At the Second Africa Climate Summit (ACS2) held in Addis Ababa from September 8 to 10, 2025, senior officials from international agencies highlighted the growing role of artificial intelligence (AI) in Africa’s climate response, while warning of serious challenges around data quality, ownership, and infrastructure.
The summit, held under the theme “Accelerating Global Climate Solutions: Financing for Africa’s Resilient and Green Development,” brought together African heads of state, global institutions, and private sector leaders to discuss how to fund and build a climate-resilient, green economy.
In insights shared with Isaac Dwamena, who attended the ACS2 summit and is a contributing writer to The High Street Journal and founder of Dwara Innovation, officials from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (UNFAO), the UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), and UNICEF outlined how their agencies are experimenting with AI, and what Africa must do to avoid being left behind.
UNFAO Warns on Data Integrity Risks
A senior UNFAO official explained that while AI tools are increasingly popular among staff for basic tasks, their use in critical environmental work is tightly controlled. The official stressed that inaccurate or poorly managed data could compromise important environmental planning and risk management.
“At the individual level, a lot of colleagues are using it… but using AI for environmental work is where you see a lot of restrictions,” the official told Dwamena. “You have to make sure the information or the data is good enough to train.”
In other words, AI can be helpful for routine tasks like organizing reports or presentations, but when it comes to modeling environmental risks, mistakes can be costly. The official also likened AI to “copilot”, a helper that can support decision-making but cannot replace human oversight.
The official emphasized that organizations often need to start from the basics, ensuring that the underlying data is accurate and well-organized before AI can be reliably used for environmental modeling.
UNECA Raises Concerns Over Ownership and Local Innovation
A UNECA official shared that Africa’s challenge is not just access to AI, but control over the data and the innovations it produces. Without strong policies, African creators risk losing ownership of their own innovations.
“We are still raising questions regarding ownership of data, ownership of innovation… Can we keep the ownership in Africa?” the official said. “The data that serves to produce it — is it trackable? Is it owned by those people who have created it?”
The official explained that UNECA is conducting studies on AI readiness in countries such as Rwanda, Kenya, Morocco, and Tunisia. They noted that West African countries, including Nigeria, present unique challenges, such as innovators being based overseas, which complicates tracking and ownership.
“Most of the Nigerian innovators are based in the West, sometimes in the UK or the US, and this is not really the message we want to convey,” the official told Dwamena.
“We want to convey something that is made in Africa by Africans.”
This concern highlights a broader tension: while Africa can adopt cutting-edge technology, there is a need to ensure that benefits, intellectual property, and data remain in African hands.
UNICEF Pilots AI to Map Groundwater
A UNICEF official described how the agency is exploring AI to tackle water scarcity, a critical challenge in many parts of Africa. Using AI alongside remote sensing and other high-tech tools, UNICEF aims to map underground water sources more accurately.
“UNICEF is thinking… to even identify groundwater potential areas,” the official told Dwamena.
“In addition to other technologies like remote sensing and high-tech… to even include AI to explore these options… which is very challenging.”
By combining traditional technology with AI, UNICEF hopes to move from reactive water interventions, like emergency aid during droughts, to proactive planning that ensures communities have consistent access to water.
The official added that this approach is still emerging within the organization, with new systems and departments being created to handle AI projects. The goal is to scale these innovations across country offices while maintaining alignment with global standards set by UNICEF headquarters.
The Need for Strategic Planning and Collaboration
Across all agencies, officials agreed that AI cannot simply be adopted in isolation. It requires careful planning, investment in data infrastructure, and cross-sector collaboration. UNECA and UNFAO officials explained that building a comprehensive blueprint of Africa’s AI landscape is critical, including tracking innovations, patents, and the local creation of AI solutions.
“So, it’s like you’re going to put together like a blueprint, where we are, where we need to go, and what is the overall impact on our growth and economic development,” a UNECA official told Dwamena.
Officials highlighted the importance of connecting with private sector partners, NGOs, and local innovators to ensure that AI tools are not only technically viable but socially and economically beneficial. “Depending on what you can bring, we can have a box with your name… giving a view that is different from international organizations,” said a UNECA strategist in insights shared with Dwamena.
Africa Urged to Act Quickly
Isaac Dwamena has observed that artificial intelligence (AI) is already beginning to shape climate and environmental initiatives across Africa, though its adoption remains uneven and significant challenges persist.
In his discussions, a major institutional investor noted that “all asset allocation decisions for institutional capital will be AI-driven over the next five years, the question is how quickly it becomes fully automated.”
According to Dwamena, this shift means the allocation of funds for climate resilience projects, such as early warning systems, water ecosystem management, coastal defenses, and other critical infrastructure, will increasingly be determined by AI models, and potentially become fully automated in the near future.
He cautions that as this reality unfolds, African governments must engage proactively and continuously with institutional investors to understand the criteria, assumptions, and potential biases built into these AI-driven models. Doing so will help them prepare, possibly influence, and improve their chances of attracting a fair share of the trillions of dollars expected to be deployed globally in the coming years.
Discussions at the summit underscored that African countries must also invest in local AI expertise, strengthen regulatory frameworks, and promote collaboration between governments, international agencies, and the private sector. These steps are critical to ensuring that AI becomes a powerful tool to tackle climate change, water scarcity, and other pressing challenges facing the continent.
