The Unseen Risks Behind Rapid Digitization
Across Africa, the public sector’s move to the cloud has been swift—and largely celebrated. National ID platforms are scaling. Revenue authorities are digitizing. Health ministries are consolidating patient data in real-time. On the surface, progress is happening.
But a deeper issue is taking shape: many governments no longer fully control the systems they rely on.
Key data is hosted in foreign jurisdictions. Critical applications are licensed, not owned. Source code is inaccessible. And cloud contracts are often governed by legal frameworks that lie outside domestic control. In effect, national digital systems are running on borrowed infrastructure.
When Modernization Becomes Dependency
This isn’t just a matter of IT procurement. It’s a matter of national capability.
When public data is inaccessible without vendor support, when digital IDs rely on private infrastructure, and when exit clauses are vague or nonexistent, governments risk becoming tenants in their own digital house.
That dependency undermines sovereignty. It also weakens negotiating power, limits innovation, and exposes systems to risks that are political as much as technical.
Why Digital Sovereignty Matters Now
Sovereignty is not about isolation—it’s about agency.
In the digital age, sovereignty means being able to design, govern, and evolve digital infrastructure in alignment with national priorities. Without it:
- Governments cannot guarantee data privacy or compliance
- National security becomes entangled in foreign infrastructure
- Public trust in digital services erodes
- Policy ambitions are constrained by vendor limitations
The situation becomes even more urgent when layered with AI adoption, predictive analytics, and algorithmic decision-making—technologies that rely heavily on data governments may not fully own or control.
Reclaiming Control Starts with the Right Questions
Digital sovereignty doesn’t require rejecting cloud solutions. But it does require asking better questions before signing long-term contracts:
- Who owns the infrastructure—and under what jurisdiction is it governed?
- Can we audit, replicate, or migrate the platform if needed?
- Are our most sensitive datasets stored locally, securely, and in compliance with national law?
- Do we have the technical and legal tools to manage our own infrastructure, if needed?
Too often, these questions are raised only after systems are already in use.
What Good Practice Looks Like
Governments that are serious about digital sovereignty are taking proactive steps. Among them:
Hybrid cloud strategies — where sensitive data stays in-country, while scalable services run on the public cloud.
Open standards and source code access — so governments aren’t locked into a single provider or architecture.
Strengthened procurement processes — that require exit strategies, data portability, and interoperability from day one.
Internal capacity investment — building technical teams that can oversee, audit, and evolve public digital infrastructure.
These moves aren’t just best practice. They’re insurance policies for national resilience.
Louer Group’s Approach
At Louer Group, we help governments make digital sovereignty real.
We work with national teams to design cloud strategies that reflect both ambition and caution. We structure vendor relationships that protect long-term autonomy. And we build institutional capacity to govern digital infrastructure—not just operate it.
Our work spans advisory, system design, policy development, and capacity building—because true sovereignty is as much institutional as it is technical.
Final Word: The Stakes Are Higher Than They Appear
Public infrastructure is no longer made of roads and bridges alone. It now includes servers, source code, and data flows. If those systems are not under public control, the state itself becomes vulnerable—regardless of how digitally advanced it appears to be.
Digital sovereignty is not a slogan. It’s a design principle. And the time to bake it into digital transformation efforts is now—not after the fact.
Louer Group partners with governments who understand that. And who are ready to lead accordingly.
