KEY POINTS

• Policy Innovation Centre and Africa Hub launched a 12-week Pan-African AI ethics fellowship.
• The program will train more than 50 mid- to senior-level professionals across the continent.
• Backers say Africa must shape its own AI rules instead of importing foreign frameworks.

Osasuyi Dirisu, executive director of the Policy Innovation Centre, has launched a Pan-African AI Ethics and Governance Fellowship designed to give African institutions the muscle to police artificial intelligence systems on their own terms. The program, unveiled Tuesday alongside the Africa Hub for Innovation & Development and funder Luminate, signals a deliberate continental push to set rules rather than inherit them.

Furthermore, Dirisu said the 12-week virtual fellowship will train more than 50 mid- to senior-level professionals from government agencies, regulators, academia, civil society, the media and private firms. According to the organizers, participants will move through expert-led training, mentorship and policy labs that produce governance tools tailored to African realities. Consequently, graduates are expected to shape national strategies on bias, privacy and algorithmic accountability.

Dirisu pushes African ownership

Specifically, Dirisu argued that Africa must move beyond conversations about AI and start building practical governance capacity inside its institutions. “We are raising the next generation of African leaders who will sit at the intersection of AI system development in Africa and ensure that these systems are inclusive, ethical, and serve the public good,” she said at the launch. Therefore, she added, the continent will stop merely adapting external regulatory templates.

Moreover, the fellowship lands as AI tools spread rapidly through African healthcare, agriculture, education, financial services and public administration. However, organizers warned that algorithmic bias, weak oversight, misuse of personal data and the exclusion of vulnerable communities could harden inequality if regulation lags. Additionally, several national AI strategies already exist on paper, yet implementation remains fragmented and uneven.

Industry warns of colossal damages

Subsequently, Olubunmi Ajala, national director of the National Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, framed the program as Africa’s strategic answer to one of history’s most consequential technology shifts. “If we don’t do what we need to do in terms of governance and ethics, the problems will go beyond technology failures, and some of the damages could be colossal,” Ajala said. In addition, he urged regulators to move with urgency.

Similarly, Kunle Kakanfo, chief executive of the Africa Hub for Innovation & Development, said the fellowship would knit together professionals tackling identical governance puzzles in different jurisdictions. “This fellowship would be a catalytic platform that is able to help us drive the needed change that we need within AI ethics and governance on the continent,” he said. Furthermore, Nigeria’s profile as a continental policy hub stands to rise.

Fellows target the regulation gap

Meanwhile, participants said the program offered a chance to close the widening gap between innovation and regulation across Africa’s digital economy. Ayobola Adedayo, head of product at Auto Check Africa, said she expected the fellowship to sharpen her grasp of AI governance and guide more responsible technology adoption in Nigeria. Therefore, she said, the lessons will travel back into her company’s product playbook.

Likewise, Kenyan technology journalist Carol Odero pushed back on the idea that AI is too new to govern. “I have spent a lot of time with innovators who think that AI should be left to run wild, that it is not something to govern because it is still so new. But I would like to show them that there is a different path,” she said. Ultimately, the Policy Innovation Centre, an arm of the Nigeria Economic Summit Group, said the cohort will anchor a long-term network of African AI governance practitioners.