AI governance grounded in justice, a new compendium of papers presented at the 2026 Just AI Conference. The publication brings together eighteen multidisciplinary papers from researchers across Africa who apply the Research ICT Africa Just AI Framework of Inquiry to questions spanning democratic governance, labour, language technologies, digital public infrastructure, biometrics, health data, AI strategy and relational ethics.
Across the compendium, several ideas coalesce:
AI governance is fundamentally a question of power and democratic accountability. Several papers argue that algorithmic systems cannot simply be evaluated on efficiency or technical performance. From local government decision-making and algorithmic governance to national AI policy, the authors examine how public participation, transparency, explainability and democratic oversight must be embedded into AI governance if these systems are to serve the public interest rather than reinforce existing inequalities.
Justice requires moving from extraction to restoration. The collection challenges extractive models of data and AI development that concentrate value elsewhere while drawing on African labour, languages and communities. Contributions on AI labour, community-centred language technologies and digital public infrastructure argue for approaches that recognise African knowledge, communities and data as sites of agency rather than merely sources of resources for global AI systems.
Context matters. Across diverse case studies, from Kenya’s proposed language corpus framework and Zimbabwe’s digital public infrastructure to biometric identification, health data governance and AI policing, the contributors interrogate what AI governance means in African contexts. Rather than importing governance models developed elsewhere, the papers demonstrate the importance of grounding regulation, design and implementation in local institutions, histories, legal frameworks and lived realities.
Perhaps most significantly, the publication demonstrates how RIA’s Just AI Framework of Inquiry can be applied across diverse AI domains. Rather than remaining a conceptual framework, contributors use it to unpack questions of human rights, economic justice, democratic governance, data justice, relational ethics, and sustainability across multiple sectors and policy challenges.
More than a collection of conference papers, AI governance grounded in justice offers an emerging body of African scholarship that speaks directly to policymakers, regulators, practitioners and researchers navigating rapidly evolving AI governance debates. The publication demonstrates that Africa is not simply responding to global conversations on AI; it is developing its own analytical frameworks, governance approaches, and policy solutions grounded in justice and shaped by African realities.
