The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has marked the 25th anniversary of its Information for All Programme (IFAP) with a global conference examining how artificial intelligence (AI) can improve access to information while ensuring that people and communities are not left behind.
The seventh annual Artificial Intelligence for Information Accessibility (AI4IA) Conference, held on September 28, 2026, brought together participants from across the world to discuss the growing impact of artificial intelligence on information access, education, healthcare, human rights, justice, media, language, and digital inclusion. The conference was held as part of activities marking the International Day for Universal Access to Information.
The three-hour online event attracted 485 unique viewers and attendees from 105 countries and territories across six continents. More importantly, the discussions focused on a growing public concern: as artificial intelligence becomes part of everyday life, who will have access to its benefits, who will have a voice in shaping its development, and who may be excluded?
The conference was convened through the UNESCO Information for All Programme’s Working Group on Information Accessibility, chaired by Cordel Green, Executive Director of the Broadcasting Commission of Jamaica. The AI4IA conference is the flagship initiative of the Working Group and has, over the years, created a platform for discussions about how artificial intelligence is changing the way people find, use, and share information.
Opening the discussion, Eric Falt, Director of the UNESCO Cluster Office for the Caribbean, stressed that smaller countries and institutions must have a meaningful role in shaping the future of artificial intelligence.
“Small states must have a voice. Small institutions must have access, and small markets must not mean small ambitions,” Falt said.
His remarks highlighted concerns that countries with fewer financial and technological resources could become mainly consumers of AI technologies developed elsewhere, rather than having a role in deciding how those technologies are designed and used.
A similar concern was raised by Professor Martiale Zebaze Kana, Officer-in-Charge of the UNESCO Regional Office for Southern Africa. He described AI4IA as an important platform for dialogue, innovation, and knowledge exchange and stressed the importance of ensuring that African perspectives are represented in global discussions about artificial intelligence and information accessibility.
According to Kana, Africa’s engagement with artificial intelligence should go beyond adopting technologies developed in other parts of the world. African countries should also contribute to shaping technologies that are ethical, people-centred, culturally relevant, and responsive to local development priorities.
Guilherme Canela, Director of the Division for Digital Inclusion, Policies, and Digital Transformation at UNESCO and Secretary of the Information for All Programme, similarly called for a digital future in which artificial intelligence supports inclusion, accessibility, diversity, and human rights.
The issue was also central to the keynote address by Botswana’s Acting Minister of Communications and Innovation, Hon. Shawn Ntlhaile. He linked artificial intelligence to Botswana’s national development plans and the wider challenges facing countries of the Global South.
Ntlhaile said emerging technologies should not be treated as an optional addition to development but as tools that can help accelerate social and economic transformation. He said Botswana’s ambition should go beyond becoming a digitally connected country to becoming a digitally capable society where citizens have the skills to participate, entrepreneurs can innovate, and researchers can develop solutions that respond to local needs.
He also warned against a situation where countries in the Global South simply consume technologies developed elsewhere.
“For countries of the Global South, it is essential that we are not merely consumers of technologies developed elsewhere,” he said, calling for greater participation in the design of AI systems, the development of local capabilities, and the representation of African languages, cultures, knowledge systems, and lived experiences in the technologies.
Ntlhaile also emphasised the importance of young people, saying they should be equipped not only to use emerging technologies but also to create, innovate and lead with them.
“The future of AI must be shaped by humanity in all its diversity,” he said.
A major highlight of the conference was the launch of the AI4IA Intelligence Pilot: Accessible AI for Knowledge Sharing, an initiative designed to make years of AI4IA discussions easier for the public, researchers, policymakers, and other stakeholders to find and use.
The pilot brings together knowledge from six years of AI4IA conferences and discussions that would otherwise remain spread across hundreds of hours of video. Instead of having to know the name of a speaker or a particular session, users can search the archive using everyday language and find relevant parts of the discussions. The system also allows users to trace information back to its source.
The platform was developed by Mobius by Gaian, a California-based technology company. Its Chief Operating Officer, Ashwini Kotaru, said the value of artificial intelligence should not be measured only by how convincing its answers appear. People should also be able to understand where information provided by AI comes from.
That concern is increasingly important as artificial intelligence becomes a major tool for finding and interpreting information. Without reliable sources and the ability to verify information, AI could make it easier for people to access information while also making it harder to distinguish reliable information from inaccurate or misleading content.
The conference also examined the different barriers that can prevent people from benefiting from artificial intelligence. In a discussion titled “Map of Exclusion,” participants challenged the assumption that being connected to the internet automatically means being digitally included.
They pointed to barriers such as electricity, internet access, education, healthcare, language, and digital literacy. Having access to a device or an internet connection, they argued, does not necessarily give people the knowledge, skills, or opportunity to participate meaningfully in the digital world.
Another discussion, titled “Politics of the Pipeline,” looked at what happens behind AI systems. It examined questions about who provides the data used to train AI, whose languages and knowledge are represented, who makes decisions about the development and deployment of AI, and who is accountable when these systems affect people’s lives.
These questions are particularly important for African countries, Small Island Developing States, and other developing societies that did not develop many of the technologies now influencing their economies and communities.
The discussions therefore pointed to a broader understanding of information accessibility. Access to information in the age of artificial intelligence should not only mean being connected to the internet. It should also mean having the knowledge, skills, and ability to understand, question, and influence the technologies that increasingly determine how information is produced, accessed, and shared.
The conference’s focus is consistent with the wider mission of UNESCO’s Information for All Programme, which promotes equitable access to information and knowledge and identifies information accessibility, information literacy, information ethics, and multilingualism among its priority areas.
For the public, the significance of the AI4IA initiative goes beyond the development of another artificial intelligence tool. It raises fundamental questions about who benefits from the rapid growth of AI and whether communities that have historically faced barriers to information will have a meaningful role in shaping the technologies that increasingly influence their lives.
As artificial intelligence continues to develop, the conference emphasised that digital inclusion must move beyond simply getting people online. It must also give people the opportunity to understand, question, use, and help shape the technologies that are transforming access to information.
To watch the conference, visit https://youtu.be/rU0Bmz3TbAI?si=nelaOsT0aRX4XO0q.
To explore the AI4IA intelligence pilot, visit https://ai4ia.io/.
