ABSTRACT
Industrialised and developing countries alike are increasingly concerned about their dependence on foreign – in particular U.S. and Chinese – tech companies and are stepping up efforts to strengthen their digital sovereignty. At the same time, international partnerships and collaborations for digital development are gaining new momentum and becoming important tools for shaping geopolitics, with respect to digital. The African continent is one of the focal points of China’s and, increasingly, the U.S. and European Union’s engagement in connectivity and digital development cooperation. These collaborations and partnerships are diverse and characterised by varying degrees of interconnectedness and asymmetries. This chapter focuses on the digital development cooperation between the European Union (EU) and the African Union (AU), particularly from the perspective of digital sovereignty. It argues that the EU’s Digital for Development (D4D) approach and the Global Gateway initiative are elements in its quest for greater digital sovereignty. However, the contribution to Africa’s digital sovereignty is uncertain and depends on how African countries assert their agency in digital and geopolitics.
