The Digital Cooperation Organization (DCO) has approved the candidature of eight new countries, including Kenya, to join the organization as Member States, in a move that would expand its membership from 16 to 24 countries.
The DCO, the world’s first standalone international organization dedicated to the digital economy, said the expansion would represent approximately 980 million people once complete.
The eight confirmed candidate countries are Albania, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Lebanon, the State of Palestine, Syria and Zambia. Tajikistan is separately set to join as an Associate Member.
DCO Secretary-General Deemah AlYahya said the expansion validates the model the organization was built on when it launched in 2020 with five founding members.
“When the DCO was launched by five countries in 2020, a standalone organization built around the digital economy outside the traditional blocs, it was an untested proposition. The news today of our expansion makes it a proven fact,” she said.
AlYahya said the accessions reflect a practical calculation by member countries around influence over emerging digital rules.
“Countries are joining for a practical reason; the rules of the digital economy on data, artificial intelligence, and cross-border trade are being written now, and rules written without you are rules you inherit rather than shape,” she said.
She added that the expanded membership gives countries the scale to shape those rules collectively rather than negotiate individually.
“These prospective accessions are how that changes: not by asking for better terms, but by building the capacity to set them together. That is what digital sovereignty looks like in practice,” AlYahya said.
Once complete, the accessions would mean approximately 12 percent of the global population is represented within the organization, reinforcing its position as a platform for international digital cooperation.
The expansion also marks a geographic broadening of the DCO’s footprint. It extends into Central Asia for the first time and reaches into the Caucasus and Western Balkans, regions not previously represented within the organization.
The DCO Council’s approval of candidature marks the start of the formal accession process. Each country’s membership will take effect once it completes its national internal accession procedures and deposits its instrument of accession, in line with the organization’s founding documents.
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