Short Abstract

As AI governance challenges grow, LMICs face new digital risks linked to gaps in data, privacy and accountability regulations. This panel examines how digital transformation is reshaping African health systems, focusing on governance, digital sovereignty, accountability and equitable AI adoption.

Long Abstract

The rapid digitalisation of health systems across Africa is transforming how health services are planned, delivered, and monitored. Digital health and AI innovation offer opportunities to strengthen health service delivery and support universal health coverage, but they also raise critical questions about governance, power, equity and accountability.

This panel explores how African countries are navigating the emerging governance challenges related to AI and digital health. We invite contributions that examine the political, institutional and ethical dimensions of digital health governance, including health data privacy and protection, data sovereignty, cybersecurity, donor influence and accountability, public digital goods, data commons, participatory design and governance of digital systems.

In line with the ECAS2027 theme, African Prisms, the panel seeks to foreground diverse African experiences and perspectives rather than assuming a normative trajectory of digital transformation. We are particularly interested in contributions examining how governments, regional organisations, civil society actors, technology companies and development partners shape (and are shaped by) the governance of digital health ecosystems.

The panel welcomes empirical and conceptual papers focused on one or several African countries, as well as comparative and regional analysis. By bringing together perspectives from diverse actors, contexts and disciplines, the panel aims to advance understanding of how digitally enabled health systems can be governed in ways that are effective, equitable, accountable and responsive to African priorities.

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