Event: Turning principles into actions – Made in Africa AI in MERL 

On February 24, 10am ET/4pm CET/ 5pm CAT/6pm EAT  the AI in Africa Working Group at the Natural Language Processing Community of Practice (NLP-CoP) is hosting a session on the Made in Africa AI Approaches in MERL Landscape Study. RSVP here.

Last year, The MERL Tech Initiative launched our Made in Africa Approaches in MERL landscape study. This qualitative research study explored how AI intersects with data and evaluation work across the African continent. A key finding was that while MERL practitioners Africa face multi-layered barriers to AI adoption, from infrastructure gaps and lagging digitalization to misaligned frameworks that don’t reflect African realities, there is growing consensus that Made in Africa AI for MERL must be rooted in locally defined principles, participatory community design, and African language representation. 

We would love to dive deeper into some of those issues with members of the working group. In our next event, we’ll be focusing on:

• How do we refine a “Made in Africa AI in MERL” framework to reflect diverse realities across the continent, and translate these principles into concrete steps practitioners can take in their MERL work?
• How do we address the real barriers practitioners face, and what specific actions can move us from aspiration to implementation as individuals and as a sector?

During the event, we will get practical insights from fellow working group members, Mario Marais and Rebecca Mbaya, who will lead an interactive discussion with the working group. Drawing from their experiences, we’ll collectively identify 3-4 concrete strategies for critical approaches to AI in MERL that working group members can take in their organizations, and also how this working group can support responsible, appropriate, effective uptake of AI in MERL in Africa. 

Get to know the Speakers

Dr. Mario Marais: Mario is a researcher and evaluation consultant specializing in systems thinking, behavioral dynamics, and AI applications for analyzing development initiatives. His work examines innovation ecosystems, organizational networks, and behavioral transformation through rigorous monitoring and evaluation frameworks. With a PhD in Informatics from the University of Pretoria, his research explored social capital’s role in sustainable entrepreneurship. His two decades of ICT for Development work focused on how technology enhances livelihoods and business growth in underserved communities.

Rebecca Mbaya: Rebecca Mbaya is an Applied AI Researcher with a background in MERL focused on real-world AI systems in African and social impact contexts. Her work uses storytelling as an entry point for research, capturing lived experiences of African innovators and translating them into structured insights about how AI and data systems are actually designed, adapted, and used on the ground. She is the founder of TAIS (The African Innovators Series), a storytelling-led research platform documenting real-world innovation across Africa.