Initiative for U.S.-China Dialogue on Global Issues

Investments from both private and public actors and institutions from China (and elsewhere) have helped facilitate the hard and soft infrastructures that have enhanced Africa’s digital connectivity, raising critical questions about how these investments will help or hinder Africa-centered development and governance.

The Africa-China Research Group on Digital Infrastructure is a multi-disciplinary group of scholars that will examine how African individuals and institutions utilize Chinese-funded digital infrastructures. The rapid progress of digital technologies in Africa has led to changes in how people communicate, create, and consume. Analyzing how diverse actors engage with these technologies should provide a rich source for case studies and comparative analyses of the experiences, perspectives, and realities across Africa’s digital and physical spaces.

The group is co-convened by Ken Opalo (Georgetown University) and Anita Plummer (Howard University) and co-sponsored by the Africa-China Initiative (Walsh School of Foreign Service) and Initiative for U.S.-China Dialogue on Global Issues at Georgetown University and Howard University’s Center for African Studies. The research group is supported through a generous grant from the Luce Foundation.