Welcome: how this course works

Welcome. Over the next six modules you’ll build a working understanding of how artificial intelligence is governed across Africa, and the practical skills to take part in governing it.

The shape of the course

1. Foundations. What “AI governance” means and why the African context changes the questions.
2. The continental and global picture. The African Union’s strategy, the international instruments that reach Africa, and how to read a national AI strategy.
3. The law you already have. Data protection, consumer, competition and human rights law, and how they already apply to AI.
4. Governing AI inside organisations. Risk classification, procurement, assessments and audits, and writing an AI use policy.
5. Sector deep dives. Credit and fintech, health, identity and public services, and work.
6. Making governance real. Regulators and enforcement, participation, and your own governance toolkit.

A running example: the Republic of Nyota

Many examples in this course are set in the Republic of Nyota, a fictional country. Nyota has a data protection law modelled on common features of African laws, a busy mobile-money market, a national digital ID programme, and a government keen to use AI. Using a fictional country lets us explore hard cases in detail without misdescribing any real country. When we discuss real countries and laws, we say so.

A note on facts and change

AI governance is moving fast. This course describes the landscape as of mid-2026. Laws are amended, strategies are revised and courts hand down new judgments. Before you rely on any provision for real work, check the current official text, and take legal advice where the stakes are high.

Practice, quizzes and assignments

• Practice activities appear at the end of some lessons. They’re optional, never marked, and your results are private to you.
• Quizzes end each module. You need 70% to pass, and you can try again.
• Two assignments are marked by an instructor: an AI use policy (Module 4) and a policy brief (Module 6). The policy brief is needed for your certificate.

Take your time. Where a lesson asks you to pause and think, do: the thinking is where most of the learning happens.

Meet the Republic of Nyota

Nyota is a coastal country of about 30 million people. Its capital is a fast-growing city with a tech sector; most people live in towns and rural areas, and many work informally. Mobile money is the main way people save and send money. English and two national languages are official, and more than twenty other languages are widely spoken.

Nyota’s Data Protection Act was passed five years ago. It follows the common African pattern: principles for processing, a regulator (the Data Protection Commission, with about 20 staff), rights for individuals, impact assessments for high-risk processing, 72-hour breach notification and limits on decisions based solely on automated processing. Nyota has ratified the Malabo Convention. It published a national AI strategy last year, but has no dedicated AI law.

You’ll meet Nyota’s digital lenders, its hospitals, its Ministry of Social Affairs and its regulator throughout the course.

Getting the most from the course

• Keep a notebook, paper or digital. Write your answers to each “Pause and think”. Your final policy brief will draw on them.
• Relate it to your own country. Wherever the course discusses Nyota, ask what the equivalent is where you live or work.
• Try the practice activities. They take ten to fifteen minutes each and make the ideas stick.
• Learn with others if you can. The live team challenge in Module 6 and the role-play in Module 5 work well in a study group or workshop.

Key points

• Six modules, about 12 hours with the practice activities, at your own pace.
• Nyota is fictional; real laws and institutions are named as such.
• Always check the current official text before relying on a legal provision.