Cameroon’s FGI 2026 bet on data to connect public services 🇨🇲

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Cameroon’s Internet Governance Forum (FGI) held its latest edition from August 18 to 20, 2026, at the Palais des Congrès in Yaoundé. Organized around the theme « From fragmentation to interoperability: making data the backbone of public digital infrastructure in Cameroon, » this year’s edition put data squarely at the center of the country’s digital transformation debate.

Building a digital architecture designed to connect 🔗

Held under the high patronage of Prime Minister Joseph Dion Ngute and led by the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications, the forum aimed to set up a technical environment where government administrations and digital services can communicate and exchange information securely. At the opening on August 18, Minister Minette Libom Li Likeng laid out a blunt diagnosis: platforms built separately have entrenched fragmentation and undercut the value of digital investment. Several technological building blocks were reportedly in scope: digital identification systems, digital payment platforms, data-exchange systems, and online administrative services. The stated goal was to put an end to the logic of isolated platforms — a fragmentation that slows interconnection between institutions and complicates the digital journey for citizens.

Data governance took center stage 🔐

This technical discussion came paired with a strand focused on data privacy policy, built around ownership, protection, storage, sharing, and use of public and personal data. It was a question of digital sovereignty that ran through all three days of the forum’s discussions.

Four key moments explored digital uses 💻

The forum’s discussions were organized around four major highlights. The first addressed data as the foundation for interoperable, inclusive, and secure public digital services, serving as a basis for assessing the digital maturity of Cameroonian institutions. Running alongside the main forum, FGI Women Cameroon hosted a session titled « Women, data and artificial intelligence: building an inclusive, safe internet full of opportunity, » examining women’s place in the national digital ecosystem. A third session turned to securing data and public infrastructure through the lens of resilience, trust, and rights protection, while the fourth, focused on young people, addressed innovation and digital citizenship under the theme « Youth, innovation and digital citizenship: building the future of the Internet in Cameroon. »

The forum was open to a wider audience 🌐

Participation in FGI Cameroon 2026 was entirely free, though prior registration was required for logistics. The event was also livestreamed, allowing a wider audience — including an international one — to follow the discussions. It’s a digital dimension that mirrored the forum’s own philosophy: making access to information and civic participation just as fluid and interoperable as the public services it aimed to promote.

Now that FGI 2026 has wrapped up, do you think interoperable public data can genuinely change everyday life for Cameroonian citizens, or are the infrastructure and governance challenges still too big to overcome? Let us know in the comments.