Africa Research Institute For AI

A successful first Global Dialogue on AI Governance should deliver practical, inclusive, and action-oriented outcomes, especially reflecting the needs of the Global South. First, the Dialogue should establish a shared baseline framework for AI governance a set of interoperable principles addressing safety, transparency, accountability, and human rights, adaptable to different national contexts. Second, it should define a clear pathway for capacity-building and resource-sharing, including commitments to technical assistance, infrastructure, and skills development for developing countries. Third, the Dialogue should create a sustainable multi-stakeholder coordination mechanism involving governments, academia, private sector, and civil society to ensure continuous collaboration and policy alignment. Fourth, there should be agreement on priority public-interest AI use cases such as healthcare, education, agriculture, and climate resilience paired with safeguards against bias, exclusion, and misuse. Fifth, it should promote equitable data governance, including fair access, data sovereignty, and trusted cross-border data-sharing frameworks. Finally, success requires concrete commitments with timelines, such as pilot initiatives and measurable progress ahead of the 2027 Dialogue. From the perspective of the Africa Research Institute For AI (ARIFA), success means ensuring that Africa and other underrepresented regions are not just participants, but active co-creators of global AI governance.

• AI capacity-building
• Social, economic, ethical, cultural, linguistic and technical implications of AI
• Open-source software, open data and open AI models
• Safe, secure and trustworthy AI

These four priorities reflect ARIFA's commitment to responsible, inclusive, and context-aware AI development. Safe, secure, and trustworthy AI is essential to ensure systems deployed across sectors uphold reliability, accountability, and human rights, particularly in emerging ecosystems with evolving regulatory frameworks. AI capacity-building is a critical priority for addressing the global skills gap. Strengthening technical expertise, institutional readiness, and policy capabilities in developing countries is necessary for meaningful participation in the AI economy. The social, economic, ethical, cultural, linguistic, and technical implications of AI are especially relevant in the African context, where local realities, languages, and values must be reflected in AI systems to avoid exclusion and bias. Finally, open-source software, open data, and open AI models are key enablers of equitable access, innovation, and collaboration. They lower barriers to entry and support locally driven solutions. Together, these priorities ensure that AI development is not only advanced, but also inclusive, ethical, and globally representative.

Yes. Several cross-cutting and emerging issues require greater attention. First, AI infrastructure inequality including access to compute, cloud resources, and energy remains a major barrier for developing countries and risks deepening global disparities. Second, data ownership and value-sharing is under-addressed. Mechanisms are needed to ensure that communities contributing data, particularly in the Global South, benefit fairly from its use. Third, AI governance interoperability is critical, as fragmented national regulations may hinder innovation and cross-border collaboration. Fourth, environmental sustainability of AI, including energy consumption and e-waste, is an emerging concern that must be integrated into governance discussions. Finally, localization of AI systems ensuring support for underrepresented languages and contexts cuts across all themes and is essential for inclusivity. Addressing these issues will strengthen equitable and sustainable global AI governance.

Governance gaps in these thematic areas significantly affect Tanzania and the broader African region. Limited frameworks for safe and trustworthy AI increase risks of bias, misuse, and low public trust, especially in sensitive sectors like finance and public services. At the same time, this creates an opportunity to build governance systems from the ground up, aligned with local values. Gaps in AI capacity-building constrain adoption due to shortages in skills, infrastructure, and institutional readiness, but also present opportunities for targeted investment in education, research, and innovation ecosystems. The lack of attention to local contexts and languages risks exclusion, yet creates space for developing culturally relevant AI solutions. Finally, limited access to open data and AI resources restricts innovation, while expanding open ecosystems could accelerate local startups and research. Overall, these challenges present a unique opportunity for Africa to shape inclusive and context-driven AI governance.

The AI Dialogue can serve as a neutral, inclusive global platform that bridges gaps between countries at different levels of AI development. It can advance cooperation by facilitating knowledge-sharing and best practices, enabling countries to learn from diverse governance approaches while avoiding fragmented or conflicting regulations. The Dialogue can also promote interoperable frameworks and standards, supporting alignment without imposing one-size-fits-all models. Importantly, it can mobilize collective action on capacity-building, including technical assistance, funding, and infrastructure support for developing countries. It should also strengthen multi-stakeholder collaboration, bringing together governments, academia, private sector, and civil society. Finally, the Dialogue can help define shared priorities and joint initiatives, ensuring that AI governance evolves in a coordinated, transparent, and inclusive manner, with meaningful participation from underrepresented regions such as Africa.

The AI Dialogue should build on existing initiatives such as UNESCO Recommendation on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence, OECD AI Principles, Global Partnership on AI (GPAI), African Union AI Strategy, and the ITU AI for Good. It should also connect with regional efforts and research networks across the Global South. The added value of the AI Dialogue lies in its universality and inclusiveness under the United Nations, bringing together all countries on equal footing. It can act as a convening and coordination platform, reducing fragmentation across initiatives while amplifying underrepresented voices. Importantly, it can translate existing principles into actionable commitments, shared implementation pathways, and measurable outcomes, ensuring that global AI governance evolves in a coherent, equitable, and impact-driven manner.

Different stakeholders should contribute through clearly defined, complementary roles. Governments can share policy experiences and commit to interoperable frameworks, academia and research institutions can provide evidence and technical guidance, the private sector can contribute innovation, standards, and responsible practices, and civil society can ensure inclusivity, accountability, and protection of rights. For effectiveness, the AI Dialogue should adopt a hybrid, multi-layered structure with high-level plenaries for political alignment and commitments, thematic working groups for deep technical and policy discussions, and regional tracks to reflect local priorities, especially from the Global South. It should also include multi-stakeholder engagement and open consultation mechanisms, including youth participation. Outcomes should be captured in clear action agendas with timelines, supported by a standing coordination mechanism to track progress between Dialogue sessions.

Voices from the Global South, particularly African countries, least developed countries, and small island states, remain underrepresented, alongside local communities, indigenous groups, youth, and non-English-speaking populations. Grassroots innovators and small enterprises are also often excluded. Inclusion can be strengthened through dedicated regional consultations, funding support for participation, multilingual engagement platforms, and partnerships with local institutions. The AI Dialogue should institutionalize representation quotas and support community-led inputs to ensure policies reflect diverse realities, needs, and cultural contexts.

Innovative engagement formats should prioritize interactivity, inclusivity, and real-world problem solving. The AI Dialogue could incorporate policy labs and co-creation workshops, where stakeholders collaboratively design governance solutions around specific use cases. Simulation exercises and scenario-based dialogues can help participants explore risks, trade-offs, and policy impacts in practice. Regional innovation showcases and live demonstrations can highlight practical AI applications from diverse contexts, especially the Global South. Digital participation platforms with real-time polling and multilingual inputs can broaden inclusion beyond physical attendees. Additionally, youth forums and challenge-based hackathons can bring fresh perspectives, while multi-stakeholder roundtables ensure balanced, solution-oriented discussions that translate into actionable outcomes.

Several existing efforts offer practical models for effective AI governance. The UNESCO Recommendation on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence provides a comprehensive framework grounded in human rights, inclusivity, and accountability, already adopted by many countries. The OECD AI Principles and the EU AI Act demonstrate risk-based regulatory approaches that balance innovation with safety. On the implementation side, Global Partnership on AI (GPAI) and ITU AI for Good promote collaboration, knowledge-sharing, and practical use cases. Open ecosystems such as Hugging Face enable transparent model development and wider access. Regionally, the African Union AI Strategy emphasizes capacity-building and local relevance. Together, these examples highlight the importance of combining principles, regulation, and open innovation platforms to achieve inclusive, actionable, and globally coordinated AI governance.