Event |
Date: 18-19 February, 2026
Location: Johannesburg, South Africa
The University of the Witwatersrand’s (Wits) School of Law, in partnership with Warwick
University’s Law School and the University of Nairobi’s business School have jointly organized
this final Health Apps conference in Johannesburg to showcase the project’s major scientific
outputs and explore with stakeholders how harmonization can be achieved across the
Subregion to improve regulations and guidelines for Health Apps.
Event |
Date: 16 – 20 February, 2026
Location: India, New Delhi
CIPESA will participate at the India AI Impact Summit which is one of the largest gatherings on AI in the global South. It happens at a time when conversations on artificial intelligence are increasingly focused on the impact of AI on live hoods, civic participation and democracy. We look forward to sharing insights from the landmark 2025 edition of the State of Internet Freedom in Africa report which focused on the Implications of AI on Digital Democracy in Africa.
Our research on AI governance in Africa spans its impact on areas such as data protection, algorithmic accountability, disinformation, digital trade, and the political economy of AI. As global norms on AI take shape, we will advance the case for rights-respecting frameworks that center African realities, strengthen democratic oversight, and ensure that AI systems deployed across the continent.
Here are some of sessions you will find us at or drop us an email at [email protected] to schedule a meetup:
Learning Forum (Closed Door)| Host: Center for Communication Governance, National Law University Delhi & Global Network Initiative
February 16, 2026 | 10:00-18:30 (IST)
Data Governance at the Intersection of Digital Public Infrastructure and Artificial Intelligence | Host: Tech Global Institute and the Government of Brazil
Date: February 17, 2026 | 13:30 – 14:25 pm (IST)
Multistakeholder Approaches to Participation in AI Governance (MAP-AI) | Global Network Initiative (GNI) and the Centre for Communication Governance (CCG)
Date: February 17, 2026 | 09:00 – 18:00 (IST)
Roundtable on AI Governance from the South: from redlines to baselines | Host: Global Digital Justice Forum (GDJF)
Date: February 18, 2026 | 09:00 – 15:00 (IST)
Platform Governance & AI: Global Majority Perspectives! | Host: SFLC.in and Global Partners Digital (GPD)
Date: February 18, 2026 | 13:30 – 17:30 (IST)
By CIPESA Writer |
Digital technologies are changing how African businesses trade and connect across borders. However, digital trade on the continent remains hugely constrained, including by regulatory fragmentation, infrastructure gaps, and bureaucratic hurdles. How then should African countries leverage the growing digitalisation and emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) to boost their digital economies?
According to the World Trade Organization (WTO), in 2024, Africa’s exports of digitally delivered services (DDS) were valued at USD 41.3 billion, representing just one percent of global exports. Nonetheless, the continent’s prospects are promising. The WTO and the World Bank project that greater use of digital technologies could boost Africa’s digital services exports by USD 74 billion between 2023 and 2040, doubling Africa’s share of global exports.
Evidently, if African countries do not address existing barriers and take decisive action, the continent risks becoming an even more marginal player in the global digital trade ecosystem. How to bridge the barriers and leverage data and AI to shape digital trade and Africa’s economic future was at the centre of discussions at the African Economic Research Consortium (AERC) Summit 2025, held in Nairobi, Kenya, last December.
A panel on digital trade and the governance of digital and AI economies, where the Collaboration on International ICT Policy for East and Southern Africa (CIPESA) featured, stressed that, although frameworks such as the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Digital Trade Protocol are a step in the right direction, they could fail to significantly grow digital trade if member states lack enabling data and AI governance systems and practices.
Today, DDS account for approximately 35% of Africa’s total services export value, and have been rising at a double-digit rate, outpacing growth in other regions globally. However, growth in digital services trade remains uneven, concentrated in a handful of countries, mostly South Africa, Morocco, Ghana, Egypt, and Mauritius. Kenya, Nigeria and Tunisia are also notable players but with lower export values than the leading African countries.
Regional initiatives such as the AfCFTA Digital Trade Protocol can help to expand digital trade beyond domestic markets, including in countries that currently lag. The protocol, which was adopted two years ago, aims to harmonise rules for cross-border digital trade across Africa, including on electronic transactions, data governance, and digital payments. Meanwhile, the African Guidelines on Integrating Data Provisions in Protocols on Digital Trade of 2024, emphasise harmonised data governance as an enabler of secure and inclusive digital trade across Africa.
The African Union Data Policy Framework (AUDPF) similarly provides for interoperable data ecosystems across the continent, that are enabled by harmonised laws that support both innovation and rights protection. The various regional efforts support the dream of a Digital Single Market by 2030, as envisaged by the Africa Digital Transformation Strategy of the African Union.
The region currently lacks an operational continent‑wide harmonised framework for data protection, e‑commerce regulation, digital taxation, or AI governance. This gap raises compliance costs and presents a barrier to businesses that aim to scale operations across borders. This undermines cross‑border digital trade and data flows. Moreover, lack of regulations for paperless trade, including on electronic invoicing, e-signatures and e-contracts, presents an additional hurdle.
On the other hand, high taxes on goods, services, data, and devices drive up costs for businesses, yet several entrepreneurs struggle to access affordable digital financial services, including for effecting cross-border payments. These challenges are made worse by low internet speeds, unreliable electricity supply, as well as weak understanding of export regulations, data protection, and cybersecurity.
Addressing these barriers would offer entrepreneurs a range of benefits. Businesses can reach new customers beyond national borders without investing much in physical export infrastructure, which can reduce costs and expand their market reach. Also, interoperable digital payments can help to minimise settlement delays and overcome currency conversion hurdles.
Projections by a WTO 2025 report show that AI could boost the value of cross-border flows of goods and services by around 40% by 2040, due to productivity gains and lower trade costs. However, Africa’s readiness for AI regulation and uptake, particularly by small and medium enterprises, remains low. The WTO report points to AI’s potential to reduce logistics costs, overcome language barriers, ease regulatory compliance, and boost productivity.
In a March 2025 survey among firms from across the world, the most cited benefits of AI were improved trade efficiency (22%), optimised trade decision-making (14%), expanding the foreign customer base (10%), enhanced supply chain management (9%), and broader import and export product ranges (9% and 8% respectively).
How data and AI are governed is therefore key for the future of Africa’s digital economy. If African countries do not put in place robust and harmonised legislation, they will risk perpetuating patterns of the so-called “AI colonialism” in which African data and users fuel global AI markets yet their economies do not receive proportionate economic benefits. Many African countries are adopting AI in the public and private sectors but lack comprehensive AI-specific laws and governance frameworks and often rely instead on outdated laws that pre-date the current technologies.
The State of Internet Freedom in Africa 2025 report calls for human‑centred AI laws that ensure transparency in algorithms, clear accountability, and effective mechanisms for liability and redress. The report urges governments to strengthen independent AI and data oversight institutions, invest in digital infrastructure and inclusion, expand internet access, and ensure AI tools serve local languages. The report also highlights that Africa’s AI market is projected to grow from USD 4.51 billion in 2025 to USD 16.5 billion by 2030.
Africa thus urgently needs cross-border data governance frameworks that support trusted data flows, reduce fragmented national rules, and establish interoperable standards to boost regional digital trade under initiatives such as AfCFTA and the AUDPF. At the same time, investments in affordable connectivity, local cloud capacity, public digital platforms, and datasets in African languages are essential.
The Summit discussion stressed the urgent need for research to inform policy, particularly on cross-border data flows, AI adoption, and ways for Africa to avoid new forms of dependency while getting greater value from its data and digital innovation.
Also essential is civil society engagement in monitoring the implementation of continental digital trade and data initiatives, supporting harmonisation of policies and standards, and building the capacity of policymakers, regulators, and businesses.
Source: CIPESA – Policy Considerations for Enhancing Digital Trade in East Africa
By Juliet Nanfuka |
Mainstream narratives often frame Africa’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) rollout in Africa as a technological challenge. However, four key pillars are informing the trajectory of AI in Africa, and in so doing, are laying bare a chasm that influences the broader digital ecosystem, including access, development, civic participation, and digital democracy. These pillars are a country’s democratic credentials, economic gaps, legacy governance structures and fragmented regulation, and in-built influence in the design of AI that serves to exclude more than it serves to include users, particularly in Africa.
According to the 2025 edition of the State of Internet Freedom in Africa report, political regimes and their associated democratic credentials have come to play a key role in the trajectory of AI in various African countries. Countries categorised as democratic, such as South Africa, Ghana, Namibia, and Senegal, have displayed the capacity to deploy AI aimed at improving governance, accountability, and accessibility.
For example in South Africa, the South African Revenue Service (SARS) employs the Lwazi AI-powered assistant to streamline tax assessment processes, enhancing efficiency and reducing corruption. In Kenya, the Sauti ya Bajeti (Voice of the Budget) platform uses AI to help citizens query and track public expenditure, empowering civic participation and fiscal accountability. Meanwhile, Ghana has been a standout innovator with Khaya, an open-source AI translator supporting local languages and easing communication barriers, as well as DeafCanTalk, an app enabling real-time translation between sign language and spoken word. These apps have utilised AI to meet digital inclusion needs, and have improved accessibility and communication within the country.
In contrast, in more authoritarian regimes like Cameroon, Egypt, Ethiopia, and Rwanda, AI runs the risk of becoming another tool used by the state to entrench digital authoritarianism and restrict civic freedoms. These countries also rank as weak performers on the Freedom in the World Report, such as Cameroon, which scored 15 points, followed by Egypt (18), Ethiopia (18), and Rwanda (21), which rate as Not Free. Regarding internet freedom, a similar pattern emerges with Egypt scoring 28 points out of 100, followed by Ethiopia (27) and Rwanda (36), leading to a Not Free ranking.
Examples of the problematic use of AI include the case of Rwanda, where pro-government propagandists used Large Language Models (LLMs) to mass-produce synthetic online messages that mimic grassroots support while suppressing dissent. Although Rwanda has also introduced AI in judicial and border management systems, these technologies have dual-use potential which blur the line between governance and surveillance.
A second pillar that influences the trajectory of AI in African countries is economic and infrastructural inequality. Countries with stronger infrastructure, higher Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita, higher internet penetration levels, and better Human Development Index (HDI) scores have proven more likely to shape AI development. These include countries such as South Africa, Tunisia and Egypt. Countries with weaker digital infrastructure, limited data networks and high connectivity costs, face the risk of being left behind or becoming dependent on external technologies.
Africa still has a small share of global data centres and accounts for only 1% of global compute capacity, making it hard to train, fine-tune, or evaluate models locally and cheaply.
This power imbalance has resulted in a two-tier continent which is seeing parts of the continent progressively adopt, integrate AI and also benefit from AI infrastructure investment, while parts of the continent remain lagging and reliant on adopted systems that may not be responsive to their intended uses in different contexts. Albeit, the bulk of the continent remains a consumer of AI and largely dependent on external funding to build its AI infrastructure.
Examples of private sector entities making significant investments in the African AI industry include Microsoft and G42 which in 2024, launched a USD 1 billion initiative to develop a sustainable AI data centre in Kenya. In September 2025, Airtel commenced construction of its 44 MW sustainable data centre in Kenya, which is expected to be the largest in East Africa, once completed in 2027. Earlier this year, in March, Microsoft announced a USD 297 million investment to expand its cloud and AI systems in the country. Meanwhile, Google is also funding the South African Centre for Artificial Intelligence Research (CAIR) for infrastructure and expertise to strengthen local AI capacity. In October 2025, Rwanda received a USD 17.5 million investment from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to establish the Rwanda AI Scaling Hub, an initiative designed to drive AI innovation across various sectors, including health, agriculture, and education.
A third pillar which also has direct consequences for democracy, is the fact that AI governance has an entrenched power imbalance which favours the state. In many countries, particularly those with weaker democratic credentials, civil society, media and private actors are often sidelined. The report notes that despite AI’s swift evolution, across 14 countries (Cameroon, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, Tunisia, Uganda, and Zimbabwe) studied, none have developed a comprehensive AI-specific legislation yet resulting in the reliance on existing and fragmented legal frameworks that do not adequately regulate or address complex AI concerns.
The leading countries have developed guidelines, AI policies and strategies, data protection laws, and applied sector legislation to AI governance. In contrast, the lagging countries generally lack this foundational framework, creating a vacuum which could heighten AI-driven risks in the absence of effective oversight. Rwanda was among the first countries to adopt a national AI policy in 2023. Since then, various other countries, including Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, and Tunisia, have either launched national AI strategies or have been developing foundational policy frameworks over the last two years.
However, in some instances, these policy processes, when they exist, often occur behind closed doors, without meaningful multi-stakeholder participation. In many instances, economic growth objectives dominate national AI strategies, while digital rights, transparency and accountability are sidelined.
The fourth pillar pertains to AI as an instrument of inequality and social fracturing. The spread of deepfakes, AI-generated misinformation and algorithmic exclusion have become a real threat to political participation and access. This has played out on several occasions and is present in all countries despite their democratic credentials such as in the 2024 elections and protests in Kenya. In Namibia and South Africa, AI-driven campaigns are believed to have influenced perceptions of legitimacy and outcome.
For the myriad of languages that exist on the continent. Only a handful are factored in the machinery of AI. This has seen low-resource languages get lost in the digital ecosystem, content moderation is designed for Western norms as a result of the languages used in the training of AI, and many users in the continent do not have the savvy or skills to challenge these systems. This has resulted in an algorithmic second-class citizenship which is seeing AI bypass the needs of users in Africa, including the resources required to enable adequate civic engagement, transparency and accountability.
Through these four pillars, the State of Internet Freedom in Africa 2025 highlights that AI design, deployment, and impact are ultimately reflections of the power structures that define it globally. This power imbalance plays out within the continent at the national level where decision making on AI’s trajectory remains largely confined.
The report calls for a human-centred AI governance in Africa, through deliberate and inclusive approaches. Find the full report here
Announcement |
The Collaboration on International ICT Policy for East and Southern Africa (CIPESA) is calling for proposals to support digital rights work across Africa.
This call for proposals is the 10th under the CIPESA-run Africa Digital Rights Fund (ADRF) initiative that provides rapid response and flexible grants to organisations and networks to implement activities that promote digital rights and digital democracy, including advocacy, litigation, research, policy analysis, skills development, and movement building.
The current call is particularly interested in proposals for work related to:
Grant amounts available range between USD 5,000 and USD 25,000 per applicant, depending on the need and scope of the proposed intervention. Cost-sharing is strongly encouraged, and the grant period should not exceed eight months. Applications will be accepted until November 17, 2025.
Since its launch in April 2019, the ADRF has provided initiatives across Africa with more than one million US Dollars and contributed to building capacity and traction for digital rights advocacy on the continent.
Application Guidelines
Geographical Coverage
The ADRF is open to organisations/networks based or operational in Africa and with interventions covering any country on the continent.
Size of Grants
Grant size shall range from USD 5,000 to USD 25,000. Cost sharing is strongly encouraged.
Eligible Activities
The activities that are eligible for funding are those that protect and advance digital rights and digital democracy. These may include but are not limited to research, advocacy, engagement in policy processes, litigation, digital literacy and digital security skills building.
Duration
The grant funding shall be for a period not exceeding eight months.
Eligibility Requirements
Ineligible Activities
Administration
The Fund is administered by CIPESA. An internal and external panel of experts will make decisions on beneficiaries based on the following criteria:
The deadline for submissions is Monday, November 17, 2025. The application form can be accessed here.