African countries should not settle for being consumers of AI technology, users of solutions, or even producers of data, according to Yves Kokou, coordinator of the CERDI Alumni networks, speaking in Cotonou on 3 October.
That third category is the one that makes the argument distinctive.
“Faced with this transformation, Africa cannot be satisfied with being a consumer of technologies, a user of solutions or a producer of data,” Kokou said in an interview with Tchadinfos.
Supplying training data to systems designed and owned elsewhere is a form of participation that looks like involvement and functions as dependence. Naming it alongside consumption is a sharper framing than the usual consumer-versus-producer formulation.
Kokou coordinates the alumni networks of the Centre d’études et de recherches sur le développement international, a development economics research centre at France’s Université Clermont Auvergne.
His argument
Kokou’s position is that Africa already holds the necessary human capital. “Africa lacks neither intelligence, nor expertise, nor talent,” he said — the challenge is connecting those resources and converting them into collective capacity for action.
AI, he argued, is simultaneously reshaping value chains, jobs, public administrations, taxation, financial systems and knowledge production, which requires policymakers to clarify priorities without delay.
The specific adaptations he identifies are the weight of the informal sector, linguistic diversity, and the limited reach of infrastructure in some areas. Africa, he said, must be able to formulate its own research and policy questions, craft its own answers, and define the purposes of AI according to development priorities.
Governments making the same case
Ethiopia. At the STRIDE Ethiopia 2.0 summit in Addis Ababa from 29 September to 1 October, Innovation and Technology Minister Belete Molla set out a strategy for moving from using foreign technologies to developing, manufacturing and exporting locally designed solutions. Technological sovereignty, he said, does not mean isolation but the ability to choose, adapt and develop technology according to national needs while preserving strategic decision-making room.
Côte d’Ivoire. The government has begun drafting national AI and data governance strategies, with the stated ambition of making the country an “elephant of Africa” in AI, and has invited the private sector to take ownership of the roadmaps. Official announcements in Abidjan also position AI as a lever for digital cultural sovereignty and for showcasing local languages across the French-speaking world.
Where it is actually happening
Two Niger examples give the argument something concrete to point at.
A telecom operator has launched an AI service called Spam Alert, filtering and analysing suspicious messages to protect subscribers from digital scams — built for a risk environment specific to Sahelian markets.
Separately, UN agencies have run training for Nigerien officials on using AI to anticipate and manage security and humanitarian crises.
Neither is large. Both are AI applied to problems defined locally rather than imported with the tool.
What comes next
A national forum on AI is being prepared in Chad as part of a wider Internet governance agenda, where regulatory and investment decisions will take shape.
Compiled by Capmad from Tchadinfos, ENA, gouv.ci and ActuNiger.
