Ghana has been urged to increase investment in research and development and build local datasets to help reduce the country’s dependence on foreign technologies and improve the relevance of Artificial Intelligence (AI) solutions.
Emmanuel Ofori, Director of Innovation at the Ministry of Communication, Digital Technology and Innovation, said African countries needed to develop technologies that reflected their languages, cultures and socio-economic realities.
He said while AI offered significant opportunities for development, many of the datasets used to train AI systems were foreign and did not adequately represent African experiences.
Mr Ofori made the call at the inaugural Research Symposium 2026 of the Young African Research Academy (YARA) in Accra, held on the theme: “Indigenous Research Renaissance,From Inquiry to Impact.”
He cited the difficulty some AI systems had in producing natural Twi as an indication of the limitations that could arise when local languages and datasets were not adequately represented in technology development.
He said Ghana could address the challenge by investing in the development and contribution of local datasets to improve the performance and relevance of AI systems.
Mr Ofori also urged researchers to focus on turning their findings into practical solutions capable of generating economic value.
“Research must make money. Your effort does not end at the book. It ends as a solution,” he said.
He encouraged researchers to work closely with communities to identify real problems and incorporate the views of intended users into their research and product development processes.
Mr Ofori said the Ministry was willing to collaborate with researchers working in areas including AI, health and climate change to promote the application of research findings.
The Founder and Executive Director of YARA, Isaac Aboah, said the Academy was established to nurture a new generation of African researchers and promote the use of evidence in decision-making.
He said exposing young people to research and scientific methods early was important to developing the skills required to tackle challenges facing Africa.
Mr Aboah said YARA had so far trained 10 students from universities across Ghana to conduct original research under the guidance of experienced researchers.
He said some of the fellows were graduating with first-class honours, while others had secured scholarships or were being considered for PhD opportunities based on their research.
The research fellows presented findings from their studies covering areas including financial inclusion, maternal mental health and caregiving.
One of the fellows, Benjamin Ekow Attabra, presented research on the use of mobile money data and AI to help unbanked people gain access to more sophisticated financial products.
Another fellow, Linda Akosua Essilfie, examined the relationship between maternal mental health, caregiving quality and child behavioural development.
Mr Aboah called on institutions and individuals to partner with YARA to create opportunities for more young Africans to undertake research and translate their findings into policy, technology and practical solutions.
He said the Academy was also preparing to publish a dataset on the traditional Ghanaian game, “Ampe”, to support machine-learning research.
The initiative forms part of YARA’s broader objective of developing research infrastructure for emerging African researchers and generating evidence to support policymaking and development.
The symposium brought together young researchers working in areas including Artificial Intelligence, climate change and public health.
