News
Supporting Rwanda’s bold steps towards responsible and ethical AI
Bringing together key national stakeholders, including line ministries, regulation authorities, academia, private sector, start-ups, CSOs and development partners, the two-day workshop was held at Lemigo Hotel in Kigali, Rwanda from 26 to 27 September 2023. It was organized by the Rwandan National Commission for UNESCO in collaboration with the UNESCO Regional Office for Eastern Africa, the Ministry of ICT & Innovation (MINICT), the German National Commission for UNESCO, Rwanda Development Board, University of Rwanda, the National Council for Science and Technology, and the Rwanda Information Society Authority (RISA).
The UNESCO Recommendation on the Ethics of AI, adopted in November 2023 by all 193 UNESCO member states, formed the basis of the national workshop, which focused on the implementation of the Recommendation in Rwanda.
Delivering a presentation on the Recommendation on the Ethics of AI, Programme Specialist for Social and Human Sciences at the UNESCO Regional Office for Eastern Africa, Mr Ngandeu Ngatta Hugue, outlined the standard-setting function of UNESCO. He reiterated UNESCO’s ethical stand in ensuring a human-centered approach on emerging trends and frontier technologies in bioethics, science, technology and innovation, which is consistent with the organization’s peacebuilding mandate. He also elaborated on the aim of the Recommendation to ensure that every society is prepared to tap into the power of AI while mitigating its associated ethical risks.
Mr. Ngandeu outlined the 11 Policy Areas of the Recommendation; such as ethical governance, data policy, gender, education & research, and environment & ecosystems. He also explained the Readiness Assessment Methodology (RAM) to the meeting, indicating that the RAM was a key operational tool that the Recommendation had tasked UNESCO to develop. This is expanded under the project on “Supporting Africa and SIDS to Benefit from AI Technologies while Addressing Ethical Risks”, funded by Japan. He provided more information about the project’s implementation process, which Rwanda has been piloting in Africa.
In the Readiness Assessment process UNESCO is leading, it is about setting a platform for co-development, peer-to-peer learning and experience-sharing, where Rwanda has a lot to offer to other African countries and beyond.
He applauded the efforts of the Government of Rwanda to build an enabling environment for AI and digital transformation. He welcomed the value addition that Rwanda will bring to the project, which aims to deliver national status reports, support institution-building, establishment/revision of regulatory frameworks and policy innovation to facilitate the development and use of AI strategies and technologies on an ethical basis, for the benefit of all.
Director General, Innovation & Emerging Technologies at the Ministry of ICT & Innovation (MINICT), Ms Esther Kunda, presented the country’s bold steps in building regulatory and coordination frameworks to support AI development and monitoring in Rwanda. She outlined the recently adopted National AI Policy (April 2023), which was developed and implemented under the lead of MINICT and RISA. As stated in the Policy’s Mission Statement, it envisions “to leverage AI to power economic growth, improve quality of life and position Rwanda as a global innovator for responsible and inclusive AI”.
Ms Kunda also reiterated the five national objectives of the Policy. She then its six Priority Areas, organized around three ‘enablers’:
- 21st Century Skills & High Al Literacy
- Reliable Infrastructure & Computer Capacity and
- Robust Data Strategy;
as well as two ‘accelerators’:
- Trustworthy Al Adoption in the Public Sector and
- Widely-beneficial Al Adoption in one Private Sector;
and finally, one key ‘safeguard’: Practical Ethical Guidelines.
She updated the audience that the Rwanda Utilities Regulatory Authority (RURA) had finalized the elaboration of a “Practical Ethical Guidelines”, enlisted under Priority Area 6 of the Policy, and announced the upcoming release of a Data Protection Policy in support of an enabling environment for responsible and inclusive AI. She ended her presentation with the implementation Plan and related key activities, with insistence made on the Priority Area 1, which is aimed at building “A highly skilled workforce with 21st Century Skills and AI literacy”. She invited UNESCO’s support to realize this priority area.
Rwanda is committed to the implementation of its National AI Policy, and we are eager to identify with organizations like UNESCO specific areas for collaboration, such as the reskilling of our workforce with 21st Century AI and data skills, which is our Key Policy Recommendation.
Interactive panel discussions during the workshop addressed ethics of AI in practice, bias and discriminations in AI algorithm development, the impact of AI in education and academia, challenges and opportunities of AI in employment and entrepreneurship, among others.
The workshop achieved its goal of awareness creation on the UNESCO Recommendation on the Ethics of AI and on the Readiness Assessment to be deployed under the lead of the National Expert for Rwanda, Mr. Claude Magisha, who also attended the workshop. The workshop also facilitated engagements with key national stakeholders, including strategic actors as GIZ and UNDP, who are actively engaged in supporting AI uptake in Rwanda.
We need to harness innovation to cope with our changing world. AI is here to stay, and we should use it to improve production, without compromise with human dignity. It is not intended to drive people out of the labour market. This is why we need to skill and reskill, especially our younger generations, to drive this technological, economic and social move, while respecting our country's socio-cultural realities.
