AI Report on Southern Africa http://misa.org At the national level, South Africa’s 4IR Strategy is human-centred and envisions artificial intelligence, but it has yet to be implemented. A dedicated national AI plan would also give a solid foundation for adopting a consistent approach to AI and addressing the ethical and societal issues it brings. South Africa’s Data Protection Law addresses automated decisionmaking and algorithmic transparency among the rights the legislation protects. However, the South African Information Regulator has not yet addressed issues related to the usage of AI systems. Concerns abound about using AI for surveillance and its possible influence on the digital divide. There is also an urgent need to address structural prejudice caused by the lack of a digital footprint and representation for a large portion of South African society. Zimbabwe South Africa is the only country in the region on the Center for Artificial Intelligence and Digital Policy (CAIPD) Artificial Intelligence and Democratic Values 2022 report. Zimbabwe will receive a score of 3/12 using the CAIDP’s democratic, AI, and democratic values index scoring template. Zimbabwe does not have any laws, regulations, or policies that are specific to AI. However, the government has shown interest in developing AI and has established a National Competitiveness Commission to promote innovation and technological advancement in the country. Zimbabwe does not have a national AI strategy or policy to guarantee fairness, accountability, and transparency in all AI systems and commits to these principles in developing, procuring, and implementing AI. Zimbabwe’s new ICT policy for the period 2021–2025 in Section 3.9 b states that the Zimbabwe government will provide policy and legal framework for AI in e-learning, e-health, e-business, and all other e-applications across all sectors - political, social, and economic. This suggests that there are plans to establish a policy and legal framework for using artificial intelligence in the country. The government established the Zimbabwe Centre for High-Performance Computing (ZCHPC) 7 in terms of Section 6 (b) as read with Section 69 of the Manpower Planning and Development Act [Chapter 28:02]. The Statutory Instrument (SI) 168 of 2019 was gazetted, which establishes and governs the ZCHPC operations. The Zimbabwe High-Performance Computing Project was conceived in October 2011 and HPC was identified as one of the key solutions to assisting the nation, region, and beyond in solving challenges associated with climate change, food security, unclean water, poverty, diseases, energy and human capital development. Big Data and Artificial Intelligence, Geospatial, Space, And Earth Sciences are listed as some of the key domains of ZCHPC. Zimbabwe has not publicly endorsed the OECD/ G20 AI principles. AI Oversight Currently, there needs to be an independent body or a single responsible entity for AI oversight. The Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (POTRAZ) is the designated Data Protection Authority. 7 16 Zimbabwe Centre for High Performance Computing (ZCHPC) https://zchpc.ac.zw/