Standing on Geneva’s global stage this July, Executive Director Dr Pria Chetty delivered a clear, yet challenging statement.
Addressing the thematic co-chairs, policymakers, private-sector players, academia, and civil society gathered at the highly anticipated United Nations Dialogue on Global AI Governance, she argued that current approaches to global AI governance are failing, noting how it “deepens existing inequalities, extracting value from individuals, communities, and nations without reciprocal benefit, input, or control.”
Building on Research ICT Africa’s Just AI Framework of Inquiry, commitments to inclusive, multi-stakeholder participation in Paragraph 55 of the Global Digital Compact, and the foundational principles of Resolution 70/1, Chetty advanced four recommendations:
- A common normative foundation through Just AI, rooted in international human rights law and actively informing economic and social justice for the Global Majority;
- A globally recognised understanding that the governance of AI is inseparable from the governance of data;
- The democratisation of AI resources and capabilities to shift all nations from being passive consumers to co-creators of AI systems;
- Finally, and most concretely, a Global AI Governance Roadmap that is sequenced, measurable, and multistakeholder-endorsed.
At the core of our work is a simple proposition: the choices we make about digital governance ripple far beyond our screens. They shape how we respond to online harms and hate speech in South Africa; how women access and use the internet in Ethiopia, Uganda, Nigeria and Ghana; how young people in the Sahel mobilise in the face of authoritarianism and shrinking civic space; and ultimately, how we protect both people and planet.
Returning from the global stage to the communities and countries we serve, these propositions take on deeper, more practical meaning. For Africa and the Global Majority, they remind us that digital inclusion is about more than a safe internet; it is about enabling development, advancing justice, and creating the necessary conditions for transformation and redress.
Other highlights from the month of June and July include:
- Reflections from the UN B-Tech panel in Geneva.
- A Just AI conference brief, The foundations of justice-centred AI governance: Recommendations for Southern African Member States, by Just AI Fellows, Elisabeth Achancho, Emmanuel Kpakpo brown, Shirley Genga and Simbarashe Knox Kaneunyenye.
- A suite of After Access policy briefs on gender and digital technologies in Nigeria, Uganda and Ghana.
- The release and publication of Change in the Sahel: Hashtags and Power, with contributions from Zara Schroeder.
- Insights from the Social Media 4 Peace validation workshop in Johannesburg.
- Announcements regarding our inclusion in the Global Network Initiative’s civil society constituency, and Dr Alison Gillwald’s appointment to the South African AI advisory panel.
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