborate and contribute resources to the Coalition’s activities and to fulfill its mission.

The members of the Coalition agree to these guiding principles:

Keeping the Internet open, interoperable, and secure -

The power of the Internet comes from being a single, open and interoperable Internet that is easily accessible globally and locally, to anybody, anywhere, at any time.

Creating the building blocks for meaningful connectivity -

Enabling full use of the benefits of the Internet and easing barriers to help ensure that people who are already connected, and will be connected, can communicate over the Internet and access local content in their preferred languages and scripts. This provides populations with access to information and knowledge, and enables cultural and linguistic diversity.

Fully participating in multistakeholder Internet policy development -

Working together in an ecosystem based on voluntary participation, best practices, cooperation, and trust, the multistakeholder model engages stakeholders from different backgrounds, functions, and geographies. This ensures that the engineers, policymakers, and others who need to be involved, are at the table, developing workable policies, so that as the Internet grows, it remains open, secure and interoperable.

Capacity development at the individual and institutional levels to provide specialized skills and education -

Sharing expertise in the technical functioning of the Internet, the security of the Domain Name System (DNS), the policy and operational aspects of the country code top-level domains, as well as the routing system, with relevant stakeholders in Africa helps to ensure the continuation of a stable, secure, and resilient Internet. Investing in capacity development is an investment that will lead to dividends in the enormous economic potential of the continent.