IGF 2025 Lightning Talk #78 Human Rights Challenges in Rolling Out AI in Africa

Our session is on the human rights challenges that urgently need to be addressed by stakeholders and policymakers in the design, development, and deployment of big data, and especially AI, in the context of Africa as a means of building trust and resilience as well as harnessing innovation and balancing risks in the digital age. The main focus of our session is to assess and ensure that policymakers address the critical issue of inculcating the human rights-based approach into the development of AI technologies in the domains of the right to AI and education, the right to work, health, refugee, migrant workers, IDPs and especially, law enforcement. With weak or almost non-existent oversight bodies in Africa, it's critical policymakers and stakeholders consider this while designing and deploying such technologies. If a Human rights-based approach to the development and deployment of AI is not seriously addressed in the African context, the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association and the right to partake in public affairs would be hampered. Finally, our session will lay emphasis on the fact that before AI is deployed in the African context, a full human rights impact assessment (HRIA) should be carried out. Evidently, the session would be intentional in deploring the fact that Africa may miss out on this 4th industrial revolution because of the lack of unbiased African data and the need to train it. For this to happen, various African governments must join the AI train by coming up with AI Strategies, as currently, less than 5 percent of them have an AI strategy.

1-We shall have three onsite speakers and one online moderator. To ensure smooth interaction between onsite and online participants, and address any technical issues that may arise, video conferencing will be used to connect onsite and online participants. 2-Our emphasis shall be on the effective use of live chat and Q&A tools to make sure online attendees engage with onsite speakers and participants by asking questions. 3-Although we plan to conduct technical rehearsals before the session to ensure that all equipment and tools are working well, we plan to use additional equipment and tools like Skype and/Google Meet.