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Category: Data Governance

  • Navigating the World Bank’s First Digital Strategy and AI Compute Initiative:

    Navigating the World Bank’s First Digital Strategy and AI Compute Initiative:

    A Policy Roadmap for African Governments

    On 20 October 2026, the World Bank Group unveiled its first-ever comprehensive Digital Strategy during the Global AI and Digital Summit in Seoul, co-hosted with the Republic of Korea’s Ministry of Economy and Finance and Ministry of Science and ICT. Attended by approximately 900 delegates across 160 countries, the summit marked a structural shift in how international development assistance is designed, financed, and deployed.

    Concurrently, the World Bank introduced its AI Infrastructure and Readiness Initiative, targeting initial rollouts across Africa and Latin America. As the primary multilateral financier for infrastructure and development across the African continent, when the World Bank aligns its lending portfolios, advisory frameworks, and risk-mitigation guarantees around digital architecture and artificial intelligence, national budgets, sovereign debt negotiations, and sector-specific ministry strategies inevitably pivot in response.

    This transformation represents a global governance moment as much as a technological transition. For African policymakers, the World Bank’s strategy offers a structured pathway to bypass traditional capital-intensive data center deployments in favor of shared, flexible compute models. However, capitalizing on this moment requires immediate, proactive national alignment, rigorous public finance oversight, and coordinated regional policy frameworks.

    The Development Gap: Coverage vs. Affordability

    Despite widespread telecommunications expansions over the past decade, significant digital exclusions persist across developing economies. As highlighted in the strategy’s baseline metrics:

    • Over 2 billion people remained offline in 2025, with internet utilization standing at 23% in low-income countries, compared to 94% in high-income economies.
    • The primary barrier to digital inclusion has shifted from physical network reach to affordability and practical utility. Millions of citizens reside within mobile broadband coverage zones but are excluded due to the high cost of entry-level smartphones, expensive mobile data tariffs, limited digital skills, or a lack of relevant localized digital services.

    Demographic projections emphasize the urgency of this transition: over the next 10 to 15 years, approximately 1.2 billion young people in developing countries will reach working age, while these economies are currently projected to generate only about 420 million formal jobs. World Bank Group President Ajay Banga’s framing positions digital technology as an essential force multiplier to “create jobs and make scarce resources go further.” The Bank has explicitly anchored its digital strategy around five core job-creating sectors: infrastructure and energy, agribusiness, health care, tourism, and value-added manufacturing.

    The strategy is structured across four interrelated operational priorities, undergirded by mandatory safeguards for privacy, cybersecurity, and fraud protection:

    1. Expanding Reliable Connectivity: Closing infrastructure gaps from submarine landing cables and national fiber backbones to last-mile connections for homes, schools, clinics, and businesses. Priority is placed on public-private partnerships (PPPs) and co-planning electricity grid extensions alongside telecom lines.
    2. Lowering Device and Data Costs: Reducing financial barriers to entry-level smart devices and broadband access via structured partnerships across device manufacturers, telecom operators, financial institutions, and device refurbishment enterprises.
    3. Scaling Digital Services and Skills: Developing public infrastructure specifically digital identification, interoperable payment rails, and secure data exchange layers paired with targeted vocational training to enhance digital literacy.
    4. Building AI Readiness: Strengthening foundational digital infrastructure, enabling access to compute resources, curating actionable localized datasets, and driving AI competency. The explicit focus is placed on “Small AI” targeted, domain-specific AI tools tailored to regional conditions (e.g., crop disease detection, clinical diagnostic support, and SME inventory management).

    The AI Infrastructure and Readiness Initiative & Shared Compute

    A core operational component of the strategy is the AI Infrastructure and Readiness Initiative, created to provide governments with pay-as-you-go GPU infrastructure as an alternative to building capital-intensive, standalone national data centers.

    Sub-Saharan Africa accounts for 18% of the global population but currently holds only 0.6% of worldwide data center capacity, with less than 5% of that capacity being AI-ready (high-density power and specialized GPU clusters). Standalone sovereign data centers often suffer from low utilization rates, stranded capital, and rapid hardware obsolescence.

    Key Metric Deficits

    Sub-Saharan Share of Global Population18.0%
    Sub-Saharan Share of Global Data Center Capacity0.6%
    Share of African Data Center Capacity AI-Ready<0.3% (5% of 0.6%)

    Institutional Design and Partnerships

    To address this gap, the World Bank will assist client countries in evaluating compute requirements across cloud-based, distributed, regionally shared, or sovereign deployments, supported by a newly established Digital Access Fund for underserved markets.

    The initiative leverages private-sector knowledge partners, including NVIDIA and Cassava Technologies (founded by Strive Masiyiwa). In March 2025, Cassava and NVIDIA announced Africa’s first “AI Factory” network, deploying 12,000 NVIDIA GPUs across five key hubs (South Africa, Egypt, Kenya, Morocco, and Nigeria) to offer GPU-as-a-Service (GPUaaS) hosted by Africa Data Centres.

    Transparency on Key operational details

    The initial list of beneficiary countries, total fund allocation, launch dates, GPU ownership structures, and final pricing mechanisms remain undisclosed. CAISD advocates for complete data disclosure from the bank to enable monitoring of the process. Governments must maintain a clear distinction between knowledge partners and solution suppliers, enforcing strict, open, competitive procurement standards.

    Grounding in the World Bank’s Analytical Frameworks

    The digital strategy is anchored by two foundational World Bank publications:

    Digital Progress and Trends Report 2025: Strengthening AI Foundations Establishes the “4Cs” framework necessary to support national artificial intelligence ecosystems:

    • Connectivity: High-speed broadband and resilient power networks.
    • Compute: Scalable hardware processing capacity (GPUs/TPUs).
    • Context: Localized datasets, regional languages, and domain-specific use cases.
    • Competency: Human capital, developer talent, and organizational readiness.

    World Development Report 2026: The Promise of Artificial Intelligence

    Offers key directives for emerging markets:

    • Focus on Small AI over Frontier Models: Recommends diffusing task-specific, low-parameter models over costly frontier Large Language Model (LLM) training.
    • Prioritize Interoperability over Strict Sovereignty: Advises against costly, isolated national infrastructure bets, encouraging open standards and shared cross-border architectures.
    • Drive Adoption in Foundational Sectors: Focuses policy interventions on AI absorption within small-scale agriculture, informal trade, and primary healthcare services.

    Strategic Opportunities for Africa

    Leapfrogging via Practical AI Applications: Small AI models run efficiently on modest compute workloads, delivering high-impact outcomes in precision agriculture extension, triage in community health clinics, and customs management.

     Blended Finance Mobilization: World Bank guarantees and the Digital Access Fund help de-risk private investment in middle-mile fiber, renewable energy, and data centres. African economies should where possible utilise PPP model with world bank guarantees to finance this infrastructure

    Africa needs to aggregate national demand through Regional Economic Communities (SADC, EAC, ECOWAS) and the AfCFTA enhances collective bargaining power with global technology vendors so that they speak with one voice and avoid the reace to the bottom as previously witnessed

     Policy Recommendations for African Governments

    The Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Sustainable Development (CAISD) recommends that African ministries of finance, communications, and economy take the following actionable steps:

    Action 1: Formally Register Interest Immediately. Ministries of Finance and ICT should jointly submit formal requests to their respective World Bank Country Directors to be included in the AI Infrastructure and Readiness Initiative pipeline and request an immediate national compute needs assessment.

    Action 2: Adopt a National “Small AI” Agenda. Avoid resource-intensive frontier model races. Formally designate 3 to 5 high-priority national use cases such as agricultural advisory services, tax risk analysis, or maternal healthcare support and quantify their exact compute demands prior to procurement.

    Action 3: Integrate Power and Digital Planning. Ensure national energy regulators and telecom authorities jointly plan data center power requirements. Grid constraints that delay infrastructure projects serve as a clear warning: power availability must precede compute deployment.

    Action 4: Establish Legislative Safeguards Prior to Procurement. Enact and update national data protection laws, cybersecurity standards, and risk frameworks aligned with the AU Data Policy Framework, the Malabo Convention, and the UN Global Digital Compact.

    Action 5: Pool Regional Demand. Work through SADC, EAC, ECOWAS, and AfCFTA structures to aggregate regional compute demand, build shared cross-border data spaces, and align with the AU Continental AI Strategy.

    Action 6: Safeguard Public Finances. Finance ministries and sovereign debt management offices must evaluate pay-as-you-go software/hardware commitments and guarantees as potential contingent liabilities, setting strict exposure caps and ensuring contract transparency.

    Action 7: Maintain Technical Interoperability. In alignment with WDR 2026, avoid vendor lock-in by enforcing open-source standards, strict exit clauses, and clear data residency rights in all cloud contracts.

    Action 8: Build Local Context and Competency. Fund localized dataset development (including native language corpus building) in partnership with regional universities and national research institutions.

    Action 9: Diversify Development Partnerships. Balance World Bank programs alongside complementary initiatives offered by the African Development Bank (AfDB), UN agencies, BRICS framework channels, and bilateral partnerships such as the Korea-Africa AI Hub.

    Action 10: Establish Metric-Driven Monitoring. Link every digital infrastructure project to measurable economic indicators such as net job creation, public service coverage expansion, and unit cost reductions and publish annual performance audits.

    Conclusion

    The World Bank’s Digital Strategy provides vital financial instruments, credit guarantees, and shared compute frameworks to narrow the global digital divide. However, these multilateral facilities do not substitute for rigorous national planning. The nations that align their energy planning, regulatory safeguards, public finance management, and localized AI priorities today will gain the greatest strategic advantage when project selections and funding allocations are finalized.

  • Following The United Nations Global Dialogue on Artificial Intelligence Governance Held in Geneva: 

    Following The United Nations Global Dialogue on Artificial Intelligence Governance Held in Geneva: 

            “CAISD argues that Africa’s Policy Choices ought to be finalized the soonest”

    Artificial intelligence governance has moved, within the space of a single year, from a subject debated mainly in technology ministries to one that sits squarely inside development planning, industrial strategy and constitutional practice. This article draws together the proceedings of the United Nations Global Dialogue on AI Governance, held in Geneva on 6 and 7 July 2026, and identifies the governance directions now taking shape globally and what they mean for policymaking on the African continent. It situates the Dialogue within the current body of thinking on AI divides, compute governance and institutional readiness, and asks what direction African governments, South Africa’s included, should now take. In doing so, it seeks to contribute a policy-oriented reading of a fast-moving debate to an audience that must translate global commitments into national decisions.

    Centre of Artificial Intelligence and Sustainable Development www.CAISD.Africa),participation in the dialogue gave us the opportunity to witness the proceedings first hand. The UN Dialogue was more than a technical forum and it was a necessary platform that tested the assumptions, readiness and legitimacy of current global AI governance approaches. The UN Dialogue revealed that governance cannot remain concentrated among technologically advanced countries and dominant private-sector actors, and that it must instead become a sustained mechanism for addressing AI safety, data governance, human rights, digital inclusion, capacity-building, compute access and Africa’s meaningful participation in shaping future AI systems. After being part of the proceedings in Geneva, we can argue that Africa must now build on the relationship formed in Geneva and translate it into institutional opportunity, knowing that the urgent framing of AI governance maturity assessments, data stewardship, skilling and research partnerships are areas of priority to improve its own readiness to AI Governance. We need to translate the dialogue into intentional actions.

    A Dialogue Born of Urgency

    The Geneva Dialogue did not emerge from nowhere. It followed more than a year of structured global consultations, drawing over 1,500 written submissions from governments, civil society, academia and industry across every region. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres opened proceedings with a message that was as much a warning as an invitation, arguing that “artificial intelligence, used well, could compress decades of development into a matter of years and become what he called the great equalizer of the twenty-first century”, but only if the international community first agrees on how systems are tested, how risk is measured and how responsibility is assigned, Guterres added. The European Union’s statement to the Dialogue described it as a unique moment, the first occasion on which the entire UN membership had gathered specifically to discuss AI governance and stressed that broad-based participation was a precondition for the legitimacy of whatever followed. The Dialogue closed with an unusually candid acknowledgement from its co-chairs that Geneva should be read as a beginning rather than a conclusion, with progress before the second Dialogue in New York in May 2027 to be measured in tangible improvements to inclusion and capacity rather than new declarations.

    Much of the language used in Geneva, on bridging AI divides and ensuring no country is left behind, can sound aspirational until it is set against the underlying data. Recent analysis from the Centre for Strategic and International Studies notes that Africa accounts for less than one percent of global data centre capacity despite representing eighteen percent of the world’s population, a gap current investment trends are unlikely to close on their own. A 2026 mapping study of AI infrastructure financing across the continent goes further, arguing that compute governance cannot be reduced to a question of geography, since capital and infrastructure account for the majority of announced investment while control over the compute layer remains concentrated among a small number of global technology firms, a pattern the authors term “asymmetrical interdependence”. This is the harder version of the AI divide that Geneva’s rhetoric of inclusion must eventually confront. Regional co-ordination, through mechanisms such as the African Union and shared compute consortia, is repeatedly identified in current research as the more realistic route to scale than isolated national buildouts, since pooled infrastructure can reduce costs substantially compared with fragmented national efforts.

    Principles Are Necessary but Insufficient: The Evidence Problem

     The Independent International Scientific Panel report on AI fundamentally framed a dilemma that deserves more attention in African policy circles than it currently receives. Governance decisions require solid evidence, yet technology changes faster than evidence can be produced reliably. South Africa’s recent experience illustrates the cost of getting this wrong. The Draft National AI Policy, gazetted for public comment in April 2026 after Cabinet approval, was withdrawn in June 2026 after its reference list was found to contain fabricated citations, an unmistakable sign that AI-generated content had entered the drafting process without adequate human verification (Ellipsis, 2026). A revised version is now expected to return to Cabinet later in 2026, with public release anticipated in early 2027. The episode is a useful, if uncomfortable, case study of the evidence dilemma Geneva placed at the centre of its discussions. It confirms that institutional readiness is not simply a matter of having a policy on the shelf, but of having the internal capacity and verification systems to produce one credibly.

    South Africa’s approach, once finalised, is expected to embed AI oversight within existing sector regulators rather than create a single new authority, organised around five pillars covering skills, governance, ethics, cultural preservation and human-centred deployment. This model has clear advantages in a resource-constrained environment, but it raises the interoperability question that recurred throughout Geneva: how a sector-based domestic framework connects coherently to emerging international norms on assurance, data governance and human rights. Kenya’s multistakeholder workshop with the OECD in March 2026 reached a similar conclusion from a different angle, recommending risk-based regulation and regional co-ordination on shared benchmarks and data-sharing as a response to the scale constraints facing individual states. The direction of travel is consistent: effective AI governance is converging on risk-based, interoperable and regionally co-ordinated models, rather than heavy centralised regulation or a purely voluntary approach.

    Looking Forward: Policy Directions Worth Testing

    CAISD proposed four directions following the UN proceedings for African governments weighing their next moves. First, evidence infrastructure should be treated as a governance priority, meaning dedicated technical and research capacity to verify claims, data and citations before they enter policy instruments, learning directly from South Africa’s recent experience. Second, compute strategy should be pursued regionally rather than nationally wherever possible, since pooled infrastructure investment offers a more realistic path to meaningful capacity than isolated national data centre projects. Third, domestic AI frameworks, whichever institutional model they adopt, should be designed from the outset for interoperability with the standards and assurance mechanisms now taking shape internationally, rather than retrofitted later. Fourth, African governments should use the eighteen months before the 2027 New York Dialogue deliberately, arriving with implemented commitments rather than fresh statements of intent, since that is the metric by which Geneva’s own participants said the process should be judged. The direction AI governance is heading in is now reasonably clear. What remains uncertain is whether African institutions will help set that direction or simply adapt to it after the fact.

  • UN Global Dialogue on AI Governance to be held in Geneva this week

    UN Global Dialogue on AI Governance to be held in Geneva this week

    On 6 and 7 July 2026, Geneva will host a meeting without precedent in the short history of global technology governance. The Global Dialogue on AI Governance is the United Nations platform where all governments and stakeholders will convene to discuss international cooperation, share best practices and lessons learned, and facilitate open, transparent and inclusive discussions on artificial intelligence governance. For the first time, every member state, regardless of its level of technological development, will sit at the same table to shape how artificial intelligence is governed globally. For Africa, this is the first formal multilateral occasion where rules of the AI era will be negotiated jointly, rather than dictated by the handful of states and firms that currently control the technology’s frontier.

    Africa has witnessed successive waves of technological change, from telecommunications standards to digital trade rules, entered the conversation after the architecture was already fixed elsewhere, and negotiating from other blueprints. The Global Dialogue offers a rare opportunity to change the sequence for AI, as it will allow Africa to participate in agenda-setting. Whether the continent seizes that chance depends on how well it understands the policy space it is walking into, and what it intends to ask for once inside it.

    The programme, and why each component matters for Africa

    The Dialogue’s draft structure is built around thematic discussions on AI opportunities and implications across societal, cultural and economic dimensions, on bridging AI divides through capacity-building, access and digital foundations, on safe, secure and trustworthy AI, and on respecting, protecting and promoting human rights through transparent and accountable approaches. Each of these clusters carries direct and unequal weight for the African continent, and each demands a prepared African position rather than a reactive one.

    The Bridging AI Divides cluster is, according to Dr Sally Dzingwa, CAISD’s Advisor on Data Governance, Data Management and Ethical AI, “arguably the cluster of greatest consequence for Africa. The AI divide is not an abstract concept, it is a reflected one”, argues Dzingwa, “The infrastructure that underpins AI compute capacity, energy systems and trusted data, remains disproportionately concentrated outside Africa. Consequently, most African countries are still net consumers of foundational AI technologies rather than producers of the models and capabilities that will shape the future digital economy.”   she added.

    International responses to this gap already exist in embryonic form as witnessed by a G7-endorsed AI Hub for Sustainable Development now anchors itself in fourteen African partner countries, working precisely on the levers that determine who can access AI infrastructure, namely data, energy-aware compute, talent, trust and financing. That initiative rests on a demographic argument that Africa has a genuine opportunity to leapfrog traditional development pathways through AI-enabled solutions in healthcare, education, agriculture, finance and governance.

    The policy question for Geneva is whether such initiatives remain donor-led pilots or become the basis for continentally owned digital foundations. Capacity-building financed externally without African institutional ownership risks reproducing dependency in a new technological register, just as earlier waves of donor-funded infrastructure left ownership and maintenance capacity offshore. The continent’s negotiating position should insist that financing be matched by transferred ownership of data, infrastructure and governance capability, not merely access to tools built and controlled elsewhere.

    A lot to learn from global key players

    The Safe, secure and trustworthy AI cluster will be where the global conversation is most advanced, and where Africa risks being handed standards rather than helping to write them. The European Union’s AI Act, the G7 Hiroshima Process, and the OECD’s AI principles each reflect the regulatory instincts of jurisdictions with mature digital economies, dense technical regulatory capacity, and established enforcement infrastructure. Africa has neither the same enforcement capacity nor, in most cases, the same regulatory maturity, yet the continent is routinely expected to adopt frameworks built for entirely different starting conditions. South Africa’s own experience is instructive here. Its Draft National AI Policy was withdrawn from gazette in April 2026, evidence that even the continent’s most industrialised AI economy has not yet settled on a workable domestic governance model.

    The analytic point for Geneva should be stated without diplomatic softening. Safety and trustworthiness frameworks calibrated for high-compute, high-enforcement jurisdictions cannot simply be transplanted onto economies where regulatory bodies are under-resourced and AI adoption is still largely informal. What the continent needs is a tiered approach to trust and safety, proportionate to actual deployment risk and institutional capacity, rather than a single global standard borrowed wholesale.

    The Human rights, transparency and accountability cluster will be where the African narrative has the most distinctive evidence to contribute, because the human rights risks of AI in African contexts are frequently different in kind from those debated in Brussels or Washington. Misinformation amplification, biometric identification systems deployed without adequate legal safeguards, and labour displacement in informal economies are not peripheral concerns; they are central to how AI will be experienced by most Africans. The algorithmic amplification of xenophobic discourse on social platforms in South Africa, for instance, illustrates a category of harm that is more pronounced in societies with high informal migration and weak content moderation capacity than in the jurisdictions whose human rights frameworks currently dominate the debate. The policy implication is that human rights safeguards must be designed around the realities of informal economies and weak data protection enforcement, rather than retrofitted from frameworks built for formal, heavily regulated labour markets.

    The AI opportunities and societal, cultural and economic dimensions is the cluster that makes the leapfrogging argument explicit. Leapfrogging has a coherent policy logic where infrastructure is absent rather than legacy and entrenched, new technology can be adopted without the cost of dismantling old systems first, as happened when mobile money bypassed formal banking infrastructure across much of the continent. AI-driven precision agriculture follows the same logic. Rather than waiting for industrial-scale mechanised agriculture to arrive, smallholder systems can absorb AI-enabled tools, such as predictive irrigation, pest detection and market analysis, directly. The policy argument for Geneva is that leapfrogging requires deliberate public investment now, in digital public infrastructure, data governance and skills, rather than an assumption that markets alone will reproduce the same outcome that mobile money achieved organically. Where that investment has not been made, AI adoption risks widening inequality within African economies even as it narrows the gap with wealthier ones, by benefiting the formal, urban and already-connected segments of the population first.

    Relevant Key sessions during the Geneva conference

    This dialogue on AI Governance is critical for Africa because it offers a rare platform to shape international AI rules rather than merely adopting them. Key sessions include the Opening Ceremony featuring high-level remarks from Antonio Guterres (UN Secretary-General), Annalena Baerbock (President of the General Assembly), and Khaled El-Enany (UNESCO Director-General), which set the tone for inclusive global cooperation. On Day 1, Thematic Breakout Cluster 1 on AI opportunities and implications (social, economic, cultural, ethical, linguistic, and technical dimensions) directly addresses leapfrogging potential in African contexts like agriculture, healthcare, and education. These components matter because they allow African voices to push for continentally owned digital foundations, capacity-building, and context-specific solutions instead of imported frameworks that risk deepening dependency.

    The Dialogue’s thematic clusters further reinforce Africa’s priorities: bridging AI divides through infrastructure and access (Cluster 2), developing proportionate safe and trustworthy AI standards (Cluster 3), and advancing human rights protections tailored to informal economies and local risks (Cluster 4). By engaging actively in these sessions and the concluding multistakeholder plenaries, African states and stakeholders can advocate for ownership of data, skills, and governance rather than perpetual net consumption of AI tools. This preparatory engagement is essential to translate demographic advantages into genuine technological sovereignty and inclusive development.

     CAISD is committed to ensuring that Africa is not merely a consumer of artificial intelligence but an active contributor to its future. By strengthening AI governance, data stewardship, ethical innovation and institutional capacity, the Centre seeks to support sustainable AI development that reflects Africa’s priorities while advancing the vision of the UN AI Governance Dialogue for inclusive, trustworthy and equitable AI.

  • Global Micro-chips Race :

    Global Micro-chips Race :

    “Africa claims its rightful place at the Nairobi Semiconductor Investors Forum” By Dr Williams Makwinja and Taurai Chiraerae

    Nairobi, Kenya Africa took a decisive step toward reshaping its role in the global technology economy at the inaugural, “Africa Semiconductor Investors Forum”, held from April 20 to 22, 2026. Convened by AUDA‑NEPAD and the African Academy of Sciences (AAS), the gathering signaled a strategic shift: the continent intends to move from exporting raw minerals to participating meaningfully in the semiconductor value chain. Framed under the theme “From the Ground Up: Africa’s Minerals‑to‑Microchips Moment,” the Forum arrived at a time when global supply chains are being reconfigured. The COVID‑19 pandemic, the tariffs and the ongoing war in the Golfe exposed the fragility of concentrated chip manufacturing hubs, prompting governments and corporations to seek new, diversified production bases. Africa’s leaders believe the continent can fill part of that gap, if it builds the right capabilities.

    A New Institutional Architecture for a New Industrial Era. One of the Forum’s most significant outcomes was the establishment of the Africa Semiconductor Technical Advisory Group (ASTAG), a body tasked with steering the continent’s semiconductor roadmap. Although not finalized, ASTAG will be a diverse group from all the RECs with a gender balance. Already Dr. William Makwinja of CAISD is part of the developing group.  Delegates also launched the African Research and Technology Organizations Alliance (ARTOA) to coordinate applied research and technology localization under the African Union’s Agenda 2063. Momentum will continue with the next Africa Semiconductor Conference, scheduled for November/December 2026 in South Africa.

    In picture: CAISD’s Dr William Makwinja attending the Nairobi Forum

    Speakers emphasized that Africa already holds the essential ingredients for a semiconductor industry:  

    • Critical minerals used in chipmaking  
    • A rapidly expanding consumer and industrial market  
    • A young, trainable talent base.

    What is missing is a structured investment framework to connect these assets.

    AUDA‑NEPAD presented data showing that rising mobile penetration, IoT deployment, and automotive electronics are transforming Africa’s 1.5‑billion‑person population into a powerful demand‑pull market. One example is the continent’s $1‑billion‑a‑year smart‑meter market, currently dominated by imports. Panelists argued that targeted procurement policies such as local content requirements could shift this demand toward domestic manufacturers.

    The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA)was repeatedly cited as a game‑changer. By harmonizing regulations and reducing tariffs across 54 countries, AfCFTA effectively creates a unified $3.4 trillion market, dramatically improving the commercial viability of local electronics manufacturing.

    Finding Africa’s Entry Points in the Semiconductor Value Chain

    Experts agreed that Africa’s most realistic starting point lies not in advanced wafer fabrication but in mineral processing and value addition. Egypt’s success in producing metallurgical‑grade silicon was highlighted as proof of feasibility. The Forum recommended negotiating offtake agreements with global semiconductor chemical companies to build joint ventures in mineral processing. This would allow African countries to move gradually up the value chain.

    Practical examples already exist. “Gearbox”, a Kenyan engineering firm, secured a partnership with Europlacer after demonstrating strong local SMT (surface mount technology) capabilities, showing that competence can reduce risk for international partners.

    Africa’s talent bottleneck is not simply a shortage of engineers but a systemic gap spanning technicians, process engineers, chip designers, and materials scientists. A critical weakness lies in foundational mathematics, especially numerical linear algebra, computational simulation, and high‑performance computing.

    To address this, the Forum endorsed several initiatives:

    • Leveraging  Washington Accord accreditation in South Africa and Kenya to enhance global mobility for engineering graduates.  
    • Expanding RISC‑V chip design training, including programs at Lund University (Sweden) and a new master’s program in Nairobi with the Chinese Academy of Sciences.  
    • Strengthening Africa‑to‑Africa academic collaboration to share laboratory infrastructure.  
    • Scaling training models like Semiconductor Technologies Limited (STL), which works directly with global chipmakers to define the exact skills required for employability.

    Financing: The Hardest Barrier

    Financial institutions, including the AfDB and AfreximBank, stressed that blended finance can only support projects that are already commercially sound. It cannot rescue weak business models. To attract investment, projects must demonstrate:

    • Clear market demand  
    • Credible cost structures  
    • Technically competent operators  

    The Forum concluded that Africa must first prove viability in mineral processing and chip design before attempting to raise capital for multi‑billion‑dollar fabrication plants. A major recommendation was the creation of a project preparation facility to transform 10–15 early‑stage concepts into bankable projects within 24 months.

    The Center of Artificial Intelligence for Sustainable Development CAISD argued that AI must be embedded at the core of Africa’s semiconductor strategy. AI is both a “demand driver”, powering applications in agriculture, health, and smart grids and a design tool, with generative AI lowering barriers to chip design and verification. This dual role could allow African firms to leapfrog into high‑value segments of the semiconductor industry.

    The Forum ended with a clear, ambitious target that, by 2034, Africa should have a commercially viable semiconductor sector integrated into its manufacturing value chain. With the establishment of ASTAG, new training pipelines, and early commercial agreements such as the MOU between Semiconductor Technologies Limited and ChipMango, the continent has laid the institutional groundwork for a new industrial chapter. Whether Africa can seize this moment will depend on sustained coordination, disciplined execution, and the ability to convert its mineral wealth into technological sovereignty.

  • A Development-First Critique of South Africa’s Withdrawn AI Policy

    A Development-First Critique of South Africa’s Withdrawn AI Policy

    “A Necessary Withdrawal, and an Unfinished Conversation”

    Authored by CAISD – Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Sustainable Development.

    On 26 April 2026, Minister Solly Malatsi announced the withdrawal of the Draft National Artificial Intelligence Policy published for public comment in Government Gazette No. 54477. The stated reason was unambiguous: the document contained fictitious sources in its reference list, the most plausible explanation being that AI-generated citations were incorporated without proper verification. The Minister was right to act decisively. A national AI policy whose own evidentiary foundation is compromised by precisely the kind of AI governance failure it was meant to address is not merely an embarrassment. It is a structural contradiction that would have undermined the document’s authority from the moment of its enactment. The Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Sustainable Development (CAISD) notes, with candour, that our own review of Gazette No. 54477 had flagged irregularities in portions of the reference architecture. We therefore welcome the withdrawal of the document draft policy and commend the ministry for urgent action.

    The withdrawal of this flawed draft should not silence this urgent national conversation. South Africa’s need for a credible, development-oriented AI governance framework should not be diminished by a single policy failure. If anything, the manner of that failure, a government document corrupted by unverified AI outputs in a policy designed to regulate AI, illustrates with painful precision why the governance imperatives identified in CAISD’s advisory submission remain pressing. We submit this analysis as a contribution to the redrafting process and direct it to the substantive policy architecture that the next draft must contain.

    The Developmental Imperative Cannot Wait

    The conceptual foundation of Gazette No. 54477, notwithstanding its referencing failures, contained genuine insight. Its philosophical grounding in Ubuntu, its insistence that AI must serve the community rather than merely maximise corporate efficiency, and its proposal for an AI Insurance Superfund modelled on the Road Accident Fund represented distinctive contributions to global AI governance discourse. These ideas deserve to be rescued from the wreckage of a poorly quality-assured drafting process and carried forward into the revised document with greater rigour and stronger enforcement architecture.

    The central argument of CAISD’s advisory position is structural rather than rhetorical. For South Africa, AI governance designed primarily as a risk-management exercise is a strategic error. The OECD AI Principles, updated by the OECD Ministerial Council in May 2024, are explicit on this point that governments must invest in AI for public benefit while building governance environments that ensure equitable distribution of AI’s gains and adequate protection of citizens from its harms (OECD, 2024). A development-first framework does not abandon governance risks but calibrates regulatory strictness to the nature and severity of potential harm rather than applying precautionary restrictions that impose compliance costs on local innovators without protecting the citizens most exposed to AI-driven disruption.

    The AI system that misdiagnoses a patient in a public hospital, the algorithm that denies a social grant application processed by SASSA, the automated credit-scoring model that reproduces apartheid-era spatial inequality in lending decisions are not abstract governance concerns. They are the specific harms that a development-first framework must anticipate and prevent, while simultaneously deploying AI in precisely these same domains to improve diagnostic accuracy, reduce administrative backlogs, and expand financial inclusion. The revised policy must be architecturally equipped to do both.

    CAISD identified ten discrete governance gaps in Gazette No. 54477 relative to the standards established by verified international frameworks. Each gap is referenced below against sources that have been confirmed as genuine.

    Robust Data Governance Mechanisms

    The Draft National AI Policy should place robust data governance at the centre of its implementation architecture, as trusted AI systems depend fundamentally on the quality, integrity, fairness, and lawful use of data. In this regard, the policy should expressly strengthen bias-mitigation mechanisms through sustained investment in locally relevant, representative datasets that reflect South Africa’s demographic, linguistic, and socio-economic realities. Equally, it should require explainability standards for high-risk AI applications to ensure that automated decisions affecting citizens can be understood, interrogated, and challenged where necessary. These measures must be firmly aligned with the Constitution, particularly the rights to equality, dignity, just administrative action, and privacy, while ensuring full compliance with the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA). A strong data governance framework will not only protect the public interest but also enhance trust, legitimacy, and long-term adoption of AI across both the public and private sectors.

    The withdrawn draft treated all AI as a single regulatory category. Singapore’s Infocomm Media Development Authority, in collaboration with the AI Verify Foundation, finalised the Model AI Governance Framework for Generative AI in May 2024, establishing nine governance dimensions specifically designed for large language models, deepfakes, and synthetic content (IMDA & AI Verify Foundation, 2024). The revised South African policy requires a dedicated generative AI chapter with mandatory transparency disclosures and content provenance requirements, particularly urgent given the country’s multilingual digital environment.

    Algorithmic Impact Assessments.

    The EU AI Act, formally adopted in 2024, requires fundamental rights impact assessments before high-risk AI systems are deployed (European Parliament, 2024). Canada’s Directive on Automated Decision-Making requires equivalent assessments for all federal government automated decision systems. South Africa’s revised policy must mandate pre-deployment assessments for public sector AI, beginning with SASSA’s grant administration and the South African Police Service’s use of predictive analytics.

    Right to challenge AI decisions.

    The 2024 OECD update to Principle 1.3 on Transparency and Explainability reframed the governance standard from enabling individuals to understand AI decisions to enabling them to actively challenge those decisions (OECD, 2024). This shift is constitutionally grounded in South Africa in Sections 33 and 34 of the Constitution, covering just administrative action and access to courts, respectively. A statutory right to contest AI-driven decisions, routed through the proposed AI Ombudsperson, must appear in the revised draft.

    AI sovereignty and sovereign compute.

    The draft’s aspiration for regional AI factories requires structural enforcement. Without defined domestic ownership thresholds, minimum compute capacity targets, and prohibitions against foreign hyperscalers operating under local branding, these factories risk becoming another iteration of structural dependency dressed in developmental language. The revised policy requires a sovereign AI capability roadmap with measurable targets, including a strategy for accessing advanced semiconductors amid tightening global export controls.

    Green energy co-investment.

    OECD Principle 1.1, in its 2024 formulation, explicitly addresses environmental sustainability as a core dimension of trustworthy AI, acknowledging the significant and growing energy footprint of large-scale AI systems (OECD, 2024). The EU AI Act requires energy consumption disclosure for large AI models. South Africa’s revised policy must mandate binding green energy co-investment requirements for all AI factories and data centres, making AI infrastructure development a lever for renewable energy expansion rather than an additional burden on a coal-dependent grid during the Just Energy Transition.

    Remaining gaps.

    Five further governance deficits require attention: a mandatory AI incident reporting regime modelled on POPIA’s breach notification framework; a supply chain accountability map specifying minimum duties across the AI development and deployment chain; a SANAS-accredited conformity assessment pathway for high-risk AI systems; a National AI Procurement Policy governing government AI tenders; and a formal SME support regime with differential compliance timelines to prevent regulatory architecture from entrenching the market dominance of large foreign technology firms at the expense of local innovators.

    The Human Imperative: Building an AI-Productive Nation

    Beyond institutional architecture, the most consequential long-term investment South Africa can make is in the human capacity to produce, govern, and critically interrogate AI systems. The withdrawn draft’s treatment of talent development was its most substantively developed thematic area, and it is the dimension most worth preserving and strengthening in the revised document. The country has more than twenty million people under the age of thirty-five; an unemployment rate above thirty percent among youth; and a structural mismatch between the skills the economy currently rewards and those an AI-transformed economy will require. The distance between producing passive AI consumers and active AI producers is, in this context, a development variable of first-order importance.

    The revised policy must move beyond aspirational language on talent development to specify a National AI Skills Framework with competency standards by schooling phase, funded youth AI innovation programmes with measurable targets, and a legislated social dialogue mechanism, housed within NEDLAC, for managing AI-driven labour market disruption. The OECD (2024) is clear that fair labour market transitions require structured social dialogue, reskilling programmes, and social protection for displaced workers; these are not peripheral concerns in a country with South Africa’s employment structure. They are the conditions under which an AI governance framework can credibly claim to serve the people it governs.

    The withdrawal of Gazette No. 54477 is, in the final analysis, a moment of institutional accountability that South Africa should take seriously and move on from quickly.

    CAISD is an organisation that leverages artificial intelligence for development. It works with African universities, including AUDA-NEPAD, the UN and AI experts to advocate for AI that is development oriented.  Dr AD Essome is the Co-Chair of CAISD and can be reached at essome@caisd.co.za

  • First Africa Semiconductor Investors Forum in Nairobi – Kenya:

    First Africa Semiconductor Investors Forum in Nairobi – Kenya:

    AUDA – NEPAD leads the continental charge to forging AI Sovereignty from Minerals to Microchips

    PRETORIA, 15 April 2026. The Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Sustainable Development (CAISD), represented by Dr William Makwinja, will be attending the Africa Semiconductor Investors Forum in Nairobi, Kenya, from 20 to 22 April 2026. The organisation is attending to place AI-driven sustainable development at the very heart of Africa’s push to convert its vast critical mineral resources into locally manufactured microchips securing technological sovereignty, creating high-value jobs, and accelerating the Sustainable Development Goals across the continent.

    CAISD will join leading policymakers, investors, technologists, and industry leaders at the Africa Semiconductor Investors Forum organised under the theme From the Ground Up: Africa’s Minerals-To-Microchips Moment, the event hosted by AUDA-NEPAD, the African Academy of Sciences, and partners including CSIR and NINA JOJER. This marks a pivotal gathering to translate the continent’s vast mineral wealth into a self-reliant semiconductor ecosystem. For CAISD, we are dedicated to harnessing high-fidelity AI for sustainable economic and environmental progress. Our participation will not be merely attendance; it will be a strategic imperative to ensure that Africa’s emerging chip industry powers responsible, context-specific AI solutions that advance the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Agenda 2063.

    Africa’s Minerals-to-Microchips Opportunity

    The global semiconductor market is moving ahead. Projections indicate revenues could surpass US$1.3 trillion in 2026, driven largely by artificial intelligence infrastructure, with generative AI chips alone potentially accounting for nearly half of industry revenues. Memory and non-memory segments are surging amid what analysts’ term “memflation,” as demand for data centres, edge computing, and connected devices skyrockets. Yet Africa remains almost entirely dependent on imports. The continent consumes billions of dollars’ worth of chips annually for mobile phones, IoT devices, automotive systems, and emerging digital services but designs, fabricates, and manufactures virtually none. This import reliance exposes economies to supply-chain shocks, currency volatility, and geopolitical risks, while draining foreign exchange that could fund local innovation.

    Africa’s opportunity lies in its unparalleled endowment of critical minerals. The continent holds approximately 30% of the world’s reserves of materials essential for AI hardware and semiconductor production including cobalt (largely from the Democratic Republic of Congo), lithium, graphite, tantalum, and rare earth elements. These resources currently fuel global supply chains, yet Africa captures only about 10% of the downstream revenue. Raw exports dominate, with minimal value addition through processing, wafer fabrication, or chip assembly.

    The forum’s agenda directly confronts this gap. Day One (20 April) sets the stage with keynote addresses on Africa’s place in the global semiconductor surge, a continental market trend briefing on chip demand in mobile, IoT, and automotive sectors, and Panel 1 on financing industrial transformation from mineral wealth to semiconductor markets. Subsequent sessions map the full value chain, explore demand-side anchors from telecoms and data centres, and launch initiatives like the African Research and Technology Organisations Alliance (ARTOA).

    Africa’s Transformative Leap to Jobs, Sovereignty and Sustainable AI

    This “minerals-to-microchips” vision is transformative for Africa. First, it promises economic diversification beyond commodity exports. Integrated semiconductor production could generate high-skilled jobs, foster ancillary industries (packaging, testing, design), and create multiplier effects across manufacturing. Under the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), a unified market of 1.4 billion people offers the scale needed to justify local fabs turning potential anchor customers in telecom, automotive, and government procurement into drivers of domestic supply. Second, it advances technological sovereignty. Reliance on foreign chips limits Africa’s ability to tailor digital infrastructure to local realities, whether for low-power edge devices in rural agriculture or secure data centres respecting data sovereignty. Third, and crucially for sustainable development, local production aligns with green and ethical imperatives.

    By embedding circular economy principles recycling e-waste, powering fabs with renewables, and minimising environmental footprints in mineral processing Africa can avoid the pitfalls of extractive models elsewhere. Finally, it supercharges the digital economy. Semiconductors are the bedrock of AI deployment: without affordable, reliable chips, initiatives in precision agriculture, predictive mining maintenance, climate-resilient healthcare, and fintech inclusion remain constrained by latency, cost, and import barriers.

    Positioning CAISD work on Sovereign AI as the Heart of Africa’s Semiconductor Strategy

    CAISD’s mission positions it uniquely to contribute to and benefit from this moment. Established to empower continental stakeholders through advanced R&D, ethical governance, and context-specific AI models, CAISD envisions Africa as a global leader in high-fidelity artificial intelligence for sustainable development. Our core objectives include harnessing AI for SDGs across high-impact sectors: precision farming using satellite imagery and IoT for yield prediction; computer vision for mining safety and predictive maintenance; alternative-data credit scoring in fintech to serve the unbanked; and climate resilience tools. Yet as CAISD, we recognise a fundamental truth that sophisticated AI cannot thrive on imported hardware alone. Our projects at CAISD rely heavily on IoT sensors, edge devices, and compute infrastructure, all semiconductor dependent.

    Mining safety AI, for instance, demands rugged, low-power chips for real-time computer vision in harsh environments. Precision agriculture IoT requires affordable, energy-efficient processors for off-grid deployment. Data sovereignty initiatives call for local data centres powered by home-grown chips rather than foreign cloud dependency. By attending the forum, CAISD will champion the integration of AI requirements into Africa’s semiconductor roadmap. This includes advocating for chip designs optimised for African use cases which is characterised by low-energy, resilient to power fluctuations, and supportive of “Human-in-the-Loop” ethical oversight.

    Participation also aligns with CAISD’s policy advocacy pillar by contributing to discussions on local content requirements, preferential procurement, and tax incentives that accelerate local supply. For CAISD, the forum represents more than networking it is an opportunity to embed sustainable, AI-centric principles at the foundation of Africa’s semiconductor journey. Expected outcomes include strengthened alliances for pilot chip applications in CAISD focus sectors, contributions to the proposed Africa Semiconductor Advisory Group, and actionable commitments on talent and policy that accelerate responsible AI scaling. As the continent moves from mineral exporter to microchip innovator, CAISD stands ready to ensure this transition delivers not just economic growth, but equitable, ethical, and environmentally sound progress.

    Strategic Engagements

    The forum’s programme offers rich entry points for CAISD expertise. On 21 April, the Ministerial Panel “Sovereign by Design” will examine how governments shape innovation ecosystems exactly where CAISD’s work on AI ethics, risk assessment and regulatory frameworks can help shape national strategies. The launch of the African Research and Technology Organisations Alliance (ARTOA) and the Panel on Global Partnerships for Integration will open doors for tech-transfer and joint-venture alliances with multinational chipmakers. CAISD’s talent-development focus aligns closely with the 22 April Roundtable “Building Africa’s Semiconductor Talent Pipeline, from Classroom to Cleanroom.” Drawing on its academic engagements with institutions such as BIUST in Botswana, CUT of Free state and NUST Namibia, CAISD will help map critical workforce gaps in AI-chip co-design, materials science and cleanroom operations while proposing ready-to-launch university-industry compacts. Financing roundtables and investment matchmaking sessions will give CAISD the platform to spotlight blended-finance models that de-risk AI-aligned semiconductor projects.

    Dr Thulani Dlamini, CEO of the CSIR, and AUDA-NEPAD leadership already central to the keynote programme represent natural collaborators that CAISD can established ties with. Through active participation in value-chain mapping and demand-side panels, CAISD will demonstrate how organised procurement commitments from AI end-users (governments and enterprises) can anchor investor confidence and accelerate local fabrication.

    Expected Outcomes and the Road Ahead

    In Nairobi this April, CAISD’s presence will send a clear message that, Africa’s AI future must be built on African silicon. The minerals-to-microchips moment has arrived and through strategic collaboration it will power a sustainable, sovereign digital transformation for generations to come. Participation is expected to deliver concrete results of strengthened alliances for pilot AI-chip applications in precision agriculture and mining safety; direct contributions to the newly announced Africa Semiconductor Advisory Group; and firm commitments on local-content requirements and talent pipelines that will speed up responsible scaling.

    As Dr William Makwinja prepares to depart from Pretoria for the forum, CAISD’s message is unambiguous: Africa can leapfrog legacy models and create a sovereign, sustainable digital economy that truly serves its people first. The minerals are already in the ground, the talent is rising, the policy momentum is building. With CAISD’s voice and Dr William Makwinja’s leadership at the table, Africa is ready to turn its minerals-to-microchips moment into a lasting platform for inclusive, AI-powered prosperity.

  • CAISD’s Lessons from the 10th Anniversary AWS Imagine for Nonprofits Conference

    CAISD’s Lessons from the 10th Anniversary AWS Imagine for Nonprofits Conference

    By Dr Alexandre D, Essome

    On March 19, 2026, over 1,000 nonprofit executives, technologists, development practitioners, and social innovators gathered at the MGM National Harbor in Oxon Hill, Maryland just outside Washington, DC for the 10th anniversary of the AWS Imagine for Nonprofits Conference. The atmosphere was electric, reflecting a decade of growing recognition that cloud computing and artificial intelligence (AI) are no longer peripheral tools but core enablers of humanitarian and sustainable development outcomes. Global changemakers examined how emerging technologies particularly the shift toward agentic AI, robust data foundations, ethical frameworks and fundraising effectiveness can be harnessed to address systemic challenges in resource-constrained settings.

    For African organizations and their peers across the Global South, this milestone event offered more than inspiration; it provided a critical platform to reposition the continent from a passive recipient of technological solutions to an active co-creator. Keynote insights, technical sessions, and networking with organizations and musical legend such as John Legend, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, the American Red Cross, Save the Children, the Jane Goodall Institute, and Fair-Trade USA, distilled actionable strategic lessons. For the artist John legend, the Amazon Web Services Imagine conference should inspire collaboration, localized innovation, and responsible AI deployment to ensure technology truly amplifies human dignity and development impact.

    The Evolution of AI: From Generative Response to Agentic Agency

    Lessons drawn from various sessions of the conference clearly gave the opportunity to NGO executives and employees present to learn the practicality of achieving success while managing a non-for-profit organization. Participants got to learn the transition of generative AI tools that primarily respond to user to agentic AI, systems capable of proactively planning, executing multi-step tasks, and adapting to dynamic environments. This shift holds profound implications for international development, where operational efficiency can determine whether life-saving interventions reach remote communities in time. In sub-Saharan Africa, where humanitarian and healthcare systems often operate with severe workforce shortages and limited infrastructure, agentic AI could function as a reliable “digital colleague.” For instance, AI agents might autonomously triage patient data, schedule follow-ups, analyze supply chain disruptions for essential medicines, or draft context-aware grant proposals tailored to local realities. For the Centre of Artificial Intelligence for Sustainable Development CAISD present in Washington DC for the conference, these systems must be designed with cultural sensitivity, low-bandwidth resilience, and minimal hallucination risks to avoid exacerbating existing inequalities.

     Invest in Intelligent Data Foundations as a Prerequisite for AI Impact

    Another lesson learned from the AWS Imagine in Washington DC was the effective AI deployment that begins with high-quality, accessible data. Many African nonprofits remain trapped in “legacy” paper-based or fragmented digital systems, creating a bottleneck between raw information and actionable insight. The conference showcased powerful examples, such as the Jane Goodall Institute’s use of intelligent document processing on AWS to digitize and translate 65 years of handwritten field notes from African conservation sites. This initiative unlocked historical biodiversity data for climate resilience modelling and community-led conservation strategies. Another standout case came from the National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP), which leveraged cloud-based predictive analytics to improve donor matching, achieving a 20% increase in successful transplants and greater equity for ethnically diverse populations. Such outcomes demonstrate how modernizing data foundations can accelerate “time to impact” in sectors like public health, agriculture, and disaster response.

    For African organizations, the strategic priority should be systematic digitization combined with Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) tools. By converting historical records, community surveys, and program evaluations into structured, searchable datasets, nonprofits can move from reactive reporting to proactive decision-making. CAISD holds the view that starting with low-cost pilots focused on high-value domains such as cholera outbreak prediction in vulnerable regions or epilepsy care awareness in rural clinics while ensuring data governance respects local consent and privacy norms.

    Building Global Coalitions: Technology Through the Lens of Ubuntu

    The conference repeatedly echoed the African philosophy of **Ubuntu** “I am because we are” through its emphasis on coalition-building. John Legend, in a compelling live event with AWS Vice President Dave Levy, reflected on his activism via Free America and HUMANLEVEL, stressing that meaningful systems change requires creativity, sustained partnerships, and strategic investment. His presence underscored the power of blending artistic influence with technological leverage to address issues like criminal justice reform and community well-being.

    African and global south nonprofits should pursue membership in the AWS Partner Network (APN), a global ecosystem spanning nearly 200 countries. Participation provides access to technical mentorship, co-innovation opportunities, and funding mechanisms that enable organizations to develop context-specific solutions rather than importing generic tools.

    Benefits include direct cloud credits, expert consultations, and collaborative projects where African partners can contribute “localized insights” on linguistic diversity, low-connectivity environments, and culturally attuned use cases.

    Localized Innovation and Ethical, Inclusive AI

    Responsible AI was another cornerstone of the AWS 2026 program. Discussions stressed human-centered design, ethical frameworks, and the avoidance of one-size-fits-all models that marginalize non-Western contexts. For Africa and many other countries in the global south, this translates to AI systems that function reliably in low-bandwidth settings, support multiple regional dialects, and incorporate diverse training data to reduce bias.

    The conference highlighted tools like Amazon Bedrock for building custom large language models. While specific African-adapted models such as hypothetical “VIBRIO” variants were referenced by CAISD’s delegation as aspirational examples for health applications (e.g., cholera detection or epilepsy support), the broader lesson is clear: nonprofits must demand and contribute to inclusive datasets and models. To that end, Bernice Martin Lee, CEO of the Epilepsy Foundation, shared insights (drawn from her prominent role in prior Imagine events and ongoing AWS collaborations) on using generative AI to analyze organizational data, create empathetic beneficiary tools, and identify new growth pathways. Her organization’s AI assistant, developed with AWS and Anthropic’s Claude, exemplifies how technology can deliver reliable, compassionate support while strengthening internal capabilities.

    African and global south organizations are encouraged to develop robust, mission-aligned proposals that clearly articulate how cloud and AI technologies will amplify local impact. Applications should emphasize scalability, sustainability, ethical considerations, and measurable outcomes.

  • Africa’s Science Technology and Innovation (STI) week in Addis Ababa:

    Africa’s Science Technology and Innovation (STI) week in Addis Ababa:

    “AUDA-NEPAD and global organizations want to change the narrative and drive the continental transformation”

    By  Dr Alexandre D, Essome

    The African Union (AU) and the African Union Development Agency-New Partnership for Africa’s Development (AUDA-NEPAD), in collaboration with the African Union Commission (AUC), demonstrated strong leadership in advancing science, technology, and innovation (STI) as a central driver of continental transformation. The Science, Technology & Innovation (STI) Week, held February 10–12, 2026, in Addis Ababa alongside the 39th AU Summit, served as a high-level platform that brought together policymakers, researchers, innovators, development partners, and youth to accelerate the operationalization of the Science, Technology and Innovation Strategy for Africa (STISA-2034).

    The event delivered tangible milestones, including the official launch of the STISA-2034 Implementation Plan, the unveiling of AUDA-NEPAD’s EdTech Vision & Plan 2030, and commitments to mobilize resources for scalable, inclusive innovation. In a world of geopolitical tensions, AUDA-NEPAD seamlessly teamed up with academia, governments, international bodies, and private investors from the Global South, Europe, and America creating a multi-stakeholder ecosystem that functions as a unified front. Scholars, policymakers, and investors converged to align on STISA priorities, including science communication to combat misinformation. These partnerships amplify African agency, with participants from Asia sharing best practices that mirror Africa’s challenges and turning potential rivals into collaborators.

    The STISA-2034 Implementation Plan

    The STISA-2034 Implementation Plan serves as Africa’s roadmap for the next decade, shifting decisively from vision to action. It operationalizes five sectoral priorities agriculture, health, ICT and digital skills, energy, and environment alongside six cross-cutting enablers such as infrastructure, human capital, and partnerships. This framework rejects reliance on raw material exports and imported solutions, instead prioritizing indigenous industrialization, knowledge-to-wealth creation on African soil, and shared prosperity. A key highlight was AUDA-NEPAD’s ambitious target to mobilize up to $6 billion (with the full estimated cost of STISA-2034 at $6.8 billion) over the next 12 months.

    This funding push addresses urgent challenges like food insecurity, climate vulnerability, and technological competition by scaling solutions in areas such as Health Tech, EdTech, Space Tech, microchips, and infrastructure. AUDA-NEPAD’s leadership and CEO Nardos Bekele-Thomas emphasized in her address at the high-level diner gala that, “moving beyond pilot projects to concrete deeds, underscoring that Africa’s brain drain stems from underinvestment and can be reversed through targeted resources and political commitment” .

    Complementing this momentum, a landmark $42 million (CAD 57 million) commitment was announced for Phase 3 of the Science Granting Councils Initiative (SGCI), running from 2026 to 2030. AUDA-NEPAD will coordinate with national science councils to leverage domestic STI financing and public-private partnerships, promoting African ownership and sustainability. As South Africa’s Minister of Higher Education, Science and Innovation, Prof. Blade Nzimande, highlighted, increased domestic investment is crucial to reduce dependency and align resources with continental goals.

    Partnerships That Break Silos: The Hidden Power of Global Alliances

    This buy-in is evident: policymakers are on board, investors have expressed keen interest, and academia and private sectors are mobilized, as demonstrated by initial pledges such as the $42 million from the Science Granting Councils Initiative (SGCI).

    This collaboration challenges the narrative of Africa as a passive recipient, showing how cross-continental ties can mobilize resources, heighten the visibility of innovation’s urgency, and commit leaders to real change. The $42 million boost, announced during the STI Week, comes from a mix of international funders including Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Norway’s government, the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), Wellcome Trust, Germany’s DFG, and South Africa’s National Research Foundation (NRF). This funding directly backs STISA-2034 priorities, specifically the SGCI’s third phase, explicitly supporting STISA-2034’s focus on sectors like agriculture, health, ICT, energy, and environment. Participants called for more African domestic investment to avoid dependency as highlighted by South Africa’s science minister Blade Nzimande. This represents tangible progress in resource mobilization, underscoring that international commitments are kickstarting the journey toward the full $6.8 billion needed.

    The CJED side event in a nutshell

    The Calestous Juma Executive Dialogue (CJED), co-organized by AUDA-NEPAD and Michigan State University, took place on February 12–13, 2026, at the Skylight Hotel in Addis Ababa. On Day 1 (moderated by Dr. Callista Rakhmatov), the program opened with welcoming remarks from senior AUDA-NEPAD and MSU representatives, followed by an overview and a keynote that l, Dr. Alexandre Essome, Co-Chair of the Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Sustainable Development (CAISD), addressed titled “The Future of Science Communication in Africa and the Global South”. The presentation framed science communication as essential infrastructure for building trust, shaping policy, and scaling innovation across the continent and beyond. In emphasis was the urgent need to transition from passive consumption of knowledge to active ownership, aligning communication strategies with STISA-2034 priorities.

    The talk highlighted mobile-first approaches, integration of indigenous knowledge into African-centric data systems, and the value chain of knowledge from mineral beneficiation to public trust in “Made in Africa” technologies. The other important call of CAISD was for institutional reforms to make science communication a core academic metric and stressed gender equity as a prerequisite for inclusive progress. My address concluded with a powerful call to action: “The world is listening. It is time to speak,” setting the tone for the dialogue’s focus on combating misinformation and strengthening capacity in health, agriculture, and environment sectors.

    Other morning sessions featured panels on science communication practices in Africa and Asia, while the afternoon included presentations of regional success stories (Africa, Asia, United States), open discussions, and interactive breakout groups focused on building capacity in health, agriculture, and climate/environment sectors. The day closed with theme-lead reports and reflections on progress and the agenda ahead. Day 2 began with a recap and moved into panels addressing misinformation in African and Asian contexts and exploring science communication tools and resources, with active youth involvement. Discussions followed, leading into lunch and breakout sessions on program and tool development. The afternoon featured a dedicated panel and workshop on the role of higher education institutions in science communication, health breaks, collective feedback, recommendations, and a way-forward presentation. The dialogue concluded with closing remarks from MSU and AUDA-NEPAD representatives, officially ending the 12th CJED and reinforcing science communication as a vital enabler for STISA-2034 implementation.

    Other key Events at the STI week

    Youth emerged as a central force, with initiatives like the Presidential Youth in AI & Robotics Competition challenging outdated stereotypes. The EdTech Vision & Plan 2030 reimagines digital learning as a systemic tool for equity and resilience, integrated with STISA’s enablers to empower learners and teachers through localized, interoperable solutions. Policy dialogues, including those under the Calestous Juma Executive Dialogue (CJED), emphasized reforms in higher education institutions for science communication and curriculum integration such as online agricultural science courses. These efforts tie directly into broader calls for domestic R&D investment and governance changes to embed STI across sectors.

    In summary, the 2026 STI Week marked a decisive shift from aspiration to implementation. With initial funding secured, partnerships solidified, and a clear roadmap in place, Africa is positioned to own its innovation narrative. The urgency is clear: by seizing this moment through collective action and sustained investment, the continent can reverse the brain drain, drive inclusive growth, and secure a self-sustaining future. The choice and the time are now.

    • Dr Alexandre D, Essome is a journalist the with 25 years of experience managing communication challenges and organizations for the United Nations. He is currently the Co-Chairs CAISD, a network connecting universities, civil society, government and private entities working to address Africa’s development issues through the leverage of technology and AI across the continent.

  • West Africa’s Digital Renaissance: Navigating Continental Blueprints and Regional Realities for Sustainable Development

    Compiled and Published by CAISD

    The West African sub-region stands at a pivotal juncture in the global artificial intelligence (AI) landscape. Digital innovation, particularly AI, is transitioning from an ancillary tool to a foundational element of macroeconomic resilience, sectoral productivity, and inclusive social progress. Amid the accelerating Fourth Industrial Revolution, Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) members are progressively aligning national priorities with continental frameworks to secure meaningful participation in AI-driven global value chains. This analysis, prepared by the Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Sustainable Development (CAISD), examines the implementation of African Union (AU) strategies, regional coordination mechanisms, and national trajectories, while highlighting persistent structural challenges and pathways to greater technological self-reliance (African Union, 2024a; Oxford Insights, 2025).

    The Continental Compass: Implementing AU Strategies

    West African governments actively engage with the Continental Artificial Intelligence Strategy (endorsed July 2024) and the Science, Technology and Innovation Strategy for Africa (STISA-2034) (launched 2025). These instruments provide harmonized guidance on ethical AI governance, risk mitigation, and sectoral applications, allowing resource-constrained states to adopt established best practices rather than developing them independently (African Union, 2024a; African Union, 2025). STISA-2034 prioritizes a shift toward a knowledge-based, innovation-driven economy, with emphasis on high-impact domains such as agriculture, health, and energy. The Continental AI Strategy advocates “Vertical AI” context-specific solutions addressing local realities, including predictive tools for agriculture and health systems. Data sovereignty remains central, reinforced by the Malabo Convention on Cybersecurity and Personal Data Protection, which counters risks of external exploitation and supports sovereign data governance (African Union, 2024a).

    Regional Realities and the ECOWAS Collaborative Landscape

    The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) is advancing AI policy through its long-term ECOWAS Vision 2050, which identifies digital transformation and the digital economy as foundational pillars for regional integration, peace, security, and sustainable development (ECOWAS, 2021). A pivotal step forward occurred during the Thematic Dialogue on Digital Transformation, held in Lagos from 20 to 22 January 2026, where high-level stakeholders adopted a communiqué committing the region to the development of a Regional AI Governance Framework under Vision 2050 (Biometric Update, 2026; The Point, 2026). This framework aims to establish harmonized approaches to AI adoption, data management, ethical standards, cybersecurity, and risk mitigation including algorithmic bias, labour displacement, and the spread of misinformation (“information disorder”) while supporting the creation of a Regional Digital Single Market to reduce fragmentation and enable cross-border digital trade and innovation (ECOWAS, 2026; Businessday NG, 2026).

    Building on the Supplementary Act on Personal Data Protection (2010) one of Africa’s earliest comprehensive regional data protection instruments, the proposed framework seeks to maximise AI’s potential in high-impact sectors such as agriculture, health, education, governance, and public service delivery, while effectively addressing associated risks (ECOWAS, 2010). Complementary efforts include linguistic inclusion for French and indigenous languages (e.g., Wolof, Fongbe), pooled data resources, emerging infrastructure sharing (e.g., data centers in key hubs), and exploratory regulatory sandboxes for cross-border testing in fintech, health, and agriculture. By aligning closely with the African Union’s Continental Artificial Intelligence Strategy, and promoting linguistic inclusion, sovereign data management, and regulatory sandboxes, ECOWAS is positioning West Africa to transition from a technology consumer to an active participant and co-creator in the global AI ecosystem. The AU continues to provide the overarching strategic vision, while ECOWAS operationalizes localized integration through these concrete initiatives (African Union, 2024a; Biometric Update, 2026).

    West Africa ICT and AI Readiness Profile (2025–2026)

    CountryInternet Penetration (2026 Est.)AI Policy Status (2026)Govt AI Readiness Rank (2025)Technical Integration & Developmental Commentary
    Benin32.2%YES (SNIAM 2023–2027)90thDesignated the “Model Student” of AI policy; successfully deployed “JaimeMaLangue” for Fongbe NLP and automated land titles via GovTech AI.
    Burkina Faso17.0%NO (Aligning existing ICT laws)127thFocused on foundational digital infrastructure; currently identifying “Vertical AI” opportunities for agriculture.
    Cabo Verde73.5%Foundational Stage122ndHigh adoption coastal hub focusing on building data sovereignty and aligning with the AU Continental Strategy.
    Côte d’Ivoire40.7%YES (Strategy launched March 2025)95thLeading governance actor; established a regional AI Laboratory in Abidjan and mandated 40% female participation in AI research.
    Gambia, The45.9%Foundational Stage153rdAligning existing data protection laws with AU cybersecurity standards.
    Ghana69.9%YES (Ethics and educational focus)78th“Resource-Constraint Innovator” using satellite-linked AI to predict cocoa yields and detect crop diseases via COCOBOD.
    Guinea26.5%Foundational Stage183rdUtilizing regional collaboration by storing sovereign government data in neighboring Senegal’s cloud infrastructure.
    Guinea-Bissau32.5%High-Constraint State195thAI remains in academic/NGO pilot phases; prioritizing basic connectivity and power infrastructure.
    Liberia23.5%High-Constraint State189thInfrastructure deficits limit AI adoption to academic research.
    Mali35.1%Foundational Stage152ndParticipating in the “Francophone Data Ring” to store government records in regional data centers.
    Mauritania58.8%Foundational Stage138thAligning national ICT policy with AU Malabo Convention standards.
    Niger23.2%High-Constraint State184thFocusing on building basic internet and power layers.
    Nigeria44.9%YES (National AI Strategy 2024/25)70thDesignated Regional West African Compute Hub; leads the continent in NLP for Yoruba, Igbo, and Hausa and hosts 120+ active startups.
    Senegal60.6%YES (Plan Sénégal Émergent)96thRegional “Compute Hub” hosting sovereign clouds for neighbors; uses a national supercomputer for predictive climate modeling in Sahelian agriculture.
    Sierra Leone20.6%Foundational Stage175thPrioritizing data sovereignty and drafting an overarching national data strategy.
    Togo37.0%Foundational Stage124th“GovTech Innovator” using AI to digitize land titles to prevent property fraud and increase investment security.

    National AI Progress: Emerging Hubs and Policy Advances

    AI maturity remains heterogeneous, with coastal and resource-endowed states advancing faster amid widespread infrastructure and talent constraints.

    • Nigeria (Talent and Startup Hub): The 2025 National AI Strategy prioritizes ethical, inclusive adoption across finance, agriculture, and public services, supported by initiatives like 3 million Technical Talent upskilling (Federal Ministry of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, 2025).
    • Senegal (Infrastructure Focus): Advances in digital sovereignty through Diamniadio facilities enable sovereign data hosting and applications in climate-resilient agriculture.
    • Benin (Policy Pioneer): SNIAM 2023–2027 outlines comprehensive actions for ethical AI in key sectors (Ministry of Digital and Digitalization, Benin, 2023).
    • Côte d’Ivoire (Governance Emphasis): SNIA 2030 emphasizes investment, inclusion, and governance, including ethical labelling and rural connectivity (Ministry of Digital Transition and Digitalisation, Côte d’Ivoire, 2025).
    • Ghana (Sectoral Innovation): Focuses on resource-constrained applications, particularly agriculture, despite persistent challenges like cocoa swollen shoot disease.

    Strategic Recommendations: Bridging Gaps in Key Indicators (CAISD Perspective)

    West Africa exhibits low-to-mid readiness in global benchmarks, with strengths in policy emergence but pronounced gaps in infrastructure (compute/energy), talent retention, research output, investment, and enabling environments (Oxford Insights, 2025). CAISD recommends:

    1. Prioritize green compute by linking data centers to renewables, aligning with AU “Green Power for Compute” to build resilient infrastructure without grid strain (African Union, 2024a).
    2. Accelerate talent development through integrated curricula, national bootcamps, and retention incentives (e.g., startup grants, tech visas) to reach critical mass and counter brain drain.
    3. Deploy edge AI models on low-end devices for rural inclusion in low-connectivity contexts.
    4. Establish multi-stakeholder national AI ethics boards and regulatory sandboxes compliant with the Malabo Convention.
    5. Foster regional sovereign clouds and data-sharing mechanisms to enhance independence, reduce foreign biases, and support localized models.

    Conclusion

    West Africa possesses demographic and entrepreneurial advantages to leapfrog legacy systems toward AI-enabled sustainable development. Harmonizing Nigeria’s ecosystem dynamism, Senegal’s infrastructure progress, Benin’s policy rigor, and Côte d’Ivoire’s governance focus with AU and ECOWAS frameworks is essential. CAISD underscores that long-term success requires sustained investment in localized talent pipelines, inclusive policies, and foundational infrastructure to ensure AI delivers equitable benefits, particularly for vulnerable rural and agricultural communities (African Union, 2024a; Oxford Insights, 2025).

    References

    African Union. (2024a). Continental Artificial Intelligence Strategy: Harnessing AI for Africa’s Development and Prosperity. African Union Commission. https://au.int/sites/default/files/documents/44004-doc-EN-_Continental_AI_Strategy_July_2024.pdf 

    African Union. (2025). Science, Technology and Innovation Strategy for Africa (STISA-2034). African Union Commission. https://au.int/sites/default/files/documents/45087-doc-AU_STISA_2025-2034_Strategy_ENGLISH.pdf 

    Biometric Update. (2026, January 27). ECOWAS reflects on common approach to AI adoption, governance. https://www.biometricupdate.com/202601/ecowas-reflects-on-common-approach-to-ai-adoption-governance 

    Businessday NG. (2026, January 23). ECOWAS bets on AI, fintech to unlock growth for 400m West Africans. https://businessday.ng/news/article/ecowas-bets-on-ai-fintech-to-unlock-growth-for-400m-west-africans/ 

    ECOWAS. (2010). Supplementary Act A/SA.1/01/10 on Personal Data Protection within ECOWAS. https://www.ecowas.int/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Supplementary-Act-on-Personal-Data-Protection.pdf 

    ECOWAS. (2021). ECOWAS Vision 2050: Towards a community of peoples. https://ecowap.ecowas.int/media/ecowap/file_document/2021_ECOWAS_2050_Vision_EN.pdf 

    ECOWAS. (2026). Thematic Dialogue on Digital Transformation Communiqué (January 2026). Economic Community of West African States. (Summarized in reports from Biometric Update, PRNigeria, and others; official ECOWAS sources pending full publication).

    Federal Ministry of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy. (2025). National Artificial Intelligence Strategy. Nigeria. https://ncair.nitda.gov.ng/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/National-Artificial-Intelligence-Strategy-19092025.pdf 

    Ministry of Digital and Digitalization, Benin. (2023). Stratégie Nationale d’Intelligence Artificielle et des Mégadonnées (SNIAM) 2023–2027. https://numerique.gouv.bj/assets/documents/strategie-nationale-d’intelligence-artificielle-et-des-megadonnees-2023-2027.pdf 

    Ministry of Digital Transition and Digitalisation, Côte d’Ivoire. (2025). Stratégie Nationale de l’Intelligence Artificielle – SNIA 2030. https://www.telecom.gouv.ci/new/uploads/publications/174196670372.pdf 

    Oxford Insights. (2025). Government AI Readiness Index 2025. https://oxfordinsights.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-Government-AI-Readiness-Index-2.pdf 

    The Point. (2026, January 30). ECOWAS adopts landmark digital roadmap at Lagos summit. https://thepoint.gm/africa/gambia/headlines/ecowas-adopts-landmark-digital-roadmap-at-lagos-summit 

  • The Science Communication Policy in Africa and the Global South  “AUDA – NEPAD teams up the Michigan University ‘s Calestous Juma Executive Dialogue to bridge the gap” 

    The Science Communication Policy in Africa and the Global South  “AUDA – NEPAD teams up the Michigan University ‘s Calestous Juma Executive Dialogue to bridge the gap” 

    By Taurai Chiraerae 

    The Global South faces a persistent challenge in translating scientific innovations into socio-economic benefits. Despite advances in genetics, biotechnology, and agricultural techniques by public and private institutions, a “communication deficit” hinders widespread adoption. This gap arises from information asymmetries, miscommunication, and disinformation, creating barriers to evidence-based policymaking. It is against this backdrop that the Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Sustainable Development (CAISD) will take an active role in the 12th Calestous Juma Executive Dialogue (CJED) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on February 12–13, 2026. 

    Organized by the African Union Development Agency (AUDA-NEPAD) in collaboration with Michigan State University (MSU), the CJED serves as a platform to address these issues. CAISD’s Co-Chair, Dr. Alexandre D. Essome, a 25-year communication expert with the United Nations will deliver the opening keynote, on “The Future of Science Communication in Africa and the Global South,” positioning our organization as a leader in bridging science and policy through digital tools and intellectual frameworks. 

    The Strategic Imperative: Science Communication as Infrastructure 

    Effective science communication is not a luxury but essential infrastructure for development. The CJED targets the “information pandemic ” of misinformation that undermines technology uptake. Rather than a mere data shortage, the core issue is the absence of an enabling environment for informed decision-making. This “shadow pandemic” of myths derails initiatives in health, agriculture, and climate action before they gain traction. 

    CAISD views science communication as “precision communication,” replacing noise with clear, standardized messaging across regional blocs like SADC and ECOWAS. This builds an “infrastructure of trust,” combating cross-border disinformation and fostering public acceptance of innovations. 

    Addressing the Communication Deficit and the Knowledge Value Chain 

    Africa’s scientific landscape often resembles raw mineral extraction: we export unprocessed data and import refined analyses and policies from abroad. This “resource-to-rectifier” model cedes value to external actors, limiting local beneficiation in the global digital economy. 

    Innovations in biotechnology and crop varieties fail to reach smallholder farmers due to pervasive disinformation. The CJED aims to reverse this by integrating mobile-first strategies and AI with indigenous knowledge systems (IKS). Mobile penetration in Africa stands at 85%, far outpacing traditional academic reach (estimated at 15%). Platforms like WhatsApp and TikTok can democratize complex data, while AI models trained on IKS reduce bias and ensure culturally relevant outputs. 

    This strategic shift aligns with CAISD’s vision of leveraging Africa’s mineral resources, key to global microchips to communicate their value domestically. By meeting people where they are, we transform communication from a soft skill into a driver of sovereignty. 

    The CJED Agenda: A Laboratory for South-South Collaboration 

    The two-day dialogue at the African Union’s side event at this year summit  emphasizes cross-continental knowledge exchange, drawing lessons from Africa and Asia to build institutional capacity. 

    Day 1: Institutional Capacity and Success Stories. Following Dr. Essome’s keynote, panels explore science communication frameworks in Africa and Asia, featuring insights from the Science for Africa Foundation and the National Academy of Agricultural Sciences. Success stories from the Alliance for Science (AFS) and Bayer Corporation highlight mitigation strategies against public resistance to technology. Breakout sessions strengthen resilience in health, agriculture, and climate/environment, offering CAISD opportunities to embed data-driven tools in policies. 

    Day 2: Combatting Misinformation and Tool Development. Sessions dissect the psychological and digital drivers of disinformation, with experts from MSU and the Society of Medical Arthropodology. A focus on “Science Communication Tools and Resources” includes perspectives from the Malawi Embassy and African youth, ensuring inclusivity for digital natives. 

    This structure positions the CJED as a collaborative roadmap, identifying common barriers and scalable solutions. 

    CAISD’s Role: Leading Technical Advocacy 

    CAISD’s participation underscores our commitment to academic advocacy, the “midstream” phase of our strategy. Dr. Essome’s keynote will advocate for integrating AI and IKS into communication curricula, empowering scientists to engage media, religious leaders, and communities. CAISD sees the CJED as a catalyst for human capacity building, turning raw scientific output into trusted, implementable policies. “Our expertise in AI-driven platforms aligns with AUDA-NEPAD and MSU’s goals, enhancing Africa’s digital transformation” Essome’s said. 

    Deliverables: A Comprehensive Science Communication Curriculum 

    A key outcome is a dynamic curriculum on agricultural science communication, evolving into an on-demand online course for scientists, educators, and regulators. This “software update” for Africa’s scientific community will be updated annually to adapt to technological and social changes. For CAISD, this curriculum bridges the skills gap, enabling local processing of resources and fostering technology adoption. It represents a step toward full ownership in the knowledge value chain. 

    Measuring Success: Short- and Long-Term Impacts 

    Success at the CJED is multifaceted: 

    Short-term: Training stakeholders with networks and resources, empowering them to communicate effectively with diverse audiences. 

    Long-term: Increased adoption of modern agricultural technologies and enactment of supportive policies, improving food security and livelihoods. 

    CAISD measures progress through alignment with frameworks like the Science, Technology and Innovation Strategy for Africa (STISA-2034), establishing AI pipelines, and achieving scientific sovereignty. 

    CAISD’s engagement in the 12th CJED advances our Path to 2030, defined by three phases: alignment with regional partners, infrastructure development integrating IKS, and sovereignty in global science architecture. As Dr. Essome leads our delegation to Addis Ababa, CAISD’s message resonates: Africa possesses the minerals, talent, and knowledge. Through masterful communication, we must own the narrative to drive sustainable development.