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Paper short abstract

Examines how institutional data hoarding creates digital inequality in West Africa, enabling tech firms with proprietary data to dominate while public planners pay for access and open-source tools lag, deepening dependency and spatial injustice.

Paper long abstract

This paper explores how poor data governance in West Africa—characterized by bureaucratic gatekeeping, misinterpretation of privacy laws, and informal monetization of datasets—creates a new form of digital inequality. Drawing on the donor-funded Artificial Intelligence for Energy Access (AI4EA) project, implemented in five West African states between 2024 and 2025, this study argues that the inability to access publicly funded, geocoded household energy data perpetuates regional disparities in AI-driven energy planning. While Nigeria benefits from open data ecosystems, neighboring countries remain data-poor, leading to less accurate models and inefficient electrification pathways. A key consequence is that large and foreign tech firms, able to deploy capital to collect their own proprietary data, develop more accurate AI models, consolidating their market advantage while open-source tools lag. Public-sector planners are then forced to pay these foreign firms for access to proprietary tools, creating a cycle of dependency and financial drain.

This dynamic entrenches a form of digital rent-seeking, where public data generated through donor-funded surveys is withheld, only to be replaced by privatised data products that states must purchase. The resulting inequality is twofold: it impedes local innovation and erodes digital sovereignty, as planning capabilities become outsourced. The paper frames this not merely as a technical bottleneck, but as a governance failure that reproduces and deepens socio-spatial divides. It concludes with a call for reimagining data as a public good and strengthening mandates for open data to ensure AI serves equitable, self-determined development.