Africa Now Has a Continental AI Strategy: What Next?

The past couple of years have seen significant progress in Artificial Intelligence (AI) development and adoption across several fabrics of the global society. For the African continent, a robust AI ecosystem is particularly beneficial for the realisation of the AU agenda 2063 and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Already, several AI use cases have emerged in critical sectors of healthcare, financial inclusion, agriculture, and social welfare services. But equally abundant are the risks and harms that AI systems pose to the African continent in ways that are peculiar.

This calls for a continental strategy that articulates a joint ambition and governs diverse interests in the development, adoption, and governance of AI, with special attention to equitable distribution of benefits and protection of the most vulnerable. Building on a stack of earlier AU digital governance frameworks – such as the AU Data Policy Framework 2022, the African Digital Transformation Strategy (DTS), 2020-2030, the 2014 AU Convention on Cyber Security and Personal Data Protection (the Malabo Convention) – and a few existing national AI strategies, the African Union has recently published the first AI Strategy for the African continent. The process received key support from UNESCO and contributions from several experts – including the Global Center on AI Governance (GCG)’s CEO, Dr. Rachel Adams, and Researcher Ayantola Alayande who both played a major role in drafting the strategy and leading the expert consultation process.

As well as articulating a clear agenda rooted in African values and development aspirations, a key component of the Strategy is its right-driven approach, which emphasises ethics, inclusion, diversity, and the protection of the dignity of the African people. For a continent as diverse as Africa, convening multiple stakeholders around a common interest is an arduous task, but this was indeed a major strength of the Strategy, whose development involved at least four rounds of expert consultations on different aspects of AI governance (discussed below); series of technical committee reviews; reviews by experts and country representatives from the AU; a ministerial endorsement in June; and then a final approval during the Executive Council’s 45th Ordinary Session in Accra, Ghana in July.

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