Mwanga wa Elimu Secretariat
Africa has no shortage of brilliant EdTech solutions. What it has lacked, for decades, is the infrastructure to carry them to scale.
Four structural barriers have blocked progress consistently across the continent. Policy fragmentation prevents cross-border deployment and creates vendor lock-in. Technology fragmentation makes localisation and curriculum alignment prohibitively expensive for any single developer. The absence of shared, comparable data means governments and funders cannot identify what actually works. And because of the economics trap, even the strongest developers are in perpetual pilot mode, always innovating, rarely scaling, and almost never achieving sustainability. These barriers exist because they are a coordination failure, and coordination failures require system-level responses.
AUDA-NEPAD’s African EdTech 2030: Vision and Plan provides that response. It calls for a unified, continent-scale Digital Public Infrastructure for Education (DPI-Ed): open, interoperable, and governed in Africa’s public interest. The architecture is designed to lower all four barriers simultaneously, because lowering any one in isolation leaves the others intact. Already endorsed by the African Union, the Vision is not a concept paper. It is an actionable framework, and the system it proposes already exists at design level. What remains is to build it.
Mwanga wa Elimu was established to drive that effort. The movement’s name reflects its purpose: to light Africa’s education. Formed in 2025 in direct alignment with the AUDA-NEPAD Vision, it brings together policymakers, investors, developers, researchers, and educators committed to a single, unified EdTech ecosystem. With 200 million learners on the continent, the cost of continued fragmentation is measured in children who cannot access quality digital learning, and in talented developers who build well but cannot reach them.
At eLearning Africa in Accra this June, Mwanga wa Elimu will convene its inaugural physical workshop. It is a gathering with real purpose: to translate shared diagnosis into collective commitment, and to bring the full range of actors needed into the work of building Africa’s EdTech future.
The call will be specific to each group present. Policymakers and public sector leaders are asked to formally adopt the EdTech Vision and Plan. Without it, continent-scale deployment remains structurally impossible.
Investors and funders are asked to move capital with intention, directing resources towards solutions built for interoperability and designed to sustain themselves beyond the project cycle. Funding DPI-Ed infrastructure, and the business models that make it viable, is how capital shifts from funding experiments to funding scale.
Developers are invited to build with purpose. Applications that are interoperable, offline-capable, and grounded in local contexts can reach a continental market. Building to the DPI-Ed standard is not a constraint; it is the route to reach.
Researchers bring the evidence that keeps the system honest. Evaluating what works in African classrooms, and translating findings into tools developers can use, ensures innovation remains relevant and accountable. The data layer of the Breakthrough System depends on this work.
For educators and learners, the ask is the most fundamental: adopt, use, and feed back. The classroom is where the vision either becomes practice or remains an idea. Digital capacity built at the school level is what closes the gap between infrastructure and impact.
The system that underpins Mwanga wa Elimu’s work is designed to be self-reinforcing. Policy opens a predictable market. Technology distributes learning at scale. Usage generates structured data. Data builds trust. Trust attracts investment. Investment funds better content and wider reach. Each element strengthens the others. But the flywheel needs to start turning, and that requires the coordinated commitment that eLearning Africa is positioned to catalyse.
Already, Mwanga wa Elimu counts representation from over 20 African countries. The coalition is growing because the diagnosis is shared and the path forward is clear.
The movement is in motion. eLearning Africa 2026 is the moment to formalise your commitment. Join Mwanga wa Elimu at the workshop in Accra on Wednesday, June 3rd 2026 (14:30 – 16:30) , and be part of building the EdTech system that Africa’s learners deserve.
Visit mwangawaelimu.org to learn more.
