AI, equity, and the future of trust in global development

Last week, I wrote about the need to move from more aid to more strategic systems. This week, the conversation inevitably shifts toward a new frontier reshaping every sector, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and, more importantly, the trust and equity questions sitting quietly beneath the hype.

At the recent AI for Development (AI4D) conference in Barcelona, something powerful happened. For once, the story wasn’t about shiny algorithms or billion-parameter models. It was about people and the reminder that technology, no matter how advanced, still depends on the fairness of the systems and data that shape it.

As Emmanuel Lubanzadio, OpenAI’s Africa Lead, put it, “To get AI right, it should be a right.” That statement lingers. Because in many parts of the world, including Africa, technology access, literacy, and trust still depend on who gets invited to the table.

Who gets to shape the future

When global institutions talk about AI, there’s often a quiet assumption that innovation trickles down from the top. Yet, as the World Food Programme’s AI lead noted, 95 percent of organisations have failed to scale AI effectively. Why? Because the data, design, and deployment rarely start with the end user in mind.

In health systems, this failure is especially costly. Algorithms trained on non-representative data can misdiagnose African patients or exclude critical environmental variables that drive health outcomes in our context. The result is not only inefficiency; it’s inequity coded at scale.

As someone who leads partnerships across Africa’s health ecosystem, I see this tension daily. The technology exists. The actual challenge is translation, taking innovation from lab to life in ways that reflect local realities, languages, and lived experiences.

The trust deficit

The AI4D discussions echoed a truth that development actors often overlook: trust, not technology, is the real infrastructure gap. It’s the trust between governments and innovators, between communities and the data systems that serve them, and between donors and the people implementing solutions on the ground. Without it, even the most advanced tools will fail to deliver meaningful or lasting change.

Without that trust, even the best-funded pilots remain stuck at “proof of concept”.

This is why I believe Africa’s next big advantage won’t come from importing AI models; it will come from building trust architectures, the governance frameworks, data standards, and ethical norms that let technology serve people, not replace them.

AI is only as fair as its builders

Lindsey Moore of DevelopMetrics made a sharp observation: “If male-dominated AI is giving the answers, we’re going to lose incredible diversity of perspective.” That applies far beyond gender. It’s about who gets to imagine solutions.

We often celebrate innovation hubs and hackathons, but the actual innovation happens when a rural nurse in Kano or a field officer in Garissa uses technology to solve an old problem in a new way. If AI doesn’t learn from them, it will keep missing the mark.

That’s why initiatives like Tech to the Rescue, which runs AI literacy bootcamps before NGOs adopt new tools, matter. They remind us that inclusion is not a checkbox; it’s a process.

From smart tools to smart systems

At eHealth Africa, we’ve learnt that embedding AI or digital tools into real government systems takes humility, not just funding. We’re currently exploring AI-enabled voice-to-text triage systems that work in Hausa and English, not because it sounds futuristic, but because it helps actual people access care faster.

When I sat in sessions this month on digital health architecture and primary health systems, one pattern stood out: Africa doesn’t need more pilots; it needs interoperable platforms that speak to each other. That principle applies equally to AI.

To move from promise to progress, AI in development must integrate into existing workflows, national data systems, public-private partnerships, and local capacity, not operate in silos.

Read also: Top countries leading in artificial intelligence patents

Leadership in the Age of Systems

As we progress further into the last quarter of 2025, I’m convinced that the most transformative global leaders won’t be those who merely use technology but those who can govern its purpose.

My next level of leadership, and that of many African professionals rising now, is what I call Global Systems Leadership, i.e., the ability to connect technology, trust, and transformation across sectors and borders.

Global systems leaders don’t chase trends; they build coherence. They understand that a health system is not only hospitals and data but also the politics of financing, the culture of delivery, and the power of partnerships. They recognise that digital doesn’t replace human systems; it strengthens them when designed with empathy.

Reclaiming the narrative

There’s a growing danger that Africa will again be positioned as a passive consumer of technology, a place where innovation is “tested”, not owned. But this continent has already proven it can lead, from mobile money to drone logistics. The next frontier is ethical AI and locally relevant digital governance.

Achieving this requires three critical shifts. First, Africa must move from importing tools to defining its own standards, shaping data ethics, interoperability rules, and AI governance frameworks that reflect local realities. Second, from pilots to platforms, because scale only happens when we evolve beyond donor-funded tests toward country-led systems, with partners like ours helping bridge that transition. And lastly, from excitement to evidence, every AI initiative must answer this simple question: Does it make systems stronger and people’s lives better?

A closing reflection

At its best, technology reminds us of what connects us: our shared desire for dignity, efficiency, and trust. But at its worst, it can mirror the inequities we’ve failed to fix.

If the future of global development depends on AI, then Africa’s contribution must be more than data points; it must be leadership, insight, and ownership.

The world doesn’t just need smarter systems. It needs fairer ones. And building those will take what technology alone can’t provide: human intelligence, integrity, and the courage to slow down just enough to do it right.

Ota Akhigbe is the Director of Partnerships & Programmes at eHealth Africa and a global systems leader shaping the intersection of health, technology, and partnerships across Africa. She writes weekly for BusinessDay on leadership, innovation, and systems transformation.