African AI strategies already endorse global ethical principles, but pay much less explicit attention to the justice themes that African scholars and policy makers highlight as critical: data sovereignty, infrastructural dependency, democratic participation and colonial legacies. The themes that really matter for African contexts are only partially reflected and often thinly elaborated in current frameworks, which increases the risk that African states remain dependent on foreign technical infrastructure and maintain limited leverage over how AI systems are designed and deployed.
Amal Hussein provides a new framework for continental and national AI strategies to explicitly embed justice-focused principles and link them to regulatory, infrastructural and bargaining mechanisms that increase African control over how AI is built and governed, with clearer guidance for regulators and public institutions. African priorities still have a window to grasp in order to be highlighted in governance.
