Dakar, Senegal – West African nations must proactively engage with Artificial Intelligence (AI) to shape their own digital future, rather than merely consuming external technologies. This was the central message at a joint committee meeting of the ECOWAS Parliament in Dakar on Monday, July 1, 2025, focused on “Prioritizing Education Technology and Innovation in the ECOWAS Region.”
The ECOWAS Digital Sector Development Strategy aims to position Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) as a driving force for economic growth and inclusion, working towards a single digital market for shared and sustainable prosperity in the region. The strategy outlines three key goals: Growth, Inclusion, and Sustainable Development.
- Growth: This involves creating dynamic environments from connectivity to services by lowering average prices and increasing access capacity. ECOWAS aims for universally accessible, cost-effective, high-quality, interoperable, and secure telecommunications/ICT infrastructure, services, and applications.
- Inclusion: The strategy commits to bridging the digital divide for all, particularly vulnerable groups such as women, youth, older persons, persons with disabilities, and indigenous communities, fostering an inclusive society and economy.
- Sustainable Development: ECOWAS will promote sustainable ICTs by rethinking infrastructure to be more resilient to climate change, advancing scientific exploration, ensuring sustainable use of Earth and space resources, and making these benefits accessible to all.
Current Landscape and Challenges
An overview of ECOWAS’s digital sector development strategy shows that while significant improvements have been made in infrastructure, “Content and capacity building need to be improved.”
The region exhibits diverse levels of digital development among its member states. Countries are grouped into two clusters based on standardised human capital and online service levels:
- Cluster A: Benin, Cabo Verde, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal, and Togo.
- Cluster B: Burkina Faso, Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Niger, and Sierra Leone.
The average Online Services Index (OSI) for ECOWAS countries has slightly increased, reaching 40 by 2022. However, only four countries – Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, and Nigeria – exceeded an OSI index of 50 with advanced digital systems in 2022. Other nations generally have more limited capacities, with lower OSI indices, except for Guinea.
There is a positive correlation between advanced digital skills and a country’s economic success. However, all ECOWAS countries have less than 0.25% of their active population employed in the ICT sector, with Côte d’Ivoire scoring the highest at 0.23% and Niger the lowest at 0.02%.
AI Policy and Opportunities for West Africa
The transformative power of AI is recognised across key sectors like healthcare, finance, public service delivery, and education. AI can offer solutions to regional challenges such as climate change, food security, and security concerns. However, proper governance is crucial to mitigate risks like job losses, privacy breaches, and biased decision-making. There is a clear need for “locally-led” AI policies that reflect regional contexts, values, and epistemologies, rather than uncritically adopting external frameworks.
At a continental level, the African Union developed and approved a Continental AI Strategy in 2024, emphasising a people-centric, development-oriented, and inclusive approach to AI. Nationally, Nigeria launched an AI strategy in 2025, Ghana is undergoing national consultations, and Benin and Senegal have also developed their own AI strategies.
Opportunities for West Africa to leverage AI include:
- Data management and governance: Enhancing fundamental standards and building a robust regional governance ecosystem.
- Collaboration: Adopting a “whole of society approach” involving various stakeholders, including the private sector and civil society, for efficient AI integration.
- Data infrastructure and protection: Improving infrastructure and providing clear guidance for data access.
- Skills development and human capital: Upskilling the AI talent base and integrating AI education into curricula to prepare a future-ready workforce.
ECOWAS plans to actively promote digital transformation by rethinking ICT infrastructures for climate resilience, advancing scientific exploration, and ensuring benefits are accessible to all. Efforts include developing a normative act on open data , establishing a regional guide for AI and IoT , creating a training courses repository in emerging technologies , and introducing basic digital training in schools.
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