The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the GSMA are looking to connect local talent with opportunities to develop and deploy solutions that respond to Africa’s digital transformation priorities by strengthening the region’s artificial intelligence (AI) ecosystem and accelerating the deployment of local AI solutions.
This follows the signing of a partnership between the two organisations, which brings together the GSMA’s mobile industry expertise and networks with UNDP’s development programmes and innovation platforms to support African-led AI innovation.
According to a joint statement, through the UNDP timbuktoo initiative, which enables African innovators to scale development solutions, the entities will collaborate to improve access to compute infrastructure for priority AI pilots — addressing a persistent bottleneck for regional developers — and connect African talent to real-world AI applications.
This includes mobilising talent and expertise in the GSMA and UNDP networks, including the UNDP-supported University Innovation Pods network, AI labs, universities and other ecosystem partners, to accelerate the development, deployment and scaling of AI solutions across Africa.
The alliance will also support the deployment of locally developed AI solutions and identify pathways for long-term sustainability and scale.
Furthermore, it aligns with the GSMA’s wider work on African-language AI through ATLAS Umoja AI, which was launched in July 2026.
Backed by the digital ministries of Benin, Kenya, Namibia, Nigeria and Togo, alongside ecosystem partners, this initiative brings together expertise and language data from across Africa to support AI services that reflect local needs — initially focusing on language pilot models for Amharic, Malagasy, isiZulu, Pulaar and Kiswahili — helping address language and content barriers to digital inclusion.
The GSMA has spearheaded a similar initiative around African languages in AI.
ITWeb previously reported that the GSMA and Pleias introduced CommonLingua, an open-source language identification model covering 334 languages, including 61 African languages.
Released under the GSMA’s “AI Language Models in Africa, by Africa, for Africa” initiative, the tool addresses a bottleneck in the AI pipeline where global systems fail to identify African text correctly before training begins.
Aissata De, officer-in-charge and regional director for Africa at UNDP, said “Africa has the talent and creativity to shape the future of AI. Through this partnership, we will help connect innovators to the infrastructure, skills and opportunities needed to develop and scale AI solutions that address Africa’s priorities and create opportunities for young people across the continent.”
Angela Wamola, head of Africa at the GSMA, said: “Africa’s AI future must be shaped by its own talent and reflect the languages and needs of its communities. The mobile industry has an important role to play in helping locally developed solutions reach the people and businesses that can benefit from them.
“By bringing together the GSMA’s industry networks and UNDP’s innovation platforms, this partnership will help African innovators move from promising pilots towards sustainable services that support inclusive digital and economic growth.”
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