Chad Moves National AI Strategy Towards Adoption

Chad has moved its proposed national artificial intelligence strategy into a more consequential phase, bringing public institutions, researchers, civil society and private-sector representatives together in N'Djamena to examine the draft before it is submitted for government adoption.

The pre-validation workshop was convened by Chad's Ministry of Telecommunications, Digital Economy and Digitalisation with support from the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa. According to UNECA's account of the process, the draft sets out a policy horizon running from 2027 to 2035 and places responsible, inclusive and locally relevant AI at the centre of the country's digital ambitions.

The strategy is expected to cover the institutional foundations that determine whether AI can be used safely and effectively: data governance, infrastructure, research, skills, public-sector capacity and rules for responsible deployment. It also identifies practical sectors such as health, agriculture, education and public services, where better use of data and automation could improve access or administrative efficiency.

That breadth is important, but it also creates a delivery challenge. A national strategy can establish priorities without resolving the cost of connectivity, computing infrastructure, reliable electricity or specialist talent. Chad will therefore need to translate a long policy document into a smaller number of funded programmes with named institutions, measurable milestones and public reporting.

The latest workshop builds on institutional steps already covered by Africa AI Ledger. Chad has created a Directorate General for Artificial Intelligence and has also worked with UNECA on a national data-governance strategy. The new AI strategy can give those efforts a common direction, but it should also make their responsibilities clear enough to avoid overlapping mandates.

Language and local knowledge will be another test. Systems intended for public services must work in the linguistic and administrative conditions people actually encounter. A model that performs well in French but poorly in Chadian Arabic or widely used local languages could reproduce exclusion even when the service around it is described as digital inclusion.

The government must also distinguish between attracting technology partners and retaining the ability to govern the resulting systems. Procurement rules, local skills transfer, data residency and independent evaluation should form part of implementation, particularly when AI is used in sensitive public functions.

Financing should be tied to those delivery choices. Instead of spreading limited resources across many pilots, Chad could identify a few services where reliable data already exists and where an improvement can be measured. Publishing baseline conditions, budgets and evaluation results would make it easier for citizens and development partners to distinguish lasting capacity from a short demonstration.

That discipline would also give smaller local firms and research teams a clearer route into implementation rather than leaving national delivery dependent on large foreign suppliers.

Pre-validation does not mean the strategy has already been adopted. The immediate next steps are to incorporate stakeholder feedback, submit the document through the government's approval process and establish a credible financing and implementation plan. Those stages will show whether Chad is creating an operating framework or another statement of ambition.

Source: United Nations Economic Commission for Africa.