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Every night for five years, computers and network appliances from the headquarters of the African Union in Ethiopia — a facility built by Chinese firms — reportedly reached out to China-based systems and uploaded sensitive data. The espionage through the technology supply chain, which China's government denies, undermined the security of the pan-African organization.

The incident and more recent supply-chain breaches have underscored that reliance on foreign technological supply chains carries with it significant risks. While using a technology supply chain anchored in China was seen as a less constrained option than US and European options, the truth is that African nations need to evaluate the security of all their supply chains across applications, consumer devices, infrastructure, and service providers, according to a report published by the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, a research and academic center funded by the US Department of Defense.

"I don't think there's an African country that doesn't have some kind of interest in fostering a more robust technology industry and finding various ways to exert more ownership and agency over various aspects of the technology sector," says Nate Allen, associate professor at the Africa Center for Strategic Studies and the author of the report. "You are seeing increasing African interest in having more ownership and say over their technology supply chains."

Supply-chain security has become a major issue worldwide following malicious events, such as the WannaCry and NotPetya worms and the compromise of SolarWinds, as well as IT supply-chain failures, like this summer's CrowdStrike outage. The US government has voiced concerns over the extent to which US maritime ports are reliant on Chinese equipment and investment, and China has begun creating its own operating system and software ecosystem.

Similarly, African nations have become wary of information technology supplied by any number of foreign countries, including China, Russia, the US, and Europe. While African nations need the technology and investment, they are pursuing initiatives to reduce their reliance, says Mark Walker, vice president of data and analytics for the Middle East, Turkey, and Africa for IDC South Africa.

"The reality is that we live in a multidimensional, globally interconnected world, [where] development is reliant on significant capital investment and R&D to develop technology — often this is in limited supply across Africa," he says. "That said, many African nations are focusing on developing local software and technology skills in their populations to offset reliance on global players and also ensure that solutions are relevant to local market condition and needs. Education plays a significant role in this."

China, US Dominate Africa's Tech Market

Those efforts are still nascent, with the reality that the top technology suppliers in Africa come from China and the US. In mobile applications, for example, 36 of 2023's top-100 applications are from Chinese companies, while 23 are from US companies, according to a report from DataSparkle, a provider of data and analytics for emerging markets. Africa-based developers only account for only seven applications, mostly focused on digital cash and payment applications.

The US dominates the operating-system supply chain with Microsoft's Windows, Google's Android, and Apple's iOS dominating the field.

"If you're not China and you're not the United States, you just have a lot of dependencies in your technology supply chain, and there's no way around it — even to some extent, if you are China and the United States," ACSS's Allen says.

Yet, the 54 nations on the content have options. While foreign firms provide much of the technology, the African market continues to grow and the domestic technology sector continues to have the most insight into nation-by-nation needs.

"[A] detailed view of Africa’s technology sector reveals that it is not under the control of any one actor, and there are plenty of opportunities for Africans to assert agency," the ACSS report stated. "By further fostering diversity and competition within the tech sector, African governments can help mitigate the vulnerabilities that come from external actor influence."

Future of Technology Supply Chains in Africa

Companies entering the market should find ways to address the cybersecurity concerns of African customers, because if they don't, someone else will, says IDC South Africa's Walker.

"Competition is strong, and vendors are judged on their ability to supply relevant technologies and services at a fair price with solid [local] support structures," he says, adding that companies should understand "the local market dynamics, including economic and political realities and the local regulatory environments. Security issues faced in the Horn of Africa around Somalia are different to those faced in northern Nigeria and the Magreb, which again, differ significantly from southeast Africa."

Among incidents in Africa, Chinese hackers targeted Kenyan officials following the nation's trouble paying back loans from China, according to news reports published in 2023, while another incident involved a state-sponsored group targeting foreign-affairs ministries, embassies, and military forces in Africa in an operation dubbed Diplomatic Specter, according to a threat analysis published in May.

In addition, African officials have warned that an important technology supply chain for the continent — open-source software (OSS) — needs to be better secured to prevent malicious attacks.

"I don't think that Africans are naive, or any government around the world is naive — I think they know that, if you are being sold a technology product that is not domestically produced, then there's always going to be some kind of security risk there," says ACSS's Allen. "I think the question is, how can you mitigate that security risk?"

Companies working in the markets need to have an answer to that question, he says.