Judicial Service of Ghana

A road map with definite timelines to prioritise a digitally integrated Africa. Encourage African countries to collaborate in building digital infrastructure resources, with harmonized regulations that demonstrate the uniqueness of the African identity, philosophy (ethics) and culture. Generate, own, and determine how African data resources are shared for collaborative purposes. AI tools for Africa must be developed by Africans with underpinning African cultural values to avoid the imposition of foreign values and language as conditions for donor funding for the deployment of AI tools on the continent.

• Safe, secure and trustworthy AI
• Social, economic, ethical, cultural, linguistic and technical implications of AI
• Protection and promotion of human rights
• Transparency, accountability, and human oversight

The development and deployment of AI should not lead to the erosion of unique cultural, philosophical, linguistic and ethical values of the various global regions. The core values of UNESCO in preserving heritage and traditions of different regions of the world should be evident in the use of AI. The economic and data impact of AI has to be reviewed regularly to remedy any potential negative impacts. This will be achieved when human oversight of AI deployment is made a basic requirement. governments must hold people accountable for the safe and ethical use of AI. Ultimately, the human right protections to privacy, sovereignty, information, safety security must not be sacrificed on the alter of innovation and development. we must determine to use AI as a tool for prosperity or a weapon for defense, protection and security against aggression and poverty.

not at the moment

African governments are adopting AI strategies and policies in a haste. there are challenges associated with adopting aspects of AI policies of other countries and regions without adapting them to the prevailing specific socio-economic conditions of the Africa regions. harmonized regulatory approaches do not exist in Africa. sometimes funding gaps create opportunity for opacity and less accountability with the attendant loss of data sovereignty and sharing among states in the Africa Region. As a result, Africa still remains a consumer of AI. Africa must progress to AI producer.

the dialogue would identify different governance and regulatory approaches to the deployment of AI. It would deepen consultations and considerations when developing a harmonized regulatory approach. building and and hosting digital infrastructural resources is expensive and logistically demanding just as well as the human resources capacity to run them are equally expensive to develop and maintain. international cooperation is definitely a basic requirement to fill these gaps.

there is a private initiative to develop an African or Afrocentric unified or harmonized AI policy. to this end, dialogues have been held under the auspices of the Lawyers Hub to discuss the possible adoption of a harmonized policy for the West Africa, North Africa, South Africa and East Africa regions. these dialogues went further to discuss the different AI strategies/Policies for Ghana, South Africa, and Kenya. the dialogues have produced great outcomes and education for policy advocates. the assessments and reviews done in these sessions have achieved great results so far. the Lawyers Hub will holding sessions in advancement of this initiative in Geneva and so must be encouraged. i believe connecting with such initiatives would be a good cooperation given the wealth of information that has already been generated by Lawyers Hub.

states of different regions of the world must work in regional groups to produce a common proposal that would eventually lead to an integrated governance approach. these approaches must involve private sector, state agencies, international corporations, aid agencies and Civil Society Organizations. consultations must be deepened before adopting any strategy.

women and children, informal sector employees, deprived communities, poor regions, illiterates and persons deprived of the benefits of digital resources. building the capacity of such persons to use such digital resources, and giving them a representative voice in the form of Civil Society Organizations/ NGOs, and journalists telling their stories would help include them in such dialogues.

online streaming, side events for the different sectors and presentation of outcomes.

Ghana's AI strategy has been launched and it is an ambitious project for the future. along with that, a number of existing laws are proposed to be amended while new ones are proposed. these laws have been presented to parliament for consideration and future assent by the president. these include the National Information Technology Authority Bill, Digital economy and innovation Development Bill, Ghana Domain Name Registry Bill, and the National Communications Authority Bill (which proposes the establishment of an AI authority). Kenya has launched a five year AI policy strategy which also requires some legislative steps to be taken to operate effectively. these policies have considered the existing governance gaps and would seek to remedy the gaps. civil society is also discussing the steps to ensure state accountability and compliance with human rights aspirations.