In the past eleven years or so, the Minister of the Digital Economy has demonstrated her commitment to digital inclusion in Togo. She piloted several public projects that positioned her country on the list of global digital nations.
Cina Lawson (photo) is a Togolese politician and currently the Minister of Postal Affairs and Digital Economy. She is one of the three Francophone Sub-Saharan tech actors to be on Rest of World’s 2022 list of the 100 Global tech Changemakers. The recognition celebrates her numerous contributions to the development of the digital sector in her country, Togo.
Indeed, she joined the Togolese government in 2010 as the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications. On September 7, 2013, she was appointed Minister of the Digital Economy. Since then, she has been piloting the country’s e-government project. She also oversaw the introduction of information technology in the education sector, carried out digital inclusion projects profiting the most vulnerable, and enhanced competition in the telecom market by awarding licenses to two new internet service providers (Teolis SA and Vivendi Africa) in June 2017. In June 2018, Miss Lawson also extended the licenses of telecom operators Moov Togo and Togo Cellulaire, adding 4G to their service spectrum. Months later, she oversaw the privatization of incumbent operator Togocom and updated Togo’s ICT regulatory framework.
The Digital Minister holds a Diploma of Advanced Studies (DEA) from the Paris Institute of Political Studies (1997). She also holds a Master's in History from Paris-Nanterre University (1998), and a Master's in Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School (2001). She began her professional career at the World Bank in 1998. In the Information and Communication Technology Department in Washington DC, she advised governments on telecom policies, regulatory reforms, and privatizations. She also worked as a consultant for Alcatel-Lucent in Paris and, from 2005 to 2010, she was working for France Telecom SA.
She has received several recognitions for her impact on her country’s ICT sector. In 2016, she was named by Tropics Magazine as one of the 55 actors moving Africa forward. In January 2019, Cina Lawson won the Napoleon Innovation Award, awarded by a professional network dedicated to the promotion of “virtuous, ethical innovation that benefits the many.” The following month, she won the Harvard Kennedy School’s Alumni Public Service Award for her commitment and contribution to the development of the ICT sector. She was thus the first African female politician to win the award since its creation in 1997.
In October 2021, Cina Lawson received the "Woman of the Year Award" from UC Berkeley’s Fisher Center for Business Analytics for Novissi, the social assistance project implemented through a digital platform to support low-income populations during the Covid-19 crisis. She was praised for her innovative work in leveraging non-traditional data and analytics to target and distribute emergency financial assistance to the most vulnerable.
Melchior Koba
