"This report examines whether and how AI might serve African monitoring, evaluation, research and learning (MERL) systems—or whether these technologies should be adopted at all. We argue that Africa's relationship with AI must be shaped through locally-defined priorities, community participation, and epistemic sovereignty rather than externally imposed technological agendas. While AI promises enhanced data analysis and real-time insights, our research reveals fundamental misalignments between current AI tools and African contexts. The systematic absence of African languages from AI training data creates erasure, rendering entire communities invisible in evidence gathering. AI tools consistently fail to surface African research, instead reproducing Western evaluation frameworks inappropriate for African contexts. These are not merely technical limitations but political choices about whose knowledge matters. Using a qualitative design, we interviewed 23 AI experts, technologists, evaluators, civil-society leaders, and policymakers from across Africa and the global MERL ecosystem, complemented by literature review and practitioner consultations with our AI in AfricaMERL Working Group.
Our findings: Technical and structural barriers: African MERL practitioners face interconnected challenges including limited digital infrastructure, fragmented data systems, and educational institutions unprepared to integrate AI with evaluation practice. Current regulatory frameworks focus on protecting against AI risks while risking failing to enable African-led innovation; Reframing capacity deficits: The fundamental gap is not African practitioners' ability to use Global North AI systems, but rather these systems' lack of indigenous data, nuance, and contextual sophistication to capture African realities. Dominant evaluation frameworks themselves require capacity development to understand African epistemologies; Made in Africa as resistance and creation: Practitioners define African AI approaches through community ownership, participatory design, African language inclusion, locally-controlled infrastructure, and Ubuntu values prioritizing collective benefit. This represents both resistance to epistemic hegemony and creation of alternative systems; Environmental and human rights concerns: AI's development material and global supply costs, from conflict mineral extraction in the DRC to massive energy consumption, reveal how African resources fuel technological development controlled by and benefiting actors outside the continent." (Executive summary, pages 4-5)