The University of Bremen in Germany will collaborate with Media Rights Agenda (MRA) and two other non-governmental organisations based in Africa over the next four years to implement a 1.9 million Euros project to generate evidence on Artificial Intelligence (AI) governance models across the continent and support civil society actors advocating pan-African models of AI governance that balance human rights and digital sovereignty.
Titled “Fostering Digital Pan-Africanism in AI Governance through Evidence and Action” (AI PAN-AFRICANISM), the project will be led by Dr Dennis Redeker, a political scientist and postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for Media, Communication and Information Research (ZeMKI) at the University of Bremen.
It is being implemented in partnership with MRA, the Association for Progressive Communications (APC), headquartered in Johannesburg, South Africa, and the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA), based in Accra, Ghana, and will be supported by a diverse and global advisory board.
The project will be funded by the Volkswagen Foundation with a grant of 1,873,314 Euros under its “Change! Fellowships” funding initiative, which supports researchers from all disciplines, including the social sciences, economics, law, cultural studies, and technology, who are collaborating with practitioners and partners outside academia on societal change processes with the goal of actively shaping change.
In this round of funding for the “Change! Fellowships” initiative, the Volkswagen Foundation is providing a total of 14.4 million Euros for eight different inter-disciplinary projects.The Digital Pan-Africanism in AI Governance project is aimed at strengthening African perspectives in AI governance is based on the premise that powerful actors such as the United States, the European Union (EU), and China dominate the development of artificial intelligence, while African voices often have little influence on global AI regulations despite the fact that the continent is becoming increasingly digitally active.
The project seeks to bring together a team of collaborators, including political scientists, media experts, and NGOs, in an effort to change this reality by investigating how African countries and institutions can gain a greater say in AI governance.
The project will analyse fundamental rights charters, conduct surveys in several countries, and engage in discussions with civil society organisations across the continent, among other activities.
It will create digital policy forums and ensure that AI systems and governance models consider African values and needs rather than simply adopting Western or Chinese standards and models.
