Patricia Adusei-Poku, a former Executive Director and Commissioner for Data Protection and Privacy in Ghana, has urged a stronger commitment to implementing robust data governance policies to promote Africa’s digital transformation.

According to her, many African countries have not shown enough commitment in this area.

Referring to Smart Africa, which is an initiative backed by African presidents to drive regional digitisation, Patricia Adusei-Poku acknowledged that progress has been made, but stressed that uneven commitment across countries remains a major challenge.

Global data protection expert Patricia Adusei-Poku outlines key projects she is leading

“The importance of that [data governance] in the African digital transformation is that we have organisations like Smart Africa that has been empowered by all the presidents in Africa to actually digitise the regional ecosystem. I've done a lot of work with them. They are doing so much good work, but it's becoming hard to infiltrate the jurisdictions. Why? Because none of us are 100 % committed to doing proper data governance,” she noted.

Speaking at an AI event in Accra on November 24, 2025, Adusei-Poku recalled how Ghana worked with Smart Africa to draft a blueprint for data governance in Africa and a national data governance strategy for Ghana.

She noted that although the plan was not implemented during her tenure, she hopes future leaders will adopt it and ensure its success.

“Before I left office, together with Smart Africa, we documented the African blue print for data governance. This same thing that I'm talking about, Ghana led the documentation of the blueprint for data governance for the African region and then we went ahead and documented the national data governance strategy, which I hope my successors will take it up, better it, and go ahead and implement it because it is good,” she stated.

Adusei-Poku added that, “We led the region; it would be a shame for Ghana to sit back and let another country pick up their focus. Before I left office, Senegal had gone ahead and had started implementing so we need to also wake up, implement it, and keep us as a trailblazer in the regional ecosystem."

Adusei-Poku emphasised that a strong data governance across African countries is key to building a unified digital market.

Global data protection expert calls for unified data approach in Ghana

“When the whole of Africa, at the state level, have done what they are supposed to do, data governance (sic), then we come to look at how we can work together as different African countries and that single African market can maybe happen. That's why it's very important for the transformation of the regional ecosystem. Every country should pass data protection laws, do data governance, AI strategies, encourage systems to work in a consistent harmonised approach,” she added.

The event, called the Artificial Intelligence Policy Summer School, featured Adusei-Poku speaking on data governance, sovereignty, and cross-border data flows.

It also brought together other key stakeholders from the digital space.

Watch the video below:



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Meanwhile, watch as Global Data Protection expert Patricia Poku outlines key projects she is leading: