Building Regional Capacity for AI Safety and Security in Africa
This piece was originally published by Brookings.
Introduction
The Africa AI Council was endorsed at the inaugural Global AI Summit on Africa, which was co-hosted by the Center for the Fourth Industrial Revolution (C4IR) and the Ministry of Information Communication Technology and Innovation in Kigali, Rwanda at the beginning of April 2025. The Council was initiated by Smart Africa, an alliance of 40 African countries and a wide range of partners committed to accelerating sustainable socioeconomic development on the continent. The alliance also has roots in Kigali, namely the 2013 Transform Africa Summit, which aimed to strengthen connectivity across the continent and stimulate private-public partnerships to drive African digital futures. The 2013 Summit culminated in seven African countries—Rwanda, Kenya, Uganda, South Sudan, Mali, Gabon, and Burkina Faso—adopting the Smart Africa Manifesto. Other regional actors, such as C4IR, Qhala, and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, have now partnered with Smart Africa to develop the Council’s strategy and provide its secretariat services.
So far, little has been published about the Council. Its agenda is not yet publicly defined, while artificial intelligence’s (AI) impacts on the region are increasingly tangible. Smart Africa’s Director General and Chief Executive Officer Lacina Koné said the Council’s overarching purpose would be to enable the continent to “leverage AI to transform its economies, industries and societies.” Its general focus will be on assisting African states to develop the emerging AI industry and establish Africa as an AI-driven global economy. It aims to play a unifying role in coordinating AI strategies and harnessing AI for sustainable development. With an emphasis on catalyzing innovation, the Council will likely refrain from taking regulation-heavy positions.
The beneficial potential of AI has brought significant hope to the future of sustainable development and economic growth in Africa. Koné explained the stakes of not investing in AI as “a definite economic setback and an ever-increasing technological dependence on the United States and China.” Broadly, AI is estimated to contribute $2.9 trillion to the African economy by 2030. However, investment in AI should lead not only toward advancing its adoption but also its safety—one that safeguards African peoples and borders. The downsides of AI include large-scale economic and societal impacts across the continent, which require timely understanding and mitigation.
This brief addresses the neglected yet crucial need for strengthening Africa’s AI safety capacity and outlines the potential role of the upcoming Africa AI Council in building it. The notion of capacity encompasses a variety of factors, such as skilled AI researchers, evidence on local AI impacts, evaluation platforms and methodologies or red-teaming efforts, among others. Finding the right balance between innovation and risk mitigation is a global challenge. In Africa, however, additional region-specific hurdles and policy dilemmas make this balance especially difficult for policymakers. The proposed recommendations aim to equip the Council with a regional agenda for building sovereign AI safety and security capacity and, therefore, positioning Africa in global AI governance as a contributor and collaborator.