WHAT WE DO
The need for this work is urgent. Global peace is declining, and African conflict settings are increasingly shaped by technological change, including AI-enabled disinformation, surveillance, and weaponized systems that amplify threats to peace while outpacing governance and ethical safeguards. In this context, the organization responds to both the problem and the opportunity: to ensure that technology is used not only to manage conflict, but to advance peace, security, and justice in ways that are ethical, inclusive, and locally grounded
The organization was established to help build a new generation of peace architecture, one that is rooted in African realities, informed by local knowledge, strengthened by emerging technologies, and connected to global best practices. AI for Peace Africa believes the continent can also design, develop, govern and lead innovations that contribute to both regional and global peace.
The organization leverages AI and related peace technologies to support peace and security across Africa. It does this through research, policy contribution, capacity building, and peace-tech innovation, including offering a peacetech hub platform for innovators with practical tools for peace. Its work serves local, academic, regional, and global audiences, with a strong commitment to strengthening African-led knowledge and practice and AI for Peace Africa values
About the Organization
The institution was founded in response to a research gap in African peace technology investment, finance and war economies. By 2023, the cost of conflict in Africa was estimated at about US$18 billion annually, while the financing gap for peace operations and conflict prevention remained substantial, with some recent analyses estimating Africa’s violence-related economic losses at about US$929 billion a year. At the same time, technology has become a new actor in conflict-affected and fragile areas in Africa, where the continent has increasingly served as a testing ground for armed drones, surveillance systems, and other weaponized technologies, alongside emerging AI-enabled peace interventions.
Africa accounts for a significant share of the world’s armed conflicts, making the continent especially vulnerable to the interests of suppliers of automated weapons and not technologies designed for peace and prevention. Peace research, academia, and the NGO sector have often framed peace from non-African perspectives, and this organization was created to address that gap by advancing AI for peace in Africa with an African voice. Grounded in pluriversal principles, the organization believes that North–South and South–South partnerships can strengthen collaboration and help build sustainable, positive peace in Africa.
AI for Peace Africa was founded by Naomi Kilungu, a researcher and peace expert, founded the organization in response to a clear gap in African peacebuilding: much of the research, policy, and innovation around peace has long been shaped from outside African contexts, even as the continent continues to bear heavy conflict costs and evolving technological risks. Her work sits at the intersection of peace and security, AI governance, decolonial practice, and child protection, with a commitment to ensuring that African voices shape how peace technologies are designed and applied. The organization emerged from her conviction that peace in Africa must be built through African-led knowledge, culture, ethical technology, and partnerships that value both North–South and South–South collaboration.
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