…Rallies global MPs to build a shared digital future
By Victor Ahiuma-Young
Geneva: Nigeria’s Deputy Speaker House of Representatives, Benjamin Kalu has urged parliamentarians across the world to take bold legislative steps that will turn the promise of digital trade into a shared engine of growth, stressing that Africa is determined to shape its own destiny in the fast-moving global economy.
Speaking at the WTO-IPU Steering Committee session of the WTO Public Forum 2025 in Geneva, Switzerland, Kalu described digital trade as “one of the defining governance challenges of our time,” warning that countries which fail to craft robust rules risk being left behind.
According to him, “The digital economy is no longer a distant promise; it is the daily reality of our entrepreneurs and the horizon of opportunity for our youth. In Africa, we have chosen not to wait for others to write our future.
“Through the African Continental Free Trade Area, AfCFTA, and its Protocol on Digital Trade, we are building our own regional multilateralism — a blueprint for a harmonized, integrated digital market.
“But blueprints alone do not build houses. Success depends on the laws we pass, the trust we create, and the predictability we guarantee. “In Nigeria, we have acted: the Nigeria Data Protection Act of 2023 safeguards privacy, while the forthcoming National Digital Economy Bill will anchor e-commerce and investment in legal certainty. Across Africa, parliaments are not spectators; we are legislating the future.
“Let us be frank: rules without enforcement are illusions. For smaller economies, a binding, two-tier dispute settlement system is not optional; it is a matter of survival.
“We all know that speeches do not build futures; actions do. For us to move to coordinated action, I propose three steps: A Legislative Tracking Mechanism that engenders peer-to-peer accountability, requiring us to report back on how we translate our collective resolutions into concrete action within our national parliaments; Concrete WTO support for AfCFTA implementation to further deepen digital trade in Africa; and A Model Digital Trade Legislative Toolkit, developed with UNCTAD and ITC, to equip parliaments with best-practice laws for a pro-development digital economy.
“Colleagues, the choice before us is stark: a fragmented digital future shaped by others, or a shared digital prosperity shaped by us. If we act together, we can ensure that digital trade becomes not a new divide but a new bridge — linking trust, opportunity, and inclusive multilateralism.”
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