The Pan-African Policy Task Force recently held a global webinar entitled Connecting the Continent: Data, Policy and People. Policymakers, innovators and entrepreneurial stakeholders gave feedback on progress made in the entrepreneurial ecosystem on the continent.
The Pan-African Policy Task Force held a successful webinar early in July 2026, where participants heard that the initiative has been expanding rapidly since its launch in 2022.
Aniya Hamilton of the Innovation for Policy Foundation (a partner to the taskforce) reflected back on its beginnings, “I am happy to tell you that back in 2022 we had 45 members from all corners of the globe and four years later, we are now at a solid 150 members in the Pan-African Policy Task Force”
Webinar attendees hailed from the Netherlands, the US, Ghana, Rwanda, Kenya, Nigeria, Cameroon, Botswana and South Africa, among others. The Task Force is a collaboration between Smart Africa, the Innovation for Policy Foundation, Stellenbosch University and the Allan Gray Centre for Africa Entrepreneurship (AGCAE).
In her opening remarks, Hamilton highlighted that one of the main aims of the Task Force is to build smarter policy actors and a more intelligent ecosystem that serves everyone – which is vital at a time when funding is even harder to come by due to changing geopolitics and economic strain. Then Michelle Harding from the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) spoke about the newly created South African Innovation Policy Hub which will soon be publicly launched.
‘We need intelligent data and good data systems’
Harding spoke about the lack of policy coherence in South Africa. “We have different government departments, each with their own policies, each with their own instruments of implementing these policies.” She mentioned bottlenecks holding back development and initiatives and for her, the solution was improved data and intelligence gathering, which the South African Innovation Policy Hub would focus on.
Promoting ecosystem intelligence means defining what kind of data should be gathered and establishing the most effective ways of analysing and disseminating it. By continuously evaluating these efforts, it is hoped that in-depth research into the relationship between entrepreneurship and innovation systems can be developed. Harding said outcomes would be shared on a digital platform, the Innovation Bridge Portal. This online platform has been available for some time with a wealth of opportunities, events and up to 770 innovations for public viewing.
Other interesting speakers included Lukonga Nintunda, co-founder of BongoHive, an innovation and technology hub in Zambia, which supports nearly 2 000 startups. “When we started BongoHive 15 years ago, I didn’t think policy was important. I wanted to stay away from politics,” he admits. But over time, he learnt how vital it was to build relationships with regulators, government partners and all those involved in the entrepreneurial space.
‘I wanted to stay away from anyone who talked too much and did nothing’
Nintunda learnt that it was not about becoming an expert at policy but becoming more of a convenor, specifically bringing impactful people together. He shared an anecdote about talking to a minister in Zambia who said he wanted to visit the BongoHive physical office. “He didn’t want to see us online. A lot of people are old-fashioned like that.”
But at the end of the day, it is relationship-building. And BongoHive has organised webinars and held events, getting to know stakeholders personally. They have become consultants and policy advisors and have contributed to the country’s new data protection and Zambia’s national AI strategy.
The importance of data, digital skills and online entrepreneurial activity came up again and again at the webinar. In the next session, Dr Phumlani Nkontwana, AGCAE director, invited participants to have a look at the newly-updated Africa Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Index.
‘You don’t have to be a data person to use the Index’
The Index offers a wealth of data, comparisons between countries in Africa according to various criteria and rankings. “Africa generally struggles to break beyond the middle-income bracket, but we can use ecosystem intelligence to try and close that gap,” he said.
Dr Nkontwana said the new data offered valuable information on the state of the entrepreneurial process in African countries. “The important thing is to democratise ecosystem intelligence so that you empower people to understand their own contexts and think carefully about how to make decisions.”
By comparing how countries fare on key indicators, powerful data is offered, free for download. In closing, Hamilton reiterated what many of us have come to understand, that strengthening the entrepreneurial ecosystem was a slow process. “It is a marathon, not a sprint. Sometimes you do feel the pressure to go for the sprint, because the funding climate is geared towards quick wins. But persistence is key.”
