BARRIERS ON THE WAY OF DIGITALIZATION OF THE AFRICAN CONTINENT

The article conducts a study on barriers to digitalization of African countries. The results of the study are in many ways a continuation of other works by the author, including those published jointly with other scientists. Digitalization has become one of the key processes taking place on the African continent today, despite all the traditional socio-economic and political problems of this region. Moreover, multiple studies show that digitalization has become a significant factor in economic growth and development of African countries. Therefore, understanding the barriers that impede the dynamic and sustainable development of digital processes seems important. This is the basis for the purpose of the study, according to which the main attention is focused on the factors hindering the digitalization of Africa. The main results note that significant barriers to digitalization of the African continent include the high cost of access and connection to the Internet, poorly developed digital skills of the local population, as well as problems of ensuring cybersecurity. The study explains that the high cost of Internet services is due to the insufficient development of the Internet infrastructure. Therefore, even the entry of the American company Starlink into the African market has not yet changed the situation significantly. Weak digital skills stem from the overall low literacy level of the African population, which has been noted in many works by both domestic and foreign authors. Finally, cybersecurity issues are largely the result of both weak digital skills and a lack of attention to digital products that can protect African Internet users’ data.