The National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) has called for a unified regulatory approach across Africa to reduce administrative bottlenecks and create a more predictable environment for technology investments.
The agency said governments should move away from fragmented regulatory systems that require technology companies to obtain approvals from multiple agencies, noting that such processes often delay projects and discourage investment.
NITDA’s Director-General, Kashifu Abdullahi, made the call while speaking at a session titled, “Regulatory Roundtable: Regulation That Builds: Aligning Policy and Digital Infrastructure Investment Priorities,” at the ITW Data Cloud Africa 2026 event in Nairobi, Kenya. The outcome of the event was contained in a statement issued by NITDA on Tuesday.
The NITDA chief advocated the establishment of a single regulatory interface through which companies can engage with the government, saying this would speed up licensing processes and provide investors with greater certainty regarding project timelines.
According to him, the convergence of emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence, cloud infrastructure and high-density data centres, has made traditional siloed regulation inadequate.
Abdullahi said NITDA was therefore pioneering a model of horizontal co-regulation, under which the agency develops broad technology standards that can be adopted and adapted by sector-specific regulators.
He cited the National Sovereign Cloud Initiative (NSCI) as an example of such a framework, explaining that regulators such as the Central Bank of Nigeria could apply the relevant standards to their respective sectors.
In August, NITDA signed the NSCI documents, describing the initiative as a comprehensive national framework for trusted cloud adoption, digital sovereignty, digital infrastructure assurance and cloud investment.
According to Abdullahi, the co-regulation approach would create a more coordinated regulatory environment without requiring a single agency to regulate complex technologies across all sectors.
The NITDA Director-General also called for a coordinated African framework for cross-border data exchange, anchored on interoperability, mutual recognition of regulatory standards and unified security protocols.
He said clear data classification would help achieve interoperability, while mutual recognition would build trust among regulators and businesses operating across different African markets.
Beyond regulatory coordination, Abdullahi said governments needed to rethink the fundamental purpose of technology regulation.
He argued that regulation should not primarily be viewed as a tool for revenue collection or rigid enforcement, but as an instrument for creating markets, building local capacity and attracting long-term investment.
“The ultimate objective of regulation must be market creation,” Abdullahi said, stressing the need to give technology businesses sufficient room to scale.
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