Artificial intelligence is reshaping economies across the world, but in Africa, the technology’s biggest challenge isn’t innovation — it’s implementation.
A new study titled The State of AI Policy in Africa 2025 by tech researchers Mo Shehu, PhD, and Gideon Onunwa reveals that while more than half of African governments have drafted or published national AI strategies, “only a fraction have attached budgets, laws, or monitoring frameworks.”
In short, Africa’s AI ambitions are impressive — but too many remain on paper.
A Continent of Plans, Not Progress
The report examines the state of AI policy across 20 African countries using a twelve-point rubric covering institutional setup, funding, legal frameworks, ethics, and monitoring. The findings paint a picture of uneven progress and widening gaps between vision and reality.
“The findings show a clear divide between ambition and execution,” the authors write. “Many strategies remain invisible to the public, with limited consultation or published updates, reducing transparency and accountability.”
At the top of the leaderboard are Egypt and Ethiopia, which “score highest, both having strong institutional anchors and visible pilot projects.” Their governments have tied AI policy to national development goals — an approach that the authors describe as “linking technology to continuity.”
Kenya, which has set aside a $1.1 billion AI budget, follows closely, driven by major foreign investment and private-sector collaboration. Yet the report cautions that “Kenya and Senegal stand out for scale and financing, but both lack strong legal enforcement and public monitoring.”
That lack of oversight — a recurring theme across the continent — is what makes these policies vulnerable to inertia.
Innovation Without Infrastructure
Beyond the frontrunners, countries like Ghana, Mauritius, and South Africa show promising momentum, maintaining active consultation with researchers and tech entrepreneurs. Still, “they remain weak on legal codification and M&E systems,” the study notes, referring to monitoring and evaluation.
Nigeria, Africa’s largest economy, is praised for its grassroots innovation — including the development of local-language AI models — but is faulted for inadequate financing. “Nigeria demonstrates strong participation and implementation through local language models and scaling hubs but lacks dedicated funding and statutory backing,” the report says.
Zambia, despite its smaller economy, is singled out as an example of focused policymaking. “Zambia shows how smaller economies can still achieve meaningful progress through institutional focus and early rollout.”
By contrast, countries like Namibia, Botswana, and Zimbabwe remain at the conceptual stage. “Discussions remain largely fragmented across ministries,” the report observes. “These countries are conducting readiness assessments or drafting strategy outlines but have yet to publish full national frameworks.”
For roughly 34 nations — including Chad, Eswatini, Sierra Leone, and the Central African Republic — there is “little to no government-led initiative or official consultation on AI.”
Weak Links Across the Continent
Despite the flurry of AI strategy documents released across capitals in the past five years, the same structural weaknesses continue to hold back meaningful progress. “Only a few governments have dedicated, multi-year AI budgets; most depend on donor support or general ICT allocations that are easily diverted,” the report finds. That financial fragility, the authors argue, undermines the long-term sustainability of AI initiatives.
Equally concerning is the absence of clear accountability systems. “Most strategies lack indicators or reporting systems to track progress,” Shehu and Onunwa note, warning that this lack of monitoring and evaluation leaves citizens and stakeholders in the dark about whether national AI goals are being met.
While some countries — such as Egypt, Ethiopia, and Kenya — have made visible strides in developing institutional frameworks and pilot projects, others remain stuck in the drafting phase. The report highlights a worrying pattern: even where there is legal infrastructure, it rarely extends to AI. “While 35 African countries have data protection laws,” the authors write, “few have AI-specific regulations or technical regulators capable of auditing algorithms.”
Ethics, too, has become a hollow promise. Many national strategies include lofty moral principles on fairness and transparency, but few back them up with tangible enforcement mechanisms. Governments, the report observes, often include ethical language in policy documents “but rarely translate it into binding rules or institutional practice.”
The result, according to Shehu and Onunwa, is a cycle of ambition without accountability. The outcome is what they describe as “ambitious frameworks without the institutional or financial backbone to sustain them.”
The consequences of this policy gap are already visible. Without robust oversight or local regulation, African AI ecosystems risk being dominated by foreign corporations and imported technologies, which could entrench dependency rather than drive innovation. Meanwhile, citizens remain vulnerable to algorithmic bias and data misuse in the absence of clear legal protections.
Still, the report is not entirely pessimistic. It points to encouraging examples of progress: Kenya’s billion-dollar AI budget and Senegal’s costed rollout plan suggest political will is beginning to translate into fiscal commitment. Zambia’s focused institutional approach shows that even smaller economies can carve meaningful progress through early rollout and strategic partnerships.
Power, Policy, and Public Trust
AI, the report notes, is not just a technological revolution — it’s a geopolitical one. “Countries that shape the technology also shape the rules,” Shehu and Onunwa write. “Africa’s participation in this new landscape is essential to ensure its needs and perspectives are represented in emerging global norms.”
Without enforcement mechanisms, however, public trust remains low. The authors warn that opacity — not lack of talent — could stall progress. “Transparency, monitoring, and legal enforcement remain the weakest links,” they write. “Too many strategies are unpublished or inaccessible, consultations go undocumented, and updates are rare.”
The result is that citizens, investors, and even researchers are often unaware of the policies meant to shape their technological future.
A Call to Action: From Paper to Proof
Still, the authors are clear: Africa is not falling behind — it is early. The challenge, they argue, is making ambition durable. “The next phase is less about drafting new strategies and more about implementation, evaluation, and collaboration,” the report concludes.
To move forward, Shehu and Onunwa propose embedding AI strategies in law, strengthening public institutions, and making monitoring frameworks public to allow for independent verification. They also call for regional funding mechanisms to sustain national AI investments.
“The countries that treat AI as a public good — not a private experiment — will shape the continent’s technological and economic future,” the report says.
A Race for Relevance
Africa’s AI landscape reveals a paradox — a continent brimming with innovation but constrained by institutional fragility. The problem is not the absence of policy but the failure to enforce it.
Egypt and Ethiopia are proving that structured leadership and political will can move the needle. Kenya is betting on investment scale. Nigeria shows that bottom-up creativity can fill policy gaps. But without consistent monitoring, these successes remain fragile.
The risk is that Africa becomes a testing ground for foreign AI systems rather than a co-author of their regulation. The opportunity, however, is immense: to build AI governance from the ground up — informed by ethics, inclusion, and development priorities unique to the continent.
As Shehu and Onunwa write, “Africa is not behind — it is early.” The question now is whether it will stay early long enough to matter — or move fast enough to lead.
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