Artificial Intelligence, Ethics and Policy Governance in Africa
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As global interest in artificial intelligence surges, it has become imperative to foster inclusive dialogues that represent diverse perspectives, especially those from countries in the early stages of digitalization. For this reason, we put together a special collection in the open-access journal Data & Policy (Cambridge University Press) that tackles a variety of subjects from AI ethics to data policy governance in Africa. This article introduces this collection, as it offers original contributions from authors researching the impact of artificial intelligence on Africa.
A substantial part of the papers in the collection were presented at the 2024 Data for Policy Conference held at Imperial College London. They highlight regulatory and governance gaps, and propose that these gaps be filled by ethical frameworks grounded in sub-Saharan ethical principles and the unique needs of the continent. Another feature of the collection is that it curates papers from African scholars, technologists, civil society, government, and researchers working in the areas of AI ethics, responsible innovation, data governance, and technology policy. This is particularly useful because such works are under-represented in major publication venues. It also marks a collaboration between the African Observatory on Responsible AI, a project of the Global Center on AI Governance (GCG), the Data for Policy Conference and Data & Policy journal to expand their African authorship and coverage of research in the region, whilst focusing on African issues and addressing African problems related to AI and data. The collection is of significance for decision-makers, data policy practitioners, and academics both on the African Continent and more widely.
A very obvious gap in the global interest around artificial intelligence is the absence of governance, which is seeing many countries develop national strategies, policies, legislations and frameworks to guide the development, and deployment of AI systems. Although Africa is not left out in all these, it still lags behind its counterpart. The 2024 Oxford Insight on Government AI Readiness Index ranks sub-Saharan Africa the lowest with an average score of 30.16 out of a possible 100. The region was the only one ranked lower than a 40 score when compared to nine other regional groups — North America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, East Asia, Middle East and North Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, Pacific, and South and Central Asia — across three major pillars, government, technology sector, and data & infrastructure [1].
Data from the Global Index on Responsible AI shows that Africa still lags behind on key metrics, such as AI and labour protection, when compared to Europe, Asia, the Middle East, South and Central America, and North America (see Fig 1 for details). These metrics are measured across three indices: government frameworks (10%), government actions (10%), and non-state actors (15%), indicating the percentage of countries on the continent with evidence of labour protections and right to work. Africa performs better than the Caribbean in terms of government actions but ranks lower on the other indices [2].
Further data from the Global Index on Responsible AI (see Fig. 2) indicate that the percentage of African countries with mechanisms for safety, accuracy, and reliability of AI — across government frameworks (5%), government actions (7%), and non-state actors (24%) — reflects a nascent involvement from governments and a persistent effort by private sector actors to build ethical and responsible AI systems.
lthough lagging in comparison to other regions, there has been a shift in governance efforts, as indicated by the UNESCO AI needs assessment survey, showing that 18 of the 32 surveyed countries had national AI initiatives under development, with 13 having AI strategies, policies or legislations and 12 with established Centers of Excellence [3]. Also, most countries on the continent have foundational policies and legislations such as data protection, cybersecurity, intellectual property, consumer protection that set the stage for developing AI policies. This is a testament to the ongoing continental effort to ensure that AI development in Africa is safe and meaningfully impactful.
Why do we need more publications on AI, ethics, data policy, and governance in Africa and why is a dedicated collection necessary? A couple of reasons stand out in answer to this question. Firstly, ethical values are globally diverse and localising AI in Africa requires that the technology reflects the values of Africans [4]. The uniqueness of Africa requires the formulation of context-specific data and AI policies that are reflective of the socioeconomic, cultural and political milieu. Globalising algorithms built within the context of North America is likely to be ill-fitted for the African context, accentuating biases and increasing susceptibility to error. The primary reason for this is that the data used to train these models are often sourced from Euro-American countries and data is never without context, consequently making the predictions or results from these AI systems representative of Western ideals, culture, and socio-political realities.
