On 11 June 2026, the authorities in charge of digital affairs in Ghana and Zambia reaffirmed a bilateral partnership to support digital transformation at the continental scale, aligning their roadmaps with major pan‑African programmes and cross‑border infrastructure investments.   Both governments present this renewed axis as a lever to position Ghana and Zambia as regional platforms for digital services in West and Southern Africa.

Officials from Ghana and Zambia stress that this cooperation is intended to facilitate the co‑development of projects in telecoms, online public services, digital payments and cybersecurity, building on operators and integrators already active in both markets. They also present their partnership as a way to capture more value from pan‑African programmes such as the Smart Africa Digital Markets for All initiative, which explicitly targets Ghana and Zambia as focus countries for more inclusive and interoperable digital markets.  This alignment between bilateral cooperation and continental frameworks is directly relevant for infrastructure investors, regional fintechs and development financiers.

“Africa’s digital transformation depends as much on robust infrastructure as on political alliances capable of carrying common standards.” — A Smart Africa Alliance official, Smart Africa

Two countries already pushing state digitalisation

In Zambia, the Smart Zambia Institute leads the rollout of core government information systems, including the Health Management Information System, the electronic public‑procurement platform and several digital administrative registers, at the heart of a strategy to mainstream online public services. Smart Zambia has also signed a memorandum of understanding with power utility ZESCO and its subsidiary Fibrecom, leveraging the national fibre‑optic backbone to connect public institutions and extend high‑capacity connectivity across the country. Ghana, for its part, has been accelerating the digitalisation of government services and the wider economy, anchored in the broader Smart Africa agenda and a telecoms ecosystem where mobile operators continue to invest in 4G, fibre and subsea cable capacity.

Within the Smart Africa Alliance, of which both countries are members, diagnostic work has highlighted the importance of harmonised frameworks for competition, data protection and cybersecurity to underpin the emergence of integrated digital economies. Ghana is already leveraging its regional role in cybersecurity, with its Cyber Security Authority elected to lead the African Network of Cybersecurity Authorities, a coordination body created under the Smart Africa umbrella.  This institutional and regulatory foundation is one of the cornerstones of its deepening partnership with Zambia.

Telecom infrastructure and regional connectivity

On the infrastructure side, pan‑African players such as MTN have deployed terrestrial fibre networks in both Zambia and Ghana, while operating subsea cable landing stations in coastal markets including Ghana to secure international traffic and support the growth of digital services. In Zambia, its infrastructure arm Bayobab recently commissioned a fibre interconnection at the border with Mozambique, strengthening network resilience and regional integration.  Anchored in a more explicit Ghana–Zambia political partnership, these investments provide a tangible backbone for cloud, fintech and content services distributed from Ghanaian and Zambian hubs.

Zambian authorities have also authorised a pilot between MTN Zambia and Starlink’s satellite constellation, successfully completing a data session and a fintech transaction using local mobile spectrum and satellite backhaul, with the support of the regulator and the Ministry of Technology and Science.  Combined with fibre build‑out and existing power‑grid corridors, this type of innovation strengthens the complementarity between terrestrial and satellite connectivity, a strategic point for landlocked countries like Zambia and for trade routes linking West and Southern Africa.

Pan-African programmes and digital skills

The Smart Africa Digital Markets for All programme, backed by development partners, aims to improve the livelihoods of at least 53,000 young people, 95 % of them women, by fostering more inclusive and interoperable digital markets in several focus countries including Ghana and Zambia. It is designed in particular to fund digital‑skills pathways from e‑commerce to cloud services, providing a workforce that matches accelerating demand for developers, system administrators and data specialists in local ecosystems.  For Accra and Lusaka alike, aligning their bilateral partnership with these schemes is a way to secure grant funding while structuring regional value chains, especially in fintech and business‑process outsourcing.

Zambia’s 2024–2030 National Digital Economy Strategy sets out the goal of deploying digital technologies across all sectors, while dedicated legislation on cybercrime and cybersecurity has been passed to address growing threats and protect critical information infrastructure. Sector analyses also underline the central role of the mobile industry in Zambia’s digital economy and the growth potential tied to wider uptake of data services, digital payments and sector‑specific applications.  How effectively Ghanaian and Zambian public actors can pool their experiences and speak with a single voice in continental forums will be a key indicator of how deep this partnership actually runs.

What to watch next

Authorities in both countries have signalled that the next step will be to translate the Ghana–Zambia cooperation into detailed roadmaps, with joint technical working groups and pilot projects in e‑government services, cybersecurity and shared infrastructure. In Zambia, the calendar is already shaped by commitments made around the Digital Government Africa summit, while Ghana is looking to consolidate its status as a regional hub for digital platforms and cybersecurity in West Africa.  For investors and operators, the signals to track will include the public identification of concrete joint projects, any moves toward harmonising specific regulatory elements and announcements of infrastructure interconnections explicitly branded under the Ghana–Zambia axis.