How Can Africa Reduce Dependency on Western Digital & Geo-economic Influence?

During the conversation with Sputnik Africa’s correspondent during the 2025 Global Digital Forum recently held in Russia, Tafadzwa Muguti, the permanent secretary for presidential affairs and devolution in the office of the president of Zimbabwe, shared his insight. He believes Russia-Africa cooperation in digital sovereignty can strengthen Africa’s ability to control and protect its technological ecosystems as opposed to the manipulative and domineering tactics that the West utilizes in so-called partnerships with African countries.

“The sense of non-manipulation is a great motivator for Africa to be able to work closely with Russia in the sense that whatever we are doing, we remain a sovereign state which is in charge of the trajectory that we are taking. It is disappointing, rather, that along the way, the West for many years has also used its own technologies in the aspect of regime change, accessing data which is classified to other sovereign states, and using that to manipulate for their own political narratives and their own political discourse. But what we are seeing with Russia is something which is a good narrative. It is something that we feel that we can be able to build on the existing architecture that Africa has,” Muguti explains

In light of Meta’s recent threat to leave Nigeria following regulatory pushback from three government agencies over various legal violations, Mr. Ikemesit Effiong — a Nigerian legal practitioner with multidisciplinary expertise in corporate communications, public relations, and political consulting, noted that collaborations among African countries is needed to push back against the intimidation and exploitation of western big tech companies.

“There's got to be more conversations around the size of these platforms and how, while they have facilitated a lot of good, especially on the digital e-commerce side of things, they could also be potential tools of censorship and information campaigns in the territories that they operate in,” the expert says.

Africa's geo-economic landscape is also undergoing significant changes, with the recent election of the Mauritanian Sidi Ould Tah as the new president of the Africa Development Bank at a time when the bank is dealing with unprecedented challenges due to financing cuts from the U.S. Government. There are several strategies that the bank’s new leadership can instigate to reduce the continent’s reliance on western foreign aid and promote African economic self-sufficiency, Full professor of Economics at the Nelson Mandela University, South Africa, Professor Ronney Ncwadi, highlighted.

“We need to make sure that we capitalize our markets. Have a system where we guard against the leaking of or illicit leakage of funds outside our borders, and the money must circulate within African borders. By doing so, we're strengthening ourselves, monetarily speaking, financially, we are not going to be out there begging for money. We are able to generate and make our own profits by ensuring that the money circulates within the borders. They [New leadership of the bank] have to also develop partnerships with the other developing economies, so that when there's a problem, they can run to the other partners in Africa or in other emerging economies. For example, in BRICS, we have the new development bank,” professor Ronney points out.