Good roads, efficient ports, well-run rail networks, as well as reliable electricity and water supply are all part of a well-developed infrastructure that’s critical for economic growth and prosperity.
By Martin Fernandes, business development manager (Africa): operational technology at Fortinet
As elsewhere in the world, South Africa’s ambitious infrastructure and digital transformation goals largely rely on Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs). Today, the success of these partnerships depends on the trust that these shared systems and data are secure and protected.
The bridge between ambition and assurance is a model of network security, Sovereign Secure Access Service Edge (SASE), which provides a unified architecture that integrates networking and security, all while keeping sensitive data and control within South Africa’s borders – both physical and digital.
Importantly, SASE offers a framework for collaboration between the public sector and private companies while fully respecting sovereignty and compliance, both of which are essential and non-negotiable when critical national infrastructure meets the cloud.
Securing partnerships with trust
Public–Private Partnerships bring together government oversight, private capital, and shared accountability. The challenge is that they often also bring together different organisational cultures and priorities that depend on digital coordination and sharing information across departments, suppliers, and contractors. And these same circumstances also introduce significant cyber risk.
National data, operational technology (OT) and control systems are more connected than ever, and every connection, whether from a laptop in a private contractor’s office or systems within a municipality, expands the potential attack surface.
Without a secure digital foundation, even the most promising partnerships are likely to experience drawbacks. This means robust cybersecurity built on trust has to be a prerequisite for participation rather than a purely technical consideration.
Many PPPs operate across hybrid environments. Some systems are hosted in private data centres; others in public cloud; still others at the network edge, where other operations take place. In this distributed model, it can be easy to lose sight of where the clear boundaries lie, or who enforces them.
That’s where Sovereign SASE stands apart. It extends protection to every user, device, and cloud edge while ensuring that data remains under the jurisdiction and regulatory oversight of South Africa. Adherence to local legislation, like POPIA and FICA can also be maintained, even when private partners host or process government data, because the SASE model ensures consistent policy enforcement irrespective of location.
The strength of Sovereign SASE is that it provides the connective tissue that allows multiple organisations to collaborate securely on shared infrastructure by replacing the patchwork of point solutions with a single, centrally managed security framework that is locally governed and globally informed.
Collaboration and compliance built in and secured
Rather than compliance being viewed as another box to tick, in PPPs, it can be the mechanism that actually builds confidence that each partner will protect the integrity of shared systems and data. Sovereign SASE supports this by embedding compliance within the architecture itself. Instead of relying on manual checks or disconnected policies, every connection, user, and device adheres to the exact same security framework so that trust is automated instead of assumed.
The automation and visibility of trust are particularly relevant for sectors like energy and logistics, where digital systems increasingly underpin physical operations. Consider the national priority of addressing the energy crisis through new PPPs. When a private partner connects their IT systems to a municipal smart grid to manage renewable energy inputs or load-balancing, a new, complex digital doorway is created.
A cyber-attack that begins with a simple phishing email sent to that private partner – an IT-level breach – could now potentially pivot into the grid’s core operational technology (OT). That fundamentally shifts things from a simple data theft scenario, for instance, and becomes a matter of public safety.
A successful lateral move from the IT network to the OT network could threaten to disrupt load-balancing controllers, shut down substations, or interfere with the physical electricity supply to hospitals, traffic systems, and entire suburbs, in a worst case scenario.
This high-stakes environment is precisely where Sovereign SASE’s model is critical. Whether managing smart grids or monitoring freight logistics, organisations need real-time visibility of who is accessing what, from where, and under what conditions. Sovereign SASE delivers that granular visibility alongside the assurance that sensitive national data – and the critical infrastructure it controls – stays within national reach, and protection.
Building digital trust for the future
South Africa has the opportunity to build a model of digital transformation that strengthens public institutions so they can consistently and transparently deliver essential services to citizens. Digital trust can only be built through visibility and control. Sovereign SASE delivers these elements by unifying security and networking while upholding the principles of data sovereignty.
Better still, it allows South African organisations, both public and private, to innovate confidently knowing their collaboration is protected by architecture, not assumption.
As new PPPs emerge under the country’s national digital agenda, the ability to secure them from the ground up will undoubtedly determine their long-term success. Sovereign SASE offers the blueprint for digital trust and the foundation of a more secure digital nation.