AI & Equality
The African AI & Equality Toolbox is a strategic initiative designed to empower African stakeholders—policymakers, technologists, civil society actors, and communities—to shape AI systems that are contextually relevant, inclusive, and grounded in human rights.
Africa’s relationship with AI must be defined not by adoption alone, but by ownership, co-creation, and leadership.
For too long, the continent’s technological future has been shaped by imported systems and external agendas—systems that often disregard context, community, and the lived realities of those they claim to serve. This Toolbox is our response.
It represents a shift from importing Global North models to developing African-led approaches, with communities at the center of innovation. By addressing both opportunities and risks across sectors, the Toolbox ensures AI development considers the full spectrum of human rights impacts.
The Toolbox serves not only as a resource but as a platform for action—aiming to build African capacity in AI governance, foster interdisciplinary collaboration, and ensure AI advances rights, dignity, and local priorities.
The result is a living, evolving platform—rooted in six stages of the AI lifecycle and powered by African case studies that span agriculture, health, climate, education, and language inclusion. These are real-world examples of what is possible when communities are invited in from the start—not just as beneficiaries of technology, but as designers, decision-makers, and experts in their own right.
Key sectors explored include:
- Agriculture: AI tools co-designed with women farmers, addressing soil health, pest management, and access to market information.
- Health: AI-powered malaria diagnostics developed for rural Uganda, focusing on ethical data collection and equitable deployment.
- Climate: Environmental sensing initiatives using AI to monitor air and noise pollution in African cities and rural areas, with community-driven deployment and interpretation.
- Education & Language Inclusion: Projects integrating NLP for underserved African languages and Kenyan Sign Language translation technologies.
- Digital Safety: Addressing Technology-Facilitated Gender-Based Violence (TFGBV) through AI systems that detect coordinated harassment, protect vulnerable users, and work to alert platforms when there is harm.
Developed in collaboration with Women at the Table and the African Centre for Technology Studies (ACTS), and adapted from the global Human Rights Toolbox Initiative in collaboration with the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, this African iteration provides practical tools and methodologies to guide equitable AI development across the continent.
