Excellencies
Distinguished partners and participants,
All Protocols observed
It is my honour and privilege to be here today at this Global Summit on Artificial Intelligence that comes timely to engage a conversation on how to enable our continent to efficiently harness the transformative potential of this impressive technology to advance our development agenda and build the Africa we want.
I commend ongoing efforts and initiatives on AI across the continent and I thank the World Economic Forum and my sister Hon Paula Ingabire , the Minister of ICT and Innovation of Rwanda for bringing us together to discuss different aspects of Africa AI’s future and its impact on our economies and societies.
I would like to thank the people and the government of Rwanda for the warm welcome and for the facilities that we have been assisted with since our arrival in this beautiful city of Kigali.
Excellencies
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Africa is already embracing AI as many innovative startups are at the forefront of the continent's economic and technological transformation, with an ecosystem that could reach 10 billion USD by 2056.
Between 2020 and 2023, the use of AI to improve healthcare delivery in Africa accumulated an estimated amount of $550 million investments, with nearly 350 startups across 27 African countries working in the digital health supply chain sector alone, having already helped the continent track nearly 98 million vaccines and 72 million other essential health products which is significant in reducing costs and saving lives.
Fintechs are serving the needs of over 50% of the unbanked population and contributing to financial and social inclusion of whole communities while locally-developed startups are revolutionizing the agriculture sector by helping more than 33 million small-scale farmers access essential information and improving productivity by up to 30%.
Indeed , AI presents enormous opportunities for our continent, It has the potential to accelerate the attainment of Agenda 2063, stimulate large-scale socio-economic transformation, drive innovation, create new industries, generate new business and employment opportunities, support the preservation of Africa's rich diversity of languages and cultures and help solving some of our complex and urgent challenges in healthcare, agriculture, education, energy ,climate adaptation and public service delivery and so much more.
With the adoption of the Continental AI Strategy, the African Union and its Member States are laying the foundations for Africa to become an integral participant in the AI revolution.
The Strategy reflects the common vision for AI in Africa under the theme “Harnessing AI for Africa’s Development and Prosperity”, it is guided by AU values and puts forward an Africa-centric, development-oriented and inclusive approach towards an ethical, responsible and equitable development, deployment and use of AI across the continent.
As we progress towards its implementation our focus is to Develop governance regimes for AI that respond to Africa context and help to preserve our interests ; Integrate AI in key sectors to maximize the benefits, Build individual and collective capacities of African countries in digital infrastructure, datasets and Compute ; Create , attract and retain AI talents within Africa ; Address and mitigating the risks related to malicious use of AI technologies; Foster AI related partnerships and investments; Promot research and innovation, develop and enforce legal and regulatory instruments to protect African people against biases and misuse of AI Systems and Strengthen international cooperation to ensure proactive African participation in shaping global AI landscape.
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Advancing AI and enabling African countries to take advantage of the emerging global AI market that is expected to reach USD 255.8 Billion by 2033 while protecting the public and social interests of our people requires active participation of all stakeholders.
AI systems should be able to respond to the needs of our populations, promote our identity, reflect on our diversity and help addressing existing socio-economic and gender inequalities.
in the absence of reliable domestic AI expertise and high-quality local datasets, AI technologies developed outside Africa will perpetuate and exacerbate existing biases, undermine national sovereignty of our countries, Pan-Africanism and democratic values and facilitate the spread of AI-generated misinformation, disinformation and hate speech with negative implications on the cohesion of our society and risks on Africa peace and stability.
Therefore, building our capabilities and adapting AI to local African realities is critical and addressing the multifaceted challenges and opportunities AI presents to us is a shared responsibility to ensure large and responsible AI adoption across the continent.
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AI is a dual-use technology, its biggest promise for sustainable development lies in its ability to transform industries, produce new efficiencies, enhancing human capacities and create leapfrogging opportunities.
However, current economic and social benefits of AI are geographically concentrated in developed nations and powerful tech corporations and the patchwork of international AI norms and standards are designed with the exclusion of entire regions from the discussions, raising the risk of widening the digital divide and creating disconnected and incompatible AI governance regimes.
The African Union calls for a coordinated and proactive African participation in defining the rules that will govern AI and advocates for fair distribution of AI-related resources and more balanced global AI governance that considers principles of equity and solidarity among countries and regions to enable equal access to AI based benefits.
We further call for advancing inclusive international cooperation in this strategic domain, notably on capacity building, joint research and voluntary technology and knowledge sharing in order to expand participation of all countries in harnessing Artificial Intelligence for advancing sustainable development and mitigating global crisis such as climate change and food security.
As I conclude, I would like to highlight that AU has adopted in recent years key strategic frameworks that lay the foundation to AI developments such as the Digital Transformation Strategy for Africa, the AU Data Policy Framework, the Malabo Convention on Cybersecurity and Personal Data Protection and further engaged with partners to mobilize technical and financial resources to support their implementation towards the creation of a consolidated and resilient African AI ecosystem.
Let’s build on the recomendations of the Continental AI Strategy, our tech-savvy youth and natural resources to address the evolving demands of this rapidly advancing technology and collectively respond to challenges stemming from AI-driven transformations. Together we can unlock AI vast potential to empower our citizens and transform our continent
I wish you very good deliberations
Thank you for your attention.
