The scoping studies on data governance and sound policy in Africa phase I teased out the pertinent issues that have beleaguered the adoption and enforcement of data governance in Africa. Though there are existing efforts on data and privacy protection through legislation, and agreements by sub-Saharan African governments such as the African Union Malabo protocol, the adoption rates are quite low. The challenges faced by African governments in data policy and governance are cross-sectoral. For instance, critical socioeconomic data are collected in unreasonable time intervals, rarely available to inform policy on time, and are not accessible to researchers to conduct studies to build the stock of knowledge necessary to impact policy. In addition, there is massive feedback on the quality of data collected once analysis and policy advice is generated.