Africa’s digital ID push runs into mobile internet usage gap

Africa’s expanding digital identity and public service infrastructure faces a problem that network deployment alone cannot solve: hundreds of millions of people already live within mobile broadband coverage but remain offline.

A new roadmap released by GSMA and the Partnership for Digital Access in Africa (PDAA) calls on African countries to take steps towards ensuring that their citizens are not just covered by mobile internet but are effectively able to participate in the digital economy and access the growing range of services being delivered online.

Launched on September 21 in New York on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly, the roadmap is based on the GSMA’s State of Mobile Internet Connectivity Report 2026 published earlier this month. The report found that about 906 million people, representing about 60 percent of Africa’s population, lived within areas covered by mobile broadband infrastructure but were not using mobile internet in 2025, which means they were locked out of digital services.

“Advancing Digital Connectivity in Africa: Charting Africa’s Path to One Billion Connected People by 2030,” is intended to analyze and see how to turn things around. It is based on an analysis of 11 African countries, which showed that the barriers to digital participation differ from one country to another.

No single pathway to closing the gap

In some countries, the priority is to build networks, while in others it is to make smartphones affordable. Elsewhere, the more urgent need is to provide digital skills and make digital services sufficiently useful to give people a reason to connect to the internet.

The findings are reflected in the experiences of countries such as Nigeria, Rwanda and Malawi.

In Nigeria, about 140 million people were in the mobile internet usage gap in 2025. This refers to people living within mobile broadband coverage but not using mobile internet. The figure highlights the gap between awareness, device ownership and actual use.

For Rwanda, the requisite infrastructure largely exists, but adoption is not matching coverage. According to the GSMA, about 96 percent of the population was covered by 4G, while only about 21 percent of the population were unique mobile internet subscribers in 2025.

In Malawi, about 87 percent of the population was covered by 4G in 2025, but unique mobile internet penetration stood at only 12.5 percent, with smartphone adoption at 33 percent. The situation shows a clear gap between infrastructure availability and meaningful digital participation.

Such gaps also present a challenge as governments increasingly rely on digital channels to deliver identity, payments and other public services.

What governments must prioritize

GSMA therefore prescribes three priority actions for governments, industry, development partners and investors to ensure that connectivity is not just about network coverage, but effective use by people covered by that infrastructure.

Among the proposals, the roadmap urges African countries to accelerate migration from 2G and 3G to smartphone-based participation, converting more than 600 million legacy mobile connections into meaningful internet use on 4G and 5G networks.

The second proposal calls for countries to consider energy and connectivity investments together, recognizing that reliable electricity is essential to network economics, device use and participation in the digital economy. Africa has nearly 600 million people still living without access to electricity, according to the World Bank.

Also, the roadmap presses on the need to reduce the cost of reaching rural and underserved communities through shared infrastructure, innovative technologies, outcome-based public funding and anchored demand from institutions such as schools, healthcare facilities and other public entities.

Commenting on the development, former President of Liberia and co-chair of PDAA, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, said: “The goal is ambitious, but it is achievable if we bring together connectivity, electrification, affordable devices, and skills, and if we match Africa’s many promising programs with the power of genuine public-private partnership, we can ensure that the continent’s digital transformation leaves no community behind.”

For GSMA Chief Regulatory Officer and President of the GSMA Foundation, John Giusti, Africa must move beyond networks to digital participation. “The urgent task now is to close the usage gap by making smartphones and services affordable, equipping people with practical skills, building trust, and ensuring connectivity delivers feasible value in people’s lives,” he said.

The roadmap also urges stakeholders to work in a coordinated and convergent manner, bringing together policy, infrastructure, energy, devices, skills, safety and relevant digital services.

It argues that the focus is not only on making sure that people who live in network-covered areas can use the internet, but also on extending broadband coverage to the approximately 122 million others who still live outside areas covered by broadband networks. The roadmap is part of the broader push to have at least one billion Africans effectively connected to the internet by 2030.

The findings add to a broader GSMA argument that digital inclusion requires more than basic connectivity. Recent research focused on refugee women similarly proposed that digital inclusion should not be limited to basic internet connectivity.

Article Topics

Africa  |  digital ID  |  digital ID infrastructure  |  digital inclusion  |  GSMA  |  identity infrastructure