The African Union High-Level Panel on Emerging Technologies (APET) and the African Union Development Agency (AUDA-NEPAD) recently convened African Artificial Intelligence experts at a Writing Workshop in Kigali, Rwanda, from February 27 to March 3, 2023, to finalise the drafting of the African Union Artificial Intelligence (AU-AI) Continental Strategy for Africa.

The goal is to develop a comprehensive strategy that will guide African countries on how to support inclusive and sustainable AI-enabled socio-economic transformation. An AI-driven socio-economic approach has the potential to promote economic growth and development by creating new industries and jobs, increasing productivity, and improving efficiency, which ultimately leads to elevated prosperity and better living standards for all Africans.

Dr William Wasswa, a member of APET and lead on Artificial Intelligence (AI), noted that AI is quickly becoming an epicentre for socio-economic development and growth, and Africa cannot afford to be left behind. APET considers AI as a frontier technology for Africa’s socio-economic development and growth since it has the potential to mitigate some of Africa's most pressing challenges, such as access to healthcare, education, and financial services. By leveraging AI, these services can be made more accessible, affordable, and effective, particularly for underserved communities. Therefore, it is imperative for Africa to harness this technology for socio-economic development and growth.

To develop the continental strategy, the all-African AI experts have held several writing workshops since May 2022 in Dakar, Senegal, and have emphasised the need for a continuous review and adaptation of the strategy to ensure that it is not obsolete in the near future. Dr Wasswa noted that AI is continuously changing and evolving, and therefore, the continental strategy should also be updated regularly to keep up with the latest trends and developments.

Dr Justina Dugbazah, the Coordinator of the APET-Calestous Juma Executive Dialogue (CJED) programme and Senior Programme Officer of Education and Social Development at AUDA-NEPAD, remarked that currently, most African countries lack comprehensive AI policy frameworks to promote responsible AI adoption. As a result, this is impeding AI-driven socio-economic development and high-quality African data gathering, processing, and interpretation. The AU-AI Continental Strategy seeks to guide these areas.

The African Union AI Continental Strategy for Africa also seeks to address the concerns regarding job losses and enhancing job creation opportunities through the integration of AI in various industries. This includes fostering human capital development and skills development in AI in agriculture, healthcare, finance, telecommunications, transportation, water management, and mining. There is also a need to develop the necessary mindset changes required to harness and implement AI successfully in Africa. APET believes that AU Member States have the potential to create significant AI-related job opportunities and promote AI-based entrepreneurship. However, the successful implementation of AI in these various industries requires significant human capital development.

The AI experts also visited the Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution (C4IR Rwanda) to learn about how Rwanda is shaping the trajectory of the fourth industrial revolution and adopting AI for the advancement of local communities.

It was identified during deliberations that to fully realise the enormous potential of AI in Africa, a comprehensive strategy to develop and strengthen competition laws, legal liability frameworks and intellectual property laws, the democratisation of AI, ethical considerations, and supporting AI ecosystems should be prioritised. AU Member States should have clear implementation frameworks, monitoring, and evaluation mechanisms to ensure implementation success. Funding and investment programs and mechanisms across various industries can quantify the return on investment for AI projects and ensure the expected impacts are realised.

Following this workshop, the draft strategy shall be submitted to AU Member States for review and validation to sustain ownership, after which a continentally adopted version shall be launched at the January 2024 AU Summit by Africa’s Heads of State and Government.