Colonial legacies in AI: Decolonising tech requires indigenous innovation ecosystems, not Western ‘catch-up’ narratives
Original framing: “Africanising technology: Why AI must be built for the continent, not imported into it” — bing news
Women and rural communities—who make up 70% of Africa’s population but control less than 20% of tech resources—are absent from AI governance debates. For instance, the *Farmers’ Organisations* in *Ghana* and *Ethiopia* have developed low-tech solutions (e.g., *SMS-based* market data) that outperform AI in predicting crop prices, yet their knowledge is excluded from ‘smart agriculture’ pilots funded by the *World Bank*. Similarly, *LGBTQ+* tech collectives in *South Africa* and *Nigeria* face censorship when advocating for inclusive AI, showing how marginalization intersects with colonial tech hierarchies.
The ‘Africanising AI’ debate is not just about adapting technology but about reclaiming agency from centuries of colonial and neocolonial extraction.
Western narratives treat Africa as a passive consumer of AI, erasing the continent’s historical role as an innovation hub—from the *Nok* terracotta techniques to the *Swahili* maritime trade networks—and ignoring how current power structures (like IP laws and energy dependencies) perpetuate this dynamic. Solutions must center *indigenous knowledge systems* (e.g., integrating *Dogon* astronomy into AI) and *decolonized governance* (e.g., African-led AI commons), while confronting the trickster-like absurdity of framing ‘catch-up’ as progress when the real goal is sovereignty. The path forward lies in *energy-autonomous, culturally resonant* tech ecosystems that treat Africa as a co-creator, not a market—requiring legal reparations for erased traditions, educational reforms that valorize local innovation, and infrastructure that prioritizes communal needs over corporate profit.