Last week, our partnership with AI CEO Rebecca Finlay and I attended Africa’s first global AI summit in Kigali, Rwanda. So we took part in meaningful conversations and panels to discuss the construction of a collective action plan for AI across the continent. AI is already presenting great benefits and challenges across the region. While countries across the continent are at very different stages of AI adoption and varying priorities, the Summit Declaration and the stronger regional integration plan associated with AI create a shared commitment to specific goals.
In South Africa, AI is being used to address the HIV epidemic in large language model-based chatbot apps. Kenyan farmers use AI-powered apps to diagnose crop diseases to help with production. In Nigeria, startups have built first supported LLMs to increase the expression of Nigerian language in AI systems around the world. At the summit, ambitious actions such as Cassava’s plan to expand computing power in Africa and the $60 billion Africa Fund within the Africa Declaration on AI show shared goals across continental countries to promote this form of corporation, the deployment of AI and, more importantly, the development of open, smaller models.
However, AI is not without risk, and as technology becomes more accessible and the misuse of AI increases as it spreads widely. In a recent case study, the African Code examined the impact of AI on South African elections. In May 2024, ahead of the South African general election, the major opposition parties of the time were broadcast and shared advertisements featuring versions of the South African flag generated by burning AI, causing public outrage. The case studies highlighted the need for mitigation strategies such as direct disclosure to protect consumers of synthetic media, and also highlighted the need for standardized global AI governance.
As governments around the world urgently develop their own frameworks to improve the trust and safety of AI, we continue to build bridges with PAI partners across regions, sectors and perspectives to unify these efforts. Our 2025 priorities on our expansion efforts continue to survive globally as we continue to explore opportunities to promote safe and responsible AI by incorporating diverse perspectives from around the world.
African countries face unique challenges when leveraging AI compared to North America and Western Europe due to intracontinental and intercontinental inequality related to data, infrastructure and connectivity, digital skills and research and development. But despite these challenges, Africa stands at a pivotal moment in AI development, giving us the opportunity to learn from early adopters while building paths that reflect its diverse contexts and priorities. As the decisions we make today about AI governance will shape society and economy over the next decades, it is essential to bring representatives from continents, regions and sectors to advance our goal of promoting AI that benefits people and society.
Stephanie Ifaiemi, senior director of Pie’s policy, is on driving the equity and inclusion panel to promote trust and safety.
It was an honor to lead the discussion at the Summit on Trust and Safety, which touched on the mechanisms that African policymakers and stakeholders need to implement as they expand their adoption, development and deployment on the continent. This includes the proper balance of international integrity/interoperability and the building of trust and safety to explain unique African needs.
We were also honored to have CEO Rebecca Finlay take part in the summit’s closing ceremony with a panel that examined opportunities for all forms of governance (including national, regional and global levels) to promote innovation for the public good. During the summit, we collaborated with Vukosi Marived, a board member of Deep Learning Indava and PAI, to co-host a breakfast roundtable to discuss important AI topics with the global community.
PAI CEO Rebecca Finlay on AI Governance and Africa’s positioning within the Global Context Panel
Three important themes emerged from the summit
So far, the African Union’s Agenda Continental Artificial Intelligence Strategy has led to a continental approach, along with key frameworks such as Smart Africa’s AI for Africa Blueprint, the AU Data Policy Framework, and the United Nations’ Global Digital Compact.
The summit has been pleased to see the announcement of the African Declaration on Artificial Intelligence, which pools several different components in the above strategies, providing an up-to-date vision for promoting leadership in data (including open data sets), talent, infrastructure, governance and institutional cooperation calculations.
It focuses on three core areas highlighted by the Continental Declaration, President Kagame, government leaders, industrial and civil society.
Digital Public/Physical Infrastructure: Enhancement of Africa’s digital and physical infrastructure is important to support AI development in the region. This includes significant investments in data centers that will increase productivity, support business and make Africa more economically competitive in the future, and the challenges associated with siloed datasets will be overcome through continental alignment and open data. Our community of partners praised these important milestones at our breakfast. He also noted that, as these initiatives are in place, it must ensure that interdisciplinary and public-private dialogues, including civil society, are in place to ensure input from local researchers and citizens. Ecosystem building: It needs to nurture and grow the local AI ecosystem in Africa, including scaling startups, developing skills, and growing the AI-focused workforce. The discussions at the summit created an ecosystem of interdisciplinary expertise and highlighted the importance of multi-stage holderism to support the sustainable growth of safe and responsible AI. Continental collaboration, alignment and integration: To promote continental unity, accelerate growth, accelerate intra-African collaboration, and harmonize governance frameworks, regional silos and barriers to trade and AI development must be overcome. This includes the placement of mechanisms to support the construction of local datasets.
Hon. Minister Paula Ingavia gives a welcome statement
Global AI Governance and a Robust Digital Ecosystem
At this point, there is a real opportunity for Africa to pave its own path and ensure that AI governance is comprehensive and beneficial even for the most vulnerable groups.
Building trust and safety from the start: It is important to gain trust and safety from the start by building the necessary institutions and safe mechanisms. Building on the demands of numerous research from incidents and lessons from incidents, as well as assurance mechanisms (standards, audits, etc.) while maintaining competitiveness and promoting innovation can help build trust and safety. This will become a key component of the continent’s long-term success. Through a multi-stakeholder approach, the continent can maximize the benefits of AI while reducing its inherent risks. Alignment across the Governance Stack: Interoperability is key to creating a unified and effective AI governance ecosystem, as outlined in the Policy Alignment in the AI Transparency Report. The diverse needs of the continent. Effective adjustments need to balance continent-wide alignment and global integration in different local contexts. Success depends on clear strategies and facility buildings. The proposed African AI Science Panel (in the newly published declaration) and the African AI Safety Institute concept (discussed in the My Trust and Safety Panel) represent important opportunities to advance this vision. These proposed institutions are examples of potentially powerful engines of Africa’s unified approach to responsible AI, building the foundations of technical sovereignty while ensuring meaningful participation in global AI governance. Make sure civil society has seats at the table. The global impact of AI requires a unified effort to develop effective global governance, and we hope to see civil society organisations, workers and citizens around these conversations as we build our continental vision. The summit is a great start and the African AI Council is an example opportunity to ensure that these voices are solidified in the next steps towards implementation.
The summit highlights the importance of a comprehensive multi-stakeholder approach and looks forward to working with our partners to ensure a clearly defined role for civil society as key players in this ecosystem. We are excited to share the next step, especially the distribution of the declaration and work with the upcoming Africa AI Council. Sign up for our newsletter to keep us up to date with our work in this space.
