In May 2022, The Future Society (TFS) co-led stakeholder consultation workshops in Tunis and Accra to support the development of Tunisia’s and Ghana’s national AI strategies. In 2020-2022, TFS is supporting the development of 3 National AI Strategies in Africa with key public sector Ministries, GIZ, and Smart Africa. Based on extensive local stakeholder consultations, outputs are tailored AI governance frameworks to build capacity for countries’ efforts to harness AI responsibly to achieve national objectives and inclusive and sustainable development goals.

The TFS project teams include Nicolas Miailhe, Yolanda Lannquist, Sacha Alanoca, Tarek Latrous, Derrydean Dadzie, Robert Okine, Nicolas Guetta Jeanrenaud and Badrul Chowdhury.

Collective intelligence workshops for Tunisia’s National AI Strategy

Since September 2021, The Future Society and GIZ Digital Transformation Center Tunisia have supported a multi-stakeholder process to develop Tunisia’s National AI Strategy with the Tunisian government*. The project’s goal is to capitalize on Tunisia’s strengths in AI in order to support economic growth, promote social inclusion, and ensure better service to citizens.

This May, TFS and project partners gathered key stakeholders from public sector ministries to co-design policy recommendations based on extensive consultations across private sector, startups, academia, and government. Consultations informed the design of policy pillars, ranging from human capital development to sectoral adoption, cloud computing strategy, and data governance. As Tunisia’s burgeoning digital ecosystem takes off, ethical guidelines and policies ensure that citizens’ safety and fundamental values are upheld.  

Next steps will involve workshops to validate recommendations with key actors and the drafting of a detailed implementation plan to turn recommendations into action.

*Ministry of Communication Technologies, the Ministry of Economy and Planning, the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research, and the Ministry of Industry, Mines, and Energy.

Public sector consultation workshop for Ghana’s National AI Strategy

Ghana’s Ministry of Communications and Digitalisation is leading the development of the government’s National AI Strategy with support from GIZ’s FAIR Forward Artificial Intelligence for All project, Smart Africa and facilitated by The Future Society. Building on existing digital policies, a national AI strategy and action plan will enable Ghana’s AI ecosystem and leadership in Africa. The project builds capacity to harness AI for cross-sectoral growth while establishing precautionary guardrails.

On May 20th, project partners gathered public sector stakeholders to identify use cases for AI adoption in key sectors, such as healthcare, transportation, and agriculture. Building on its 2021 project with the Government of Rwanda, GIZ FAIR Forward and Smart Africa to develop Rwanda’s National AI Policy, TFS also supported a virtual peer learning workshop between the countries regarding approaches for metrics and measurement and the implementation of national AI strategies. These consultations yielded progress towards governance frameworks for AI across Africa.

By August, 2022 TFS co-led the third stakeholder workshop and completed 40 local expert interviews (public sector, private sector, academia, civil society) to inform key cross-ministerial policy recommendations.

Learn more about our work in responsible AI for sustainable and inclusive development here.