- CAIGA risks centralising power at a moment when African internet governance needs transparency, not consolidation.
- ICANN’s expanding influence raises fears that CAIGA could entrench external control rather than strengthen regional autonomy.
A new framework, or a new layer of dysfunction?
As the debate around the future of African internet governance intensifies, the Continental Africa Internet Governance Architecture (CAIGA) has emerged as the latest proposed solution to the continent’s long-running coordination challenges. Its supporters argue that CAIGA could harmonise policy, strengthen cooperation, and provide continental stability. Yet the timing of the proposal — arriving amid the collapse of the African Network Information Centre (AFRINIC) after years of governance crisis — has raised concerns that CAIGA risks replicating the very failures it claims to fix.
The core problem is not the absence of structures, but a deficit of trust. AFRINIC’s years of dysfunction, contested elections, and governance paralysis have already eroded confidence in regional institutions. CAIGA’s blueprint does not remedy this loss; instead, it introduces another body without addressing the governance breakdown that has left Africa’s IP resource management in disarray.
Also read: Main Goals of the Smart Africa CAIGA Initiative
Also read: Smart Africa’s CAIGA: Collaboration or centralisation of power?
A framework dominated by external influence
Although presented as a continental initiative, observers argue that CAIGA’s formation coincides uncomfortably with ICANN’s over-extension of its own authority. ICANN has recently been criticised for undermining court decisions, bypassing multistakeholder norms, and attempting to expand its power through compliance instruments that would allow it to de-recognise regional internet registries at will. In this context, CAIGA risks becoming a vehicle for external agenda-setting, particularly if ICANN sees the framework as an opportunity to influence or steer continental internet governance. Critics warn that ICANN’s increasingly interventionist posture threatens Africa’s bottom-up governance principles and undermines regional autonomy.
Cross-border cooperation requires legitimacy — not shortcuts. CAIGA’s advocates claim the framework will strengthen cooperation, but such coordination cannot be imposed from above. Without a credible and accountable foundation — something AFRINIC’s governance crisis failed to provide — CAIGA risks deepening fragmentation rather than resolving it. Lacking transparent checks and balances, it could easily become another opaque structure with ambiguous authority and competing political interests. For African internet governance to stabilise, the priority must be restoring legitimacy, not layering new institutions on top of unresolved failures. Real cooperation will emerge from rebuilding trust, repairing broken governance mechanisms, and ensuring that regional autonomy is protected from external overreach.
