This statement was originally published on mediarightsagenda.org on 25 May 2026.
A consortium of organizations, including Media Rights Agenda (MRA), in April 2026 launched a four-year research and advocacy project aimed at addressing a pressing challenge of how to ensure that African perspectives, priorities, and knowledge systems are meaningfully integrated into global and regional governance of Artificial Intelligence (AI).
Titled “Fostering Digital Pan-Africanism in AI Governance through Evidence and Action“, the initiative is being implemented by a consortium of four organizations led by the Centre for Media, Communication and Information Research (ZeMKI), a research unit at the University of Bremen in Germany, and will run until the end of March 2030.
In addition to MRA, other members of the consortium are the Association for Progressive Communications (APC), a membership-based worldwide network of organizations and social activists, which seeks to empower individuals, organisations and social movements to use information and communications technologies (ICTs) to build strategic communities to contribute to equitable human development, social justice, participatory political processes and environmental sustainability with its chief operating office based in Melville, South Africa; and the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA), a regional organization based in Accra, Ghana.
Funded by Volkswagen Stiftung, a private research funding organization, based in Hannover, Germany, with a 1.87 million Euro grant under its “Change! Fellowship” funding initiative, which supports researchers from all disciplines, including the social sciences, economics, law, cultural studies, and technology, who are collaborating with practitioners and partners outside academia on societal change processes with the goal of actively shaping change. It is being coordinated by Dr. Dennis Redeker, a political scientist and postdoctoral researcher at the University of Bremen.
The project conducts state-of-the-art mixed methods research and co-develops decolonial, rights-based, and Pan-African frameworks for governing artificial intelligence across the African continent, while supporting Pan-African civil society networks on AI governance.
The AI Pan-Africanism project brings together a transdisciplinary team combining academic expertise from political science, communication studies and law, as well as three leading African and transnational civil society organizations with extensive experience in digital rights advocacy, media freedom, and policy engagement.
Closely connected to the consortium is Strathmore University’s Center for Intellectual Property and Information Technology Law (CIPIT), based in Nairobi, Kenya, an institution internationally recognized for its work on technology policy and digital rights, which will serve as an associated academic partner in the project.
The project is also being supported by an advisory board of 20 well-known figures from African and global human rights and AI governance organizations, including researchers, policymakers and activists.
The methodology of the AI Pan-Africanism project combines qualitative and quantitative research approaches to capture both institutional dynamics and public attitudes toward AI governance, while the research includes interviews and participatory workshops with civil society representatives across Africa, enabling the co-production of knowledge and policy-relevant insights.
The project will analyse fundamental rights charters, conduct surveys in several countries, and engage in discussions with civil society organisations across the continent, among other activities.
The project team will conduct and regularly publish systematic analyses of African AI policy documents at national, regional, and international levels.
However, the project also plan to translate research findings into actionable outcomes. Through stakeholder engagement, policy dialogues and other digital policy forums, as well as knowledge-sharing activities, the project seeks to support policymakers, civil society actors, and regional institutions in shaping AI governance that reflects African priorities and values, thereby ensuring that AI systems and governance models consider African values and needs rather than simply adopting Western or Chinese standards and models.
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