By Edward Wanyonyi and Lucia Bird

As the development of communications infrastructure accelerates, good governance and security are often sacrificed in the interest of a speedy rollout.

While Africa’s growing communications infrastructure and increasing internet penetration offer significant developmental benefits, they offer parallel opportunities to organised crime, which exploit the continent’s enhanced connectivity. These opportunities are set to grow with nascent research already indicating that the continent is an increasingly important source of both cyber-dependent and cyber-enabled crime. It is a crucial and already tardy moment to take stock of how these vulnerabilities manifest, and how they can best be addressed. If they remain ignored and unmitigated, organised crime will increasingly undermine progress and development, compromising the achievement of the very goals that enhanced infrastructure seeks to achieve.

ENACT-Africa, 2021. 20p.