African Communities are Leading the Responsible AI Conversation at RightsCon 

In two weeks the Partnership on AI (PAI) team will head to Lusaka, Zambia for RightsCon26. This year marks the summit’s first return to the African continent since 2019, and brings together technologists, policymakers, and advocates to tackle the most urgent challenges in human rights, internet freedom, privacy, surveillance, digital security, and online censorship. With 19+ PAI partners in attendance, we are using this opportunity to strengthen our global connections and foster an international responsible AI ecosystem.

To set the stage for RightsCon’s discussions on human rights in the digital age, we sat down with PAI Partner, Code for Africa. Code for Africa is the continent’s largest indigenous nonprofit dedicated to fostering informed societies by building ecosystems that harness open data and civic technologies. We spoke with Amanda Strydom, senior sensemaker at Code for Africa, to discuss their presence at RightsCon, shaping AI systems on the African continent, and building responsible AI.

At Code for Africa, Amanda leads the review and refinement of research reports, policy documents, and strategy outputs across the organization. She represents Code for Africa on Partnership on AI’s steering committee for AI and Human Connection. Previously, Amanda was the senior programme manager for Code for Africa’s CivicSignal programme, which uses AI/NLP to map and analyze media markets in Africa. She is a former London School of Economics’ Journalism AI programme fellow and former managing editor for the African Network of Centres for Investigative Reporting where she supported the Pulitzer Prize winning Panama Papers investigation.

Q: RightsCon is returning to Africa for the first time in seven years, with this event taking place in Lusaka, Zambia. What does it mean for Code for Africa to be at RightsCon this year? Why is it important for organizations working on responsible AI to show up at a space like this?

A: RightsCon being held in Africa, and specifically Zambia, is an opportune moment to spotlight the important work being done by human rights activists on the continent. At a time where we’re seeing diminishing open societies, the right to freedom of and access to information becomes even more important. Code for Africa attending is both an opportunity to learn from activists working on information integrity, but also to bring the organisation’s research and expertise to the conversation.

Digital technologies are directly intertwined with human rights—affecting the most vulnerable communities inordinately more. African technologists are known for adopting leapfrog technologies as part of development strategies, but an understanding of what is being bypassed is necessary for this to happen. RightsCon will provide that.

Code for Africa wants to spark continent‑wide conversations about how Africans can shape AI systems, rules, and use cases to serve public interest, rather than profit or state surveillance.

Q: Code for Africa has been doing deep work on AI ethics across the continent, from fellowships building Africa’s next generation of AI policy experts to the AI Sandbox supporting civic-tech organizations deploying AI responsibly at the community level. How is that work showing up at RightsCon this year, and what conversations are you hoping to drive?

A: Code for Africa wants to spark continent‑wide conversations about how Africans can shape AI systems, rules, and use cases to serve public interest, rather than profit or state surveillance. We are interested in debates around AI ethics and governance that are grounded in African realities: local languages, political contexts, and lived experiences of digital repression and inequality.

We are also interested in creating spaces where technologists, human rights defenders, and civil society can experiment with AI to combat disinformation, monitor digital surveillance, protect online rights and centre gender justice, while exposing and mitigating bias in the tools themselves.

The core conversation Code for Africa wants to drive is: how do journalists, activists, and policymakers “put the Africa into AI” by writing their own rules, co‑creating tools that enhance human agency and dignity, and refusing to simply import external AI models and governance frameworks that ignore African contexts.

Q: Africa is often discussed as a place where AI is being “deployed on” rather than “developed with,” and yet the continent is home to some of the most dynamic responsible AI thinking happening anywhere right now. From your vantage point, what does the global community most misunderstand about responsible AI development in Africa?

A: I don’t think the minority world is aware of how much work is going on in Africa with regard to AI governance, and how resistant we are to just importing governance models. Many African countries are engaging early on localised AI rules, with a default consideration on social impact and accountability, and on how to make AI work for communities who have learnt to mistrust big platforms imposed by the West.

Q: Partnership on AI and Code for Africa share a commitment to making AI development more inclusive, accountable, and grounded in the communities most affected by it. As we head into RightsCon together, what does meaningful collaboration between global and regional organizations actually require?

A: Collaborations would need to be grounded in local realities, not merely translated from a global strategy. They would also need to be ongoing, rather than the hit and run of one-off interventions. Local organisations would need to have the same level of input as global counterparts, and joint stewardship. The collaborations would need to be fit for purpose: in other words, designed for local realities, not wishlists.