AI and Intellectual Security in Africa

The artificial intelligence revolution sweeping across Africa carries a paradox: while AI offers unprecedented opportunities for economic growth and development, it simultaneously exposes profound vulnerabilities in intellectual security and data sovereignty. AI and Intellectual Security in Africa: A Case Study of Ghana, West Africa by Christopher Noyuoro, Frank Kannigenye Teng-Zeng, and Joseph Kwabena Manboah-Rockson offers a critical examination of how the continent’s embrace of AI technologies is reshaping the terrain of intellectual property, knowledge production, and cultural sovereignty, with Ghana serving as a compelling case study in the broader African struggle for digital autonomy. The authors argue that African nations find themselves at a crossroads: they must harness AI’s potential while confronting the reality that data is the new oil, and Africa currently supplies the crude without controlling the refineries. The book exposes the fault lines of Ghana’s AI governance framework, which is currently under construction through the National Artificial Intelligence Strategy-a 10-year roadmap initially drafted in 2022, reviewed in early 2025, and expected for adoption by December 2025. The authors examine how Ghana’s existing legal architecture-the Data Protection Act (2012), Cybersecurity Act (2020), and Copyright Act (2005)-provides a partial foundation but leaves critical gaps. Ghana’s IP laws currently require a human author for copyright protection, meaning AI-generated works fall into legal uncertainty, with purely AI-created content potentially entering the public domain. The authors argue that this legal lacuna, compounded by the dominance of foreign AI platforms like Google, Microsoft, and Meta operating in Ghana, creates conditions for what Professor Isaac Wiafe of the University of Ghana describes as 'pure slavery'-the erasure of local knowledge and linguistic heritage as African content increasingly resides on foreign platforms. The book situates Ghana within the continental push for collaborative AI and cybersecurity governance, examining initiatives like the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre’s project.