Digital Public Infrastructure Through an Open Government Lens

Author: Hlengiwe Dube
Senior digital rights and policy expert 

Abstract

Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) is rapidly being deployed worldwide, yet its governance is a significant blind spot in open government reform. While governments focus on digital service delivery, the underlying systems that determine access, inclusion, and fairness often operate without transparency, accountability, or public participation. This article argues that DPI must be governed through open government principles to prevent systemic harm such as exclusion from essential services, algorithmic bias, and eroded public trust and to realize its potential for public good. Using global cases, it shows how integrating transparency, oversight, and participatory design into DPI can turn digital infrastructure into a force for democratic accountability, rather than hidden control. Finally, the article calls for explicit inclusion of DPI governance into frameworks like the Open Government Partnership, ensuring that digital transformation encodes democratic values, not just technical efficiency, into the infrastructure of the state.

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International Privacy Day 2026: Why Privacy Is Africa’s Democratic Imperative in the Age of Data, AI, and Surveillance

Author: Hlengiwe Dube
Senior digital rights and policy expert 

Each year, International Privacy Day invites reflection on the protection of personal data, particularly as the world becomes increasingly digitised. In Africa, this reflection takes on renewed and specific urgency. Governments, corporations, international agencies, and other actors are accelerating digital transformation, through biometric identity systems, AI-driven public services, fintech platforms, and expanding surveillance infrastructures, among other initiatives. Consequently, privacy is emerging as a technical concern and at the same time, a core democratic and human rights imperative.

Privacy underpins freedom of expression, access to information, public participation, human dignity, and other human rights. This understanding is firmly embedded in the African and international human rights framework. Although the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights does not explicitly reference privacy, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR) has consistently interpreted the Charter as protecting private life, dignity, and personal autonomy. In the digital age, these protections take on renewed and enhanced significance.

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Nigeria’s national symbols are sitting on a powder keg: Lessons from Kenya

Oluwatosin-Senami-AdegunAuthor: Oluwatosin Senami Adegun
LLM candidate, Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria

At independence in October 1960, Nigeria adopted ‘Nigeria, we hail thee’ as its national anthem replacing the colonial ‘God save the Queen’, however, the fact that the lyrics and the music of the 1960 anthem were composed by British nationals, Lillian Jean Williams and music by Miss Rances Benda respectively raised questions about the ‘independence’ of the 1960 anthem resulting in controversy over the genuineness or otherwise of the lyrics and other issues. Nevertheless, Nigeria used the anthem from October 1960 to 1978 when it was changed to ‘Arise O Compatriots’ during the military administration of Olusegun Obasanjo. Unlike the 1960 anthem, the lyrics of the 1978 anthem was composed by five Nigerians namely, John Anagboso Ilechukwu, Eme Etim Akpan, Babatunde Ogunnaike, Sota Omoigui and Philips Olusegun Aderibigbe, while its music was composed by Benedict Odiase during his service in the Nigeria Police Force.

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