https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efaBVXhRZ0w&t=580s
AI has the potential to address global challenges like economic development, climate change, and humanitarian response. Yet an imbalance exists determining how AI’s opportunities and risks are weighed and its direction decided. While the Global North dominates AI development, and dialogue over its governance and most effective uses, Global South countries and their diverse communities are often excluded from critical conversations and decision-making processes.
Research by CARE International in collaboration with Accenture amplifies voices from the Global South to explore effective inclusion and more equitable decision-making through the AI lifecycle and across AI governance.
‘AI and the Global South: Exploring the Role of Civil Society in AI Decision-Making’ examines first-hand insights from Global South-based Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) in 12 countries across four continents, as well as perspectives from technology multinationals, international NGOs, UN agencies, and a donor government, to highlight the tensions and pathways for meaningfully Participatory AI.
Participants share the intersecting risks that communities in crisis and development contexts face, along with concerns that AI might worsen human rights violations and exacerbate inequalities. They also highlight the invaluable skills, relationships, and local knowledge that communities bring, expressing hopes that AI could offer new opportunities to address longstanding systemic challenges.
Three key tensions emerge from AI’s deployment in humanitarian and development contexts: balancing efficiency with effectiveness, ensuring AI doesn’t widen digital and data divides, and addressing the limited voice of civil society in AI.
The report identifies four pathways to strengthen CSO inclusion:
Expanding AI literacy and fostering cross-sectoral knowledge sharing.
Enhancing local decision-making and representation throughout the AI lifecycle.
Strengthening advocacy on the contextualised impacts and desired outcomes of AI.
Improving digital infrastructure and promoting equitable data governance.
To realise AI’s potential as a tool for equitable global development, the report urges greater collaboration between CSOs, technology companies, and international organizations. Recommendations underscore the need to embed civil society perspectives at every stage of AI development and governance through rights-based and meaningfully Participatory AI aimed at ensuring systems are ethical, inclusive, and effective.