Africa's Post-Quantum Readiness 2026 A 54-Country Empirical Assessment

This empirical assessment examines publicly verifiable evidence of post-quantum cryptography (PQC) preparedness across all 54 African sovereign states as at 3 August 2026. Using a five-tier classification framework, SITG-Consulting assessed government strategies, cybersecurity authorities, regulatory activity, procurement records, national PKI initiatives, standards activity, academic research and regional programmes to distinguish genuine cryptographic migration from broader quantum research, awareness and cybersecurity capability. The assessment identified no African state meeting the highest threshold for a publicly documented national PQC migration programme. Ethiopia and Rwanda demonstrate substantive official PQC-specific activity; Kenya and Tunisia show structured policy or research activity; and Cameroon, Egypt, Morocco and South Africa show limited but credible evidence. In 46 of the 54 states assessed, representing 85.2%, no publicly verifiable PQC-specific activity sufficient to clear the assessment's lowest evidence threshold was identified. The findings do not establish that PQC activity is absent in those countries. They expose a more significant problem: the limited public visibility of the migration machinery required to manage cryptographic transition, including cryptographic inventories, ownership, crypto-agility, procurement requirements, supplier obligations, implementation roadmaps and national deadlines. The assessment concludes that Africa's post-quantum transition has begun, but migration remains fragmented and at an early stage. Because cryptographic trust crosses borders through banking, telecommunications, cloud infrastructure, digital identity, trade and global supply chains, materially uneven migration could create interoperability, dependency and market-access risks beyond the continent itself.