Spaceship Earth 
The Assemblies The Centre for International Governance Innovation's 2026 digital governance analysis identifies a defining tension for the year ahead: technology is accelerating as a strategic lever for economic, security, and geopolitical power, while governance remains reactive and the private sector is asserting itself as the new power broker. The gap between innovation and institutional capacity has rarely been wider.
Key developments CIGI highlights: the US Securities and Exchange Commission has approved tokenised stocks and bonds for 24/7 trading in 2026, opening a pathway to broader tokenisation of real-world assets. AI is being used increasingly not just in products but in governance itself — for strategic foresight, algorithmic policy design, and AI-powered causal analysis. At the same time, without coordinated global action, cyberspace and outer space risk becoming arenas of instability rather than shared commons.
The report identifies African leadership as critically important in 2026: African states will need to chart a path for the continent's digital transformation that leverages partnerships on their own terms, leading with ethics and locally developed standards rather than adopting governance frameworks shaped elsewhere.