Herbarium digitisation—transcribing and imaging specimens—is revolutionising biodiversity research by accelerating species discovery, enhancing conservation assessments, and informing policy to address global challenges like climate change and biodiversity loss. Digitised herbarium data underpin critical research, such as alpha taxonomy, IUCN Red List assessments, and mapping ecosystems. Historical legacy of botanical exploration has left many African specimens in herbaria located in the Northern Hemisphere, where large digitisation efforts are making data from these collections available online. A brief overview of some of these initiatives, as well as the history of digitisation of herbarium collections in South Africa and the Western Indian Ocean Islands are provided, where projects such as the Southern African Botanical Diversity Network, African Plants Initiative, Western Indian Ocean Herbarium Network, and Today’s Flora for Tomorrow have advanced data mobilisation from African collections. Much work is still required towards digitising the collections held in herbaria across Africa. However, African herbaria face barriers that inhibit digitisation, such as limited funding, capacity, and digital infrastructure. This imbalance hinders the continent’s ability to effectively meet goals like those of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. By uniting in collaborative networks and harnessing innovative technologies like artificial intelligence, African nations can accelerate digitisation and mobilisation of herbarium data, empowering the continent to comprehensively assess its plant biodiversity and implement robust conservation strategies before critical opportunities are lost.