The Global South Must Co-Author AI Governance

AI governance is often described as inclusive when developing countries are invited to a meeting, consulted on a draft or mentioned in a declaration. These steps matter, but they do not by themselves redistribute authority. A participant may be present while somebody else still chooses the problem, writes the standard, owns the infrastructure, controls the evidence and decides whether any commitment will be enforced.

For the Global South, the central question is not merely whether AI will be available. It is whether countries, institutions and communities can shape the terms on which AI enters education, employment, public administration and religious life. That requires technical competence and infrastructure, but also bargaining power: the ability to demand evidence, protect local priorities, negotiate contracts, govern data, preserve alternatives and refuse unsuitable systems.

A credible governance sequence is therefore: affected communities; locally defined purpose; agenda-setting power; contextual evidence; negotiated rules; institutional capability; accountable implementation; remedy; and the right to revise, suspend or exit. Participation becomes meaningful when it changes the decision.

Reuters reported on 29 September 2026 that leaders from Africa, Asia and Latin America used the United Nations General Assembly period to demand a greater role in shaping AI rules. The Democratic Republic of the Congo's foreign minister rejected a future in which developing countries are only users of technologies designed elsewhere or recipients of standards they did…