EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The impacts of AI on democracy and stability in West Africa are palpable in the political landscape, especially in information integrity, electoral administration, and participation, thereby exacerbating the fragility of the region. This situation persists despite some efforts put in place by some West African countries on AI governance, through nationalAI policies, data protection, privacy, and cybersecurity legislations.

While ECOWAS and these countries may not in the short term prioritize the enactment of overly restrictive AIspecific legislation, they need to concentrate on enhancing the respect for fundamental standards governing data management, but with specific attention to building a robust regional AI governance system that emphasizes the intersection of AI and democracy and human rights, enhances citizen’s digital literacy awareness, mobilizes resources to procure shared AI infrastructure, regional governance structures and computing capabilities to build a robust regional AI ecosystem. Given the prevailing intensified geopolitics and global AI race, West African governments and their counterparts across Africa need to maintain their non-alignment stances, which open up frontiers of divergent partnerships at both vertical and horizontal levels to accelerate technology diffusion, safeguarding external manipulation in the democratic process and eventually boosting economic growth, while protecting locally adapted AI-enabled electoral tools and national interests.