Change Makers How can we build trust, promote partnership, and enhance regional collaboration among different African stakeholders in the Internet governance ecosystem, including governments, inter-governmental bodies, civil society, industry, media, and academia?industry, media, and academia? I point out in my forthcoming paper, Authoritarian Alliances, and Data Politicking in Africa (Stanford), that the limited local research on the acquisition of large-scale digital data by African authoritarian governments with the backing of foreign actors has meant that African civil society has not done sufficient advocacy to spotlight its human rights implications. Yet these practices are not new as they continue the historical authoritarian influence in the analogue era. This failure highlights a lack of capacity by local researchers to utilize mixed methods approaches to understand such a complex and evolving area shrouded in secrecy. Because of these logistical challenges, local researchers must foster international research collaborations and consider applying robust research methods. Some of these include: • • • A CIPESA Series By focusing on a few qualitative case studies over a longer period. For example, how do the challenges brought by large-scale data collection by authoritarian African governments compare between countries without data protection laws? Through empirical field quantitative and qualitative studies. For example, what is the impact of AI-enhanced technologies, how are these technologies designed in theory and practice, what are their capacities, and where are they located? What governance models are suitable for oversight and safeguarding safety and human rights? How do historical data governance structures influence the current governance? Deciding on core criteria and heuristics African governments should use to measure the value of personal and non-personal data and its cross-border transfer? What lessons, if any, can Africa learn and adopt from other regions? 9