AI for social good and Africa’s strategic choices

(c) ecdpm

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a technology that presents a unique opportunity for Africa to fast track its social and development agendas. As a cross-sectoral and multi-domain technology, AI has the potential to help transform every economic sector. For instance, AI technologies are helping increase crop yields and addressing the problem of hunger, improving access to healthcare or revolutionising education through use of virtual assistants and tutoring applications. Despite its benefits, AI poses major challenges, including worsening digital inequalities, data exploitation, causing job losses, and driving economic exclusion. 

For Africa to fully benefit from AI, it needs to tackle these challenges by building its local digital and AI ecosystems so as to provide local-context specific solutions. This requires more than a broad and generic approach to AI development. Instead, African countries need to look into the potential of AI within specific priority sectors and get a better understanding of how AI is impacting these sectors or industries and the type of interventions needed. What is also clear is that most of the required interventions need significant investments that many African governments and local actors struggle to make. This means that African countries need to forge strategic partnerships with the private sector and international actors to build partnerships that align with their vision and interests while maintaining their digital sovereignty. 

The event will examine how AI is being used across key sectors, explore some promising AI use cases in Africa, and consider how African countries are addressing the risks of AI. The event will also identify opportunities to scale up selected AI use cases in Africa, and explore the key factors that influence how African countries choose international and private sector partners, their priorities and expectations from these collaborations, and the concerns they face with the current models of digital cooperation. This discussion will offer valuable insights for the private sector and international partners, providing a clearer understanding of how African governments approach and envision meaningful, equitable AI and digital partnerships. 

During the event, ECDPM will present the three discussion papers and key findings of the AI for Social Good project (AI in education, AI in agriculture, AI in health).

This event is being held with the financial assistance of the European Union. Its contents are the sole responsibility of ECDPM and can under no circumstance be regarded as reflecting the position of the European Union.  

Moderator

Chloe Teevan, Head of Digital Economy and Governance, ECDPM

Panelists

• Dr. Melody Musoni, Senior Policy Analyst, ECDPM
• Dr. Jane Munga, Fellow, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
• Amb-Prof Bitange Ndemo, Ambassador of Kenya to the EU and Belgium
• Dr. Maja Fjaestad, Policy Officer, European Commission AI Office
• Dr. Koen Hufkens, Founder, BlueGreen Labs

Agenda

15h00-15h30: Walk-in & registration
15h30-16h00: Presentation of the AI for Social Good Project 
16h00-17h30: Panel discussion: Navigating global offers and Africa’s strategic choices 
17h30-18h00:  Networking drinks

The registration and online meeting links can be found here.