By 
Dr Jannie Zaaiman – Secretary General of Technology Information Confederation Africa (TICON Africa)
The global conversation on AI regulation is moving quickly, but not along a single track and not under the control of any one bloc. What is emerging is a polycentric governance landscape in which different regions are experimenting with different combinations of law, policy, standards, institutional design and sectoral oversight.
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The European Union has moved furthest with a comprehensive cross-sector legal instrument in the AI Act. The United Kingdom has taken a strategy-led route through its AI Opportunities Action Plan.
The United States has advanced through a national action plan as well, but within a more fragmented federal-and-state environment that includes state-level measures such as Colorado’s 2024 AI law.
The Council of Europe has also opened the first legally binding international treaty on AI for signature. Taken together, these developments show movement, but not closure. More importantly, these approaches are becoming reference points that other regions will either align with or respond to.
They indicate that AI governance is being built in real time, across multiple centres of influence, rather than dictated by any single region. (European Commission, 2024; UK Government, 2025; The White House, 2025; Colorado General Assembly, 2024; Council of Europe, 2024).
AI governance is no longer a future discussion
AI governance is not a future discussion as it is now being shaped across multiple centres of power. The question is not whether Africa will participate, but whether it will shape the rules or adapt to them after they are set.
Asia and the Indo-Pacific reinforce that point. Singapore launched its Model AI Governance Framework for Agentic AI in January 2026, extending its long-running practical approach to trusted deployment. Japan adopted its Artificial Intelligence Basic Plan, linked to its 2025 AI Act and centred on “trustworthy AI”.
South Korea passed its AI Basic Act, which took effect in January 2026. China has followed a more targeted regulatory path, including measures for generative AI services and deep-synthesis content. Australia has issued a National AI Plan, while India has expanded the IndiaAI Mission through governance guidelines and the establishment of an IndiaAI Safety Institute.
These are not identical models, but they show that important regulatory and strategic ideas are also coming from Asia, not only from Europe and North America. (IMDA, 2026; Cabinet Office, Japan, 2026; MSIT, Republic of Korea, 2024; Library of Congress, 2023a; Library of Congress, 2023b; Australian Government, 2025; IndiaAI, 2026a; IndiaAI, 2026b). This signals that governance can evolve alongside innovation, not only after it, offering important lessons for developing economies.
Same wider pattern visible in Latin America, the Caribbean and the Middle East
The same wider pattern is visible in Latin America, the Caribbean and the Middle East. Brazil’s Plano Brasileiro de Inteligência Artificial sets out a four-year programme with planned investment of R$23 billion through 2028.
Chile reports that, by April 2025, 78% of initiatives in its AI Action Plan were already under implementation or completed. In the Caribbean, CARICOM and UNDP have been building institutional AI capacity, while Trinidad and Tobago has advanced its AI policy development and UNESCO readiness work.
In the Gulf, the UAE continues to anchor its long-term approach in the UAE National Strategy for Artificial Intelligence 2031, and Saudi Arabia’s National Strategy for Data and AI, aligned with Vision 2030, positions AI as part of economic transformation.
This broadens the picture considerably: AI governance is not a Western monologue, but a globally distributed and still-evolving policy field. (Government of Brazil, 2024; Government of Chile, 2025; CARICOM, 2025; Government of Trinidad and Tobago, 2026; UNESCO, 2026; UAE Artificial Intelligence Office, n.d.; Saudi Data and AI Authority, n.d.).
The key distinction across these regions is not policy intent, but execution and how quickly strategy translates into capability, infrastructure and institutional strength.
Is Africa is organising itself to shape AI governance architecture?
Seen in that wider context, the question for Africa is whether the continent is organising itself strongly enough to shape a governance architecture that remains open, contested and unfinished. Africa is participating in the conversation.
The African Union endorsed the Continental Artificial Intelligence Strategy in July 2024, explicitly setting out an Africa-centric, development-focused and inclusive approach to AI governance. Nationally, Kenya has launched its AI Strategy 2025–2030; South Africa has published a National AI Policy Framework and convened a National AI Stakeholder Forum; Rwanda has developed a National AI Policy; Egypt has released the Second Edition of its National AI Strategy (2025–2030); and Nigeria has advanced a National AI Strategy and strengthened NITDA’s coordinating role in national AI development.
These are meaningful signs of engagement and institution-building. (African Union, 2024; Government of Kenya, 2025; Department of Communications and Digital Technologies, South Africa, 2024; Government of South Africa, 2025; Ministry of ICT and Innovation, Rwanda, n.d.; Government of Egypt, 2025; NITDA, 2025a; NITDA, 2025b). Africa is therefore not absent from AI governance. The deeper constraint is fragmentation with multiple national efforts without sufficient coordination to shape a unified continental position.
Africa faces real readiness constraints
The challenge, then, should be described with care. Africa does face real readiness constraints, but so does much of the world outside the most advanced economies. The IMF’s AI Preparedness Index places advanced economies at 0.68, emerging market economies at 0.46, low-income countries at 0.32, and Sub-Saharan Africa at 0.34.
That suggests Africa is not uniquely outside the picture; rather, many countries remain in early or intermediate stages of preparedness. UNCTAD makes a similar point in its 2025 report, warning that AI is advancing faster than governance capacity in many parts of the world and that infrastructure, skills and institutional investment will determine who can translate policy ambition into meaningful capability.
The implication is clear: announcing policy is no longer enough Influence will come from those who can operationalise governance through talent, systems and implementation capacity (IMF, 2026; UNCTAD, 2025a; UNCTAD, 2025b).
Africa can look for lessons from Asia
That wider lens also expands where Africa might look for lessons. India is relevant because it is trying to combine inclusion, compute access, governance guidelines and an AI Safety Institute within a development context. Japan offers a model of trustworthy and adaptive governance.
China shows how a state can regulate particular AI applications while also building domestic capability. Singapore demonstrates iterative, practice-oriented governance. Australia illustrates how capability, infrastructure and public benefit can be woven into a national plan.
Brazil and Chile show the value of moving from principle to execution, while Caribbean efforts underline that readiness-building, institutional learning and regional cooperation are themselves important parts of governance. Gulf strategies, particularly in the UAE and Saudi Arabia, show how AI can be tied explicitly to economic transformation.
What emerges is not a single model, but a set of strategic choices available to Africa. These examples do not provide a single blueprint, but they do suggest that Africa can learn from a broad set of peers rather than only from Europe or the United States. (IMDA, 2026; Cabinet Office, Japan, 2026; IndiaAI, 2026a; IndiaAI, 2026b; Australian Government, 2025; Government of Brazil, 2024; Government of Chile, 2025; CARICOM, 2025; UAE Artificial Intelligence Office, n.d.; Saudi Data and AI Authority, n.d.).
AI: Where is Africa’s collective voice?
This is where the question in the title becomes useful. Where is Africa’s collective voice? A collective voice should not be understood as consensus, but as coordinated influence and the ability to shape agendas, contribute standards and engage global processes from a position of alignment rather than fragmentation.
It should also not be framed as an appeal to join a debate that some others might feel they have already settled. It should be framed as a call to organise influence more strategically within a governance system that is still taking shape. Africa’s collective voice can be strengthened across three levels:
- Continental (African Union): Align strategy, standards and global representation;
- Regional (e.g. SADC, ECOWAS): Enable regulatory learning, shared sandboxes and cross-border coordination; and
- National: Focus on execution, skills, infrastructure, institutions and implementation
Contributing African priorities to global AI discussions
That means using AU processes more deliberately, deepening regional regulatory learning, strengthening institutional capacity, and participating more assertively in multilateral digital forums, including processes linked to the Global Digital Compact.
It also means contributing African priorities, such as equity, language diversity, developmental inclusion, public-interest deployment and institutional realism, to global AI discussions, not only reacting to external norms after the fact.
The issue is therefore less about belated entry than about stronger coordination, clearer agenda-setting and more sustained participation. (African Union, 2024; United Nations, 2024; UNCTAD, 2025a).
Africa’s opportunity is to shape what comes next through coordinated action
If Africa does not organise its voice, the likely outcome is not exclusion, but passive alignment. Standards will be adopted rather than shaped and local priorities may be constrained by frameworks developed elsewhere. This would limit both policy autonomy and innovation potential. For TICON Africa, this creates a more balanced and credible policy position.
The point is not to argue that Africa is standing outside AI governance while others decide everything. It is to recognise that AI governance is being shaped across multiple regions and institutional traditions, and that Africa’s opportunity lies in engaging this polycentric landscape with greater confidence, stronger coordination and broader learning. AI governance is still being written.
Africa’s opportunity is not to catch up, but to shape what comes next through coordinated action, stronger institutions and a clear articulation of its own priorities.
