Turning a digital education strategy into real change requires complex system design and an infrastructure that helps good ideas grow. Barbara Glover, Programme Officer of the Integrated Vector Management Programme (IVM) at the African Union Development Agency – New Partnership for Africa’s Development (AUDA-NEPAD), is helping build that foundation across Africa. Her work centers on scaling solutions, aligning policies, and ensuring technology serves learners rather than vendors. In this 5 Questions interview, Glover reflects on what she’s learned so far, why infrastructure matters, and how coordinated digital transformation can expand opportunity for millions of learners.
What is the nature of your work?
AUDA-NEPAD is the African Union’s development and implementation arm, where continental strategies are translated into pilot projects and initiatives. At the country level, the focus is on translating the AU Digital Education Strategy into a practical, shared roadmap for its ed tech ambitions. Our Africa EdTech 2030 Vision and Plan is that roadmap. It aims to reduce the policy, technical, and data barriers that hinder the scaling of good ideas and to position Africa as a global leader in ed tech, not just a consumer of other regions’ models.
Day to day, the work looks less like “launching apps” and more like quiet system design, aligning ministries, regulators and Regional Economic Communities (RECs); defining continental standards; and building a domestication pathway so member states can integrate the vision into national plans. Pilot initiatives sit alongside this architecture. For example, the RESPECT DPI-Ed pilot, led by the SPiX Foundation and partners, with AUDA-NEPAD as a collaborator, offers one concrete test of what digital public infrastructure (DPI) for education could look like in practice. It is one of the early laboratories feeding insights back into our vision and plan, and into what DPI for Education could look like for Africa.
Why is this work important?
The AU Digital Education Strategy captured a hard truth that Africa cannot meet its learning and skills ambitions with fragmented platforms, disconnected pilots, and opaque data systems. The EdTech 2030 Vision and Plan is important because it offers a way out of that pattern. It proposes a continental approach to Digital Public Infrastructure for Education (DPI-Ed) – shared “rails” for identity, data, content and connectivity that different countries and innovators can build on, rather than rebuild.
With a common ed tech architecture, ministries can negotiate with vendors, financiers, and global partners with clarity. It helps turn what often feels like donor- and market-driven digitalization into a policy-led transformation, anchored in African priorities.
It also connects Africa directly to global DPI discussions, including at the G20 Summit, with a distinctive contribution: that education deserves its own rail in the DPI conversation, and that public infrastructure can be designed from the outset to serve learners, teachers, and local innovators.
Ultimately, building DPI for education is an investment in dignity, inclusion, and human capital, ensuring that technology serves people and expands opportunity for generations to come.
What’s been the biggest surprise so far?
One of the clearest insights from this work is the readiness of African institutions for a more coherent, structured approach to digital education. When the EdTech 2030 Vision and Plan was circulated across ministries, regulators and RECs, the response was consistent. African countries and partners are not seeking more disconnected projects or standalone platforms; they are seeking an architecture, predictable standards, and a continental pathway that makes digital transformation manageable rather than overwhelming. This process has also revealed the strength of demand for alignment across sectors.
Also connected is the value of early, transparent consultation. Member state feedback, expert reviews, and scenario modeling have surfaced constraints and opportunities that would have remained hidden in a traditional “pilot-first” approach. It confirmed that continental planning works best when informed by real system conditions, not just assumptions.
Where do you see your work in five years?
By 2026, the vision aims to be embedded in national policies, making digital education a natural part of Africa’s development, encouraging stakeholders to feel hopeful about the future.
Regionally, the regulator and Mobile Network Operators workshops envisioned in the roadmap should ideally translate into tangible shifts: more coherent policies on education data rates, devices, and data protection; clearer expectations on zero-rating; and a baseline understanding that education uses shared standards rather than bespoke one-offs.
By then, pilots like RESPECT v1 will hopefully be seen as early proof points, demonstrating how an open, interoperable DPI-Ed layer can deliver local content, credentials, and services across multiple countries. In global forums, including future G20 discussions on DPI, Africa’s ed tech architecture should be referenced not as a case study in “catching up,” but as an example of how to design public infrastructure for a young, mobile, digital continent.
What else should people know?
At the African Union Heads of State Summit in February 2026, AUDA-NEPAD will host the Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) Week, during which several major continental initiatives will be launched, including new reports, frameworks, financing instruments, regulatory tools, and the official rollout of the EdTech 2030 Vision and Plan.
These events offer a unique chance for governments, partners, and innovators to come together, fostering a sense of shared purpose and community in Africa’s digital education journey. Interested parties are invited to RSVP and participate in these sessions during STI Week. It is an opportunity to engage directly with the Vision, understand upcoming opportunities, and collaborate to shape the future of digital learning across the continent.
