Instrument The Sovereignty Plane
44 indicators · 15 states
Working paper Negotiating Intelligence
submitted to Data & Policy, 2026
Author Akwasi Appiah Obeng

The gap between
what African states
declare about AI
and what they can
actually do.

A two-dimensional diagnostic measuring formal sovereignty against substantive sovereignty across fifteen African states, forty-four indicators, and 660 scored data points. From the working paper Negotiating Intelligence: African Agency in the Global AI Value Chain.

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§01 · The Flagship The Plane

A diagnostic
for the gap.

Most analyses of African AI governance count strategies, laws, and signed declarations. This is a two-dimensional instrument for measuring whether the institutions behind those declarations can actually do anything — applied to fifteen African states across forty-four indicators.

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Scope
00252550507575100100Substantive sovereigntyenforcement · procurement · assurance · delivery · negotiationFormal sovereigntystrategies · laws · institutions · partnershipsSovereignty TheatreNegotiated InterdependenceAd-Hoc CapabilityDependency by Defaultcoherence lineBotswanaBrazilCameroonEgyptEthiopiaFranceGabonGhanaJapanKenyaMalawiMoroccoNigeriaRwandaSenegalS. LeoneS. AfricaTunisiaUAE
Figure 1. Fifteen African states and four reference countries plotted by formal sovereignty (vertical axis) and substantive sovereignty (horizontal axis). The dashed diagonal marks the line where what a state declares matches what it can do. Click any country for the detail.
§02 · Reading it / Four quadrants

Four quadrants, one coherence line.

The plane is a diagnostic, not a verdict. What matters is not where a state currently sits but the direction of its movement — toward the diagonal where declaration and capacity coincide, or away from it.

Above the diagonal

Sovereignty Theatre

Strategies, laws, and institutions accumulate faster than the capacity to enforce, evaluate, or renegotiate. Twelve of fifteen African states sit here.

At or near diagonal, upper

Negotiated Interdependence

Formal architecture matched by operational capacity. The state can enforce against major providers and bargain credibly. Only South Africa among the African sample.

Below the diagonal

Ad-Hoc Capability

Capacity outruns formal architecture. Ecosystems, private investment, or diaspora networks generate capability without state-led planning. Tunisia is the only African case.

Lower-left

Dependency by Default

Limited formal architecture and limited substantive capacity. The state is a passive recipient of AI systems built, governed, and operated elsewhere.

§03 · Research

Writing at the intersection of governance, capacity, and care.

Working paper

Negotiating Intelligence: African Agency in the Global AI Value Chain

Prepared for submission to Data & Policy (Cambridge University Press) · April 2026

Introduces the formal–substantive sovereignty distinction and the Sovereignty Plane. Applied to fifteen African states and four reference countries across forty-four indicators and 660 scored data points.

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Peer-reviewed

Cost-consequence analysis of a digital health–enabled NCD management intervention in Ghana

Springer Nature · Cost Effectiveness and Resource Allocation · 2026 · open access

Retrospective economic evaluation across sixteen health facilities and 705 participants. The intervention was cost-saving (~$21,000 annual savings) with superior clinical outcomes — a dominant economic profile.

Read article →
MPhil thesis

Cost-effectiveness analysis of digital health interventions for NCD management in Ghana

KNUST · Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology · 2024

Built cost-effectiveness models using real-world programme data from LMIC settings. Obtained ethical approval, managed multi-facility data collection, and conducted quantitative analysis using standard health economic evaluation frameworks.

Thesis →
§04 / Work

Ten years inside African digital transformation.

The Sovereignty Plane is a theoretical instrument. It was written because the practitioner experience below made the gap impossible to unsee.

  1. 2025 — now

    Tony Blair Institute for Global Change

    Manager, Technology and Innovation

    Leading Sierra Leone’s National AI Strategy, National Data Governance Strategy, and National Digital Development Bill. Lead technical advisor to the Ministry of Communications on a $50M World Bank Digital Transformation Project. Trained the Sierra Leonean Cabinet and 500+ civil servants alongside MIT and Qhala.

    Freetown, Sierra Leone
  2. Aug — Dec 2025

    Sand Technologies

    Consultant — National Health Information Hub

    Led end-to-end discovery, requirements, stakeholder alignment, and design of Sierra Leone’s Ministry of Health National Health Information Hub, from inception to launch in four months. Defined data architecture aligned to national health data standards.

    Freetown, Sierra Leone
  3. 2023 — 2025

    Medtronic Labs

    Senior Programmes Lead

    Directed a multi-country digital health programme across Kenya, Ghana, Sierra Leone, and Tanzania. Improved healthcare access for 150,000+ underserved patients; achieved 60% improved health outcomes for nearly 100,000 enrolled patients — more than double the national baseline.

    Four countries, East & West Africa
  4. 2021 — 2022

    GIZ

    Senior Technical Advisor — Digital Transformation & PPP

    Managed a €12M Innovation Fund supporting public-private digital health initiatives. Advised the Ghana Health Service on the adoption of AI-driven health solutions during the COVID-19 response. Funded the Locovent, a low-cost ventilator deployed at national scale.

    Accra, Ghana
  5. 2016 — 2021

    Delft Imaging

    Project Manager — Africa

    Managed deployment of AI-driven TB diagnostic hardware (CAD4TB) across nine Sub-Saharan African countries. Owned donor reporting for WHO, USAID, FHI 360, and the Global Fund. Navigated regulatory approvals across multiple jurisdictions.

    Nine countries, Sub-Saharan Africa
§05 · About

I’m a digital policy advisor and governance researcher based between Freetown and Accra. For the last ten years I have worked inside the machinery of African digital transformation — running multi-country digital health programmes, managing innovation funds, drafting national strategies, advising ministries. I’ve seen what it looks like when a state signs an AI strategy and what it looks like when it actually has to enforce one. Those are not the same thing.

The Sovereignty Plane is a theoretical framework I wrote because the practitioner experience made the gap impossible to unsee. The Global AI Majority research community has converged on what needs to be built — sovereign AI safety capacity, inclusive participation, Africa-centric evaluations. It has not yet agreed on how to measure whether it is being built. The Plane is my contribution to that measurement problem.

I hold an MPhil in Health Systems Research and Management from KNUST, am PMP-certified and HL7 FHIR-certified, and serve on the steering committee of Health Technology Assessment International’s Developing Countries Interest Group. I’m an Acumen Academy Fellow. I’m interested in hearing from researchers working on Global AI Majority participation, Africa-centric safety evaluation, and the measurement of sovereign capacity in frontier AI governance.

§06 · Contact

The best way to reach me is directly. appiahk4@gmail.com

LinkedIn → Download CV → Download Negotiating Intelligence →