Artificial intelligence in Africa: challenges and opportunities

The developments in artificial intelligence (AI) have the potential to disrupt and transform socio-economic activities across industries. While evidence is emerging that businesses and governments across the world are positioning themselves to maximise these potentials, evidence also indicates that countries in the Global North are better prepared to reap the benefits of AI even though a significant number of jobs that could be displaced in the process are in the Global South. Therefore, we posit that countries in the Global South such as those in Africa need to tackle governance issues and lack of institutional capacity to establish the building blocks to allow AI to flourish. It is important to also examine the roles of international communities’ in bridging the technological gaps in Africa by adopting a problem-driven approach where local needs and problems are contextualised into AI policy formulation rather than a blanket ‘copy-and-paste’ practice that has limited the advancement of development policies in Africa. A problem-driven approach would help African countries to formulate robust AI policies that are relevant to their unique circumstances.