Dakar, Senegal – An experts consultative meeting on developing a continental strategy for Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Africa has been successfully held in Dakar, Senegal, from the 10th – 13th of May 2022. This was held on the margins of the 6th Calestous Juma Executive Dialogue (CJED), organised by the African Union High-Level Panel on Emerging Technologies (APET).  The CJED convenes policy and decision makers, executives, youth, and relevant stakeholders to deliberate on harnessing appropriate innovations and emerging technologies for Africa’s socio-economic development.

APET has prioritised and recommended AI as an emerging technology worth harnessing for Africa's socio-economic development. In the APET "AI for Africa"  report to be launched in December 2022, the panel provides guidelines for African countries on how best to exploit AI-based technologies for the continent’s advancement. The high-level panel further recommended developing a continental Artificial Intelligence strategy for Africa, necessitating this expert consultative meeting.

In his opening remarks, a member of APET and lead on Artificial Intelligence, Dr William Wasswa, noted that AI is a pathfinder technology and valuable tool for economic development that cuts across economic sectors. As a continental expert who is revolutionising health service delivery using AI, Dr Wasswa noted that a comprehensive AU-AI Continental Strategy (AACS) would enable African countries to enhance policymaking and implementation and improve stakeholder engagements on AI-related challenges and opportunities. The strategy can help African countries comprehensively develop AI-related technology products and services within various economic sectors and also model how African countries could improve data security and safeguard the technology through enabling regulatory frameworks.

The strategy can enable stakeholder engagements, enhance capacity building, and strengthen the regulatory environment in AI technology and data management. Such enabling policies can address the existing and systematic implementation challenges faced by African AI innovators. ACCS would also guide the generation of knowledge products towards addressing myths and misconceptions around AI adoption in Africa, as well as enhance provision of technical advice on the technology in AU Member States. The strategy should be developed in consultation with continental AI experts and stakeholders. Its development process would include integrating existing National AI strategies and consolidating their best practices for continental benefit.

AI experts at the meeting recommended that APET establishes a continental repository and networking platform for AI experts. The experts further challenged African countries to create an enabling environment for market-based AI policies and allow compliance with regulatory processes of the technologies. They encouraged the consumption and utilisation of locally generated African AI products instead of the continued reliance on imported AI products. The meeting further stated that development of Policies and regulatory frameworks to improve data transparency, data sharing, and collaboration in AI-related economic activities should be encouraged and formulated in Africa.

A key activity during the meeting was for the experts to engage with policy and decision-makers, including Permanent Secretaries and Director Generals of the Ministries of Science and Technology and Education in the 15 Member States in West Africa, meeting for the 6th Calestous Juma Executive Dialogue (CJED). The experts made a presentation on "addressing the myths, challenges, and benefits of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Africa", after which there was a Q&A session with the policy and decision-makers.

The experts addressed myths about AI, emphasising that due to the influence of movies, AI is often misconstrued as "the rising of robots" to take over the world. Experts discussed use cases for the technology on the continent, speaking to their personal experiences in utilising AI for health, agriculture, and education, among others. During deliberation, African countries were encouraged to invest in human capital, which should be undertaken early enough in the curriculum to improve AI literacy across all youth and economic sectors. In addition, African countries were challenged to establish continental, regional, and national institutes and innovation ecosystems on AI that will be responsible for coordinating AI-related technology development. African countries can also improve and secure data protection and increase awareness of the importance of data management. To this end, African countries can build innovation infrastructure and review policy implementation frameworks governing AI.

The experts also encouraged African countries to consolidate outputs of stakeholder engagements and address country-specific barriers to AI technology to enable youth to innovate. For example, African countries can deliberately support and promote African AI innovation companies to be global players. This can be accomplished by supporting local companies instead of importing AI technologies. Furthermore, African countries can set milestones to fast track the harnessing efforts of AI technology in Africa. For example, countries can target 50% of their youth to be familiar with AI technology by 2030. This can be accomplished through deliberate investments in research, development, and innovation and by establishing continental, regional, and national AI institutes across the African continent.

The experts developed a draft outline for the strategy, outlining 5 key pillars. Following this consultation, an extended group of experts will be meeting to kickstart the drafting of the strategy with the support of APET. It is anticipated that stakeholder engagements to support the drafting, reviewing, and finalisation of the strategy will be held till the end of 2022, after which it shall be launched in the first quarter of 2023.

For more information, please contact:

Justina Dugbazah
Senior Programme Officer for Education and Social Development
Coordinator, APET-CJED
African Union Development Agency (AUDA-NEPAD)
Email: justinad@nepad.org