Harnessing AI for Peace, Governance, and Security

Artificial intelligence in Africa presents states with both unprecedented opportunities and emerging challenges that demand strategic attention. As autonomous systems and advanced technologies become more prevalent globally, various actors both state and non-state are rapidly advancing their technological capabilities. Social media platforms now employ sophisticated algorithms that can shape collective perceptions through diverse content, including synthetic media. What populations encounter digitally can influence societal narratives at scale, affecting collective understanding and ultimately impacting social cohesion.

Examining the diverse outcomes of artificial intelligence deployment across the continent reveals the critical importance of strategic engagement. Recent experiences during electoral processes illustrate this reality clearly. Some contexts have witnessed concerning uses of AI-generated content, including targeting of public figures, with women candidates particularly affected. In contrast, Kenya’s 2022 elections demonstrated promising possibilities: AI-powered monitoring systems identified over 800 instances of potentially harmful speech, enabling collaborative prevention efforts through institutions like the National Cohesion and Integration Commission. Similarly, South Sudan’s “Alert Me” application has facilitated real-time conflict reporting since June 2021, contributing to violence prevention in communities such as Lakes State. Same region. Same technology. Notably different outcomes. The critical variable lies in governance approaches, institutional preparedness, and recognition that artificial intelligence increasingly influences whether conflicts escalate or de-escalate, whether information environments promote accuracy or distortion, and whether stability is strengthened or challenged.

AI, Governance, and Peacebuilding in Africa

Historical experiences across the continent offer important lessons about AI’s potential impact on conflict dynamics. Ethiopia’s Tigray conflict (2020-2022) provides sobering insights about algorithmic amplification at scale. During a conflict that resulted in approximately 600,000 deaths and displaced 5.1 million people in 2021 alone, social media algorithms amplified content targeting specific communities at significant scale. Documentation from major technology companies reviewed by international human rights organizations revealed that mitigation mechanisms proved insufficient despite acknowledgment of violence risks. The consequences proved severe algorithmically amplified content containing personal information and unverified accusations contributed to targeted violence, including documented killings. Algorithmic systems designed to maximize engagement, without adequate consideration of conflict contexts, can transform communication platforms into amplifiers of communal tensions. This represents an important lesson about the necessity of proactive governance mechanisms for Africa’s sustainable peace.

Recent electoral experiences across the region demonstrate how rapidly AI capabilities are evolving. During Rwanda’s 2024 elections, research identified at least 464 accounts deploying advanced language models to generate coordinated yet varied content at unprecedented scale, creating impressions of organic discourse. Unlike earlier basic campaigns, these AI-generated interventions mimicked authentic communication patterns, presenting novel detection challenges.

Since advanced AI tools became publicly available in late 2022, political processes across sub-Saharan Africa have witnessed AI-generated content designed to influence electoral outcomes, promote divisive narratives, and challenge institutional trust. Notably, Kenya ranked first globally in adoption of such AI tools according to the “Digital 2025 July Global Statshot Report” published by DataReportal and Meltwater indicating both significant opportunity and the imperative for states to understand how to harness these technologies constructively for peace and development. The technological evolution rarely spotlighted in policy discussions deserves attention.

Over the last two years, conflict zones across Africa have witnessed increasingly sophisticated AI deployment. Drones and autonomous systems are re-configuring operational capabilities in Libya, the Sahel, Sudan, Somalia, and the Great Lakes region employed for intelligence gathering, reconnaissance, and military operations. Security analysts observe that various armed groups, including designated organizations, have acquired drone capabilities. State actors have responded by establishing specialized units incorporating AI-driven technologies. Reports indicate that some networks have organized capacity-building initiatives to enhance their technological proficiency. This suggests significant opportunity space exists for states to prioritize investment and capacity building on AI for national peace and security purposes.

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The Dual Edge of Artificial Intelligence in African Conflicts

Contemporary conflicts illustrate these dynamics clearly. Sudan’s ongoing crisis, where 25 million require humanitarian assistance, significant casualties have occurred, and food insecurity affects multiple regions, demonstrates how AI-enabled systems deployed without adherence to international humanitarian law principles can produce severe outcomes. Various parties in different conflicts have utilized technological capabilities in ways that have resulted in civilian harm. This underscores how technology access without robust governance frameworks can generate humanitarian challenges. Somalia similarly navigates complexities with drone technology use and AI-generated misinformation affecting civilian populations. The technological landscape is evolving rapidly, creating both challenges and opportunities for strategic state engagement.

Yet the same technologies present extraordinary possibilities when deployed thoughtfully and ethically. Somalia’s Project Jetson, developed by UNHCR, forecasts monthly internally displaced persons’ arrivals across 18 regions by integrating conflict data, economic indicators, climate patterns, and displacement history. This transforms humanitarian response from reactive crisis management to anticipatory resource allocation. South Sudan’s “Alert Me” tool demonstrates how AI can enable decentralized early warning through real-time reporting from grassroots peace committees, contributing to violence prevention in Lakes State and conflict mitigation in Eastern and Central Equatoria. The system succeeds by empowering local agency rather than centralizing oversight.

Sudan’s AI-enabled digital dialogues, facilitated by international peace organizations in 2023 amid ongoing conflict, analyzed qualitative data from women’s groups and youth committees, amplifying traditionally underrepresented voices in peace processes. Kenya’s electoral monitoring achievements, South Africa’s acoustic violence detection systems, and Rwanda’s medical drone deliveries collectively demonstrate AI’s capacity to address diverse security challenges. The UN’s peacekeeping mission in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA) is evaluating AI-assisted recognition technology to monitor ceasefire compliance and identify emerging hotspots. The African Union’s Continental Early Warning System is integrating AI-powered predictive analytics to enhance conflict detection and response capabilities.

The imperative for strategic state engagement becomes clear when recognizing that in an era of instant information access, regulatory frameworks alone cannot ensure peace and security. What matters is political will and strategic foresight. As senior AU leadership has articulated, the continent has opportunity to shape AI development proactively, rather than becoming a testing ground for inadequately governed technologies that could introduce risks alongside their considerable advantages. Leaders are encouraged to grasp AI’s dual potential—its capacity to strengthen peace and governance, and its potential to create challenges if development proceeds without appropriate oversight.

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Africa’s Continental AI Strategy and the Governance Imperative

The African Union has demonstrated leadership in this space. On June 13, 2024, the AU Peace and Security Council’s 1214th meeting issued directives for comprehensive AI governance frameworks aligned with ethical standards and international humanitarian law. The Continental AI Strategy, endorsed in Accra, represents Africa’s commitment to an Africa-centric approach that prioritizes continental values and development objectives. The strategy’s guidance-oriented nature positions individual member states as key implementation actors with opportunity to tailor approaches to national contexts. By January 2025, when over 40 African countries convened in Addis Ababa, AI was declared a strategic continental priority with commitment to collaborative development of digital infrastructure, high-quality datasets, computational capabilities, research capacity, and ethical frameworks.

As AU leadership has noted, current concentration of AI investment with over 83% of startup funding in Q1 2025 directed to Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, and Egypt presents both opportunity and challenge, highlighting the importance of governance frameworks that promote more equitable capacity distribution. Such frameworks represent essential instruments of digital sovereignty.

The opportunity cost of delayed engagement extends beyond immediate economic considerations. AI-generated content that can affect vulnerable groups and social cohesion represents visible challenges. Yet deeper implications exist across multiple security dimensions. Information disruptions can amplify rather than mitigate instability, creating environments where misinformation becomes embedded in collective understanding, proving remarkably persistent. Perceptions shaped by those seeking to create instability may prove difficult to counter once established.

This underscores why AI for peace should be a strategic priority developing and deploying technologies that serve community well-being while reflecting African values and identities. The path forward emphasizes collaboration: no single actor possesses sufficient capacity to address AI’s security implications comprehensively. Multi-stakeholder engagement spanning private and public sectors is essential to ensure that AI development strengthens rather than challenges state capacity and social cohesion. While Africa currently has lower internet usage rates globally (37%) and electricity access remains at approximately 40% of the population, these represent not barriers but rather clear priorities for urgent investment and action.

Shaping Africa’s AI Future: Peace, Security, and Sovereignty

Intentional focus on AI must be elevated because political processes, institutional legitimacy, and civilian well-being depend increasingly on how societies engage with these technologies. States have opportunity to build and deploy AI for peace and security purposes, shaping technological development rather than responding to externally driven changes. Investment in these capabilities also represents significant opportunity for employment creation and innovation amid broader development priorities. This is appropriately viewed as urgent as any development objective the continent pursues.

Several countries including Ghana, Kenya, Rwanda, and Nigeria have initiated AI governance frameworks, with implementation approaches varying based on national contexts and priorities. The Peace and Security Council has instructed preparation of a Common African Position on International Humanitarian Law governing AI in armed conflicts, recognizing the importance of legal frameworks evolving alongside technological capabilities. With autonomous weapons systems increasingly present globally, states have clear incentive to engage proactively.

The strategic choice is evident. AI already functions across peacekeeping, humanitarian response, electoral processes, security operations, and information environments. The salient question is not whether AI will influence outcomes but whether African states will shape AI’s deployment through proactive governance and strategic investment or primarily encounter externally designed technologies governed by standards that may not fully reflect African values, contexts, or priorities.

States that develop robust governance frameworks position themselves as active participants shaping technology development. Proactive approaches yield demonstrably better outcomes. Somalia’s Project Jetson illustrates success despite challenging operational contexts. Conversely, contexts where governance development lagged have experienced greater challenges with manipulation and instability. Same continent, markedly different outcomes determined fundamentally by governance choices and strategic engagement rather than technological access alone.

Historical challenges cannot be reversed. However, future crises, conflicts, and electoral processes can be significantly influenced by strategic decisions African states make today regarding AI governance, capacity building, and values-aligned deployment. The fundamental question is whether states will harness AI toward peace, prosperity, and enhanced sovereignty or primarily experience externally driven technological change. The stakes, measured in lives, stability, and sovereignty, are substantial and merit the highest levels of strategic attention and political commitment.

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This article was written by Siyabulele Mandela, Fred Ngoga Gateretse
and Naomi Mwelu Kilungu