Every mobile payment, ride booked through an app, online purchase, phone connection, or bank transaction now generates a considerable amount of data. For a long time, these digital flows were seen primarily as a byproduct of technological development. But as the global economy becomes increasingly digital, data itself is becoming a strategic resource, capable of influencing trade, finance, taxation, security, and even power dynamics between states.

This transformation is particularly visible in Africa, where the rapid growth of digital services is generating increasingly large volumes of economic information. The continent now has several hundred million users of mobile financial services, while transport, e-commerce, and payment platforms record millions of transactions every day.

Mobile money clearly illustrates this transformation. According to GSMA data, sub-Saharan Africa alone accounts for nearly half of the world's mobile money accounts. In 2023, mobile money transactions on the continent exceeded $1 trillion in cumulative value. Behind these figures lies a vast amount of data on users' consumption habits, financial flows, travel patterns, and economic behavior.

This information now represents a major economic asset. Companies capable of collecting, processing, and analyzing this data have a considerable advantage in developing financial services, targeting advertising, granting credit, or guiding business strategies.

Major international platforms have understood this for a long time. Digital giants base a significant part of their business model on exploiting user-generated data. In Africa, too, this trend is accelerating as digital usage grows in payments, commerce, transportation, and administrative services.

This rise in power, however, raises an increasingly sensitive question of economic sovereignty. A significant portion of the data produced on the continent is currently hosted, stored, or used through infrastructures controlled by foreign groups. Cloud services, social networks, certain payment platforms, and major international digital tools concentrate a massive amount of strategic economic information.

The issue extends far beyond the purely technological realm, as this data is gradually becoming a lever of economic power. Those who control digital infrastructure and analytical capabilities possess an extremely detailed view of markets, consumer behavior, and local economic dynamics.

Several African states are thus beginning to strengthen their regulations on data protection and cybersecurity. Senegal, Nigeria, Kenya, and South Africa have progressively developed legal frameworks designed to better regulate the use of personal data and digital activities.

This dynamic is also accompanied by a growing focus on data localization. Some governments are seeking to encourage the local or regional hosting of strategic information in order to reduce their dependence on foreign infrastructure.

The issue also becomes a fiscal one. Digital platforms generate significant economic activity in several African countries, but a portion of the value created still escapes local tax systems. Discussions about taxing digital services are therefore increasing as digital economies grow.

Cybersecurity represents another major challenge in this transformation. Cyberattacks targeting banks, telecom operators, and government agencies are steadily increasing across the continent. As economies become more dependent on digital infrastructure, the risks associated with hacking, data leaks, and service disruptions are taking on an increasingly significant economic dimension.

In this context, data is gradually beginning to be considered a strategic resource comparable, in some respects, to traditional raw materials. It fuels economic models, structures dominant positions, and influences the ability of states to control a portion of their economic sovereignty.

The competition is therefore no longer solely about mineral, energy or industrial resources. It now also concerns control of digital infrastructure, information flows and the capacity to process the data produced daily by millions of African users.