By Ridwan Sorunke

Africa stands at the threshold of a new technological frontier. As global interest in Artificial Intelligence (AI) accelerates, a growing body of research suggests that the continent’s greatest opportunity may lie not just in building AI systems, but in applying them to improve governance, enhance public participation, and close long-standing information gaps.

A recent study by Policy Vault and Dev-Afrique Advisors explores how Generative AI (GenAI), tools like ChatGPT and Google Bard, can expand access to public policy and support smarter decision-making across sub-Saharan Africa. The message is clear: if designed and deployed thoughtfully, GenAI could become a strategic enabler for governments and a vital link between citizens and their policymakers.

Globally, AI adoption has primarily been driven by private-sector use cases, finance, logistics, customer service. But in Africa, the public sector may stand to gain just as much, if not more. The study finds that AI offers transformative potential in three critical areas: enhancing regulatory compliance, improving public service delivery, and increasing government transparency.

African civil servants, NGOs, and researchers surveyed across 12 countries pointed to one persistent issue: policy opacity. Laws and regulations are often difficult to access, harder to understand, and rarely translated into local languages or formats the public can engage with. GenAI can help decode these barriers. With the right prompts, AI-powered assistants can summarize complex policies, translate them into plain English (or Yoruba, Swahili, Zulu), and even simulate public consultations.

A core component of the study is an AI readiness assessment across sub-Saharan African countries. Rwanda emerged as a continental leader, scoring high on open governance, data protection, national AI strategy, and institutional readiness. South Africa and Mauritius follow closely, reflecting years of strategic investments in digital transformation.

Still, for most of the continent, challenges persist: inadequate regulation, low technical capacity, and ethical concerns about AI bias and data misuse. The suspension of the Worldcoin project in Kenya due to biometric privacy concerns illustrates both the promise and the peril of unregulated AI deployment.

Beyond simplifying policy, AI can help governments analyze public sentiment, prioritize resource allocation, and streamline internal operations. Ministries of finance, for example, could use GenAI to automate subsidy tracking. Ministries of education could better analyze curriculum feedback. In the judiciary, AI could be used to organize case law or detect inefficiencies in case processing.

However, caution is warranted. The dominance of non-African companies in AI development raises issues of representation and sovereignty. Most GenAI systems today are trained on datasets with little African context, making them less accurate, and sometimes outright misleading, when used for local policy questions.

To harness AI effectively, governments must address two urgent imperatives: build domestic capacity and establish ethical frameworks. The study recommends that governments enact AI-specific legislation focused on accountability, data protection, and ethical use. Investment in African datasets and research hubs, including open-source local language corpora and civic datasets, is essential. Establishing government-led AI innovation units to pilot use cases and train civil servants and policymakers in AI literacy will support better decision-making and risk management.

These investments will not only improve public sector performance but also unlock new markets for African startups and research institutions. The implications of GenAI extend well beyond government. Financial institutions, development partners, telecoms, and technology firms all have a role to play. Building a resilient and inclusive AI ecosystem will require public-private collaboration, not just to deploy the tools, but to shape them with African values and priorities.

There is also a strong economic case. The Oxford Insights Government AI Readiness Index and the World Justice Project Rule of Law Index have both noted that countries with proactive digital strategies attract more investment, strengthen public institutions, and improve national competitiveness.

Africa cannot afford to be a passive consumer in the AI economy. It must become an active contributor, setting standards, building tools, and deploying technology in ways that strengthen democracy and deliver results. GenAI presents a rare chance to do all three. Governments must act not just with urgency, but with vision. Because the future of AI in Africa is not just about machines, it’s about governance, inclusion, and the public good.

Ridwan Sorunke is Principal Advisor at Dev-Afrique Development Advisors