Development Gateway

Across Africa, faculty and students are already using AI in teaching, research, and everyday academic work. The question is no longer whether universities are adopting AI, but whether that use is sufficiently supported, resourced, and governed.

Insights from our recent report with IREX on university AI readiness from around the world (https://www.irex.org/universityaireadiness) and a regional webinar we hosted with IREX and the African Research Universities Alliance (ARUA) point to three areas that will shape what comes next:

🔹 AI readiness is an institutional capability. It goes beyond having an AI strategy to building the leadership, policies, skills, and structures needed to use AI responsibly and effectively.

🔹 Infrastructure and talent matter. Universities need the digital infrastructure, technical expertise, and human capacity to move from experimentation to sustained use.

🔹 Funding needs to keep pace. Institutionalizing AI requires sustained investment, not just one-off resources for pilots or
tools.

These insights point to a shift from adoption to institutionalization. The focus now is on what universities need to make AI a meaningful part of teaching, research, and institutional practice.

🔗Read the full blog: https://developmentgateway.org/blog/making-ai-work-in-african-universities-readiness-infrastructure-and-funding/
▶️Watch the webinar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jPc58B4zt0

Thanks to our speakers, Prof. Chika Yinka-Banjo, Prof. Hewan D. Degu, Dr. Brian Halubanza, Vincent Nkundimana, and Loise Ochanda, whose insights helped shape this conversation.

Making AI Work in African Universities: Readiness, Infrastructure, and Funding – Development Gateway: An IREX Venture – Data and digital solutions for international development. Universities across Africa are already using AI, but much of this adoption remains informal. This blog explores what it takes to move from experimentation to institutional practice, focusing on readiness, infrastructure, talent, and investment.

📅 ​Development Gateway is excited to host Katie Harbath for her upcoming book talk at the Open Gov Hub in Washington, DC.

On October 8 at 5:30 PM ET, Beverley Hatcher-Mbu, DG’s Director of Policy, will join Katie for a candid conversation on her forthcoming book, Disrupting Politics: A Front Row Seat to the Collision of Technology and Democracy (out October 6).

For over a decade, Katie Harbath sat at the center of the collision between Silicon Valley and global democracy — helping shape how elections play out on the platforms that now shape public opinion everywhere. Beverley and Katie will discuss what her firsthand experience means for the future of democratic institutions, disinformation, and digital governance.

Come ready for a real conversation about where technology and politics go from here in 2026 (and beyond).

​Register now to save your seat — the first 25 registrants will receive a free copy of Katie's book!
https://luma.com/uhngu7f1

The AI landscape can often feel chaotic, with every day bringing new models, techniques, approaches, and yet another way to apply Large Language Models (LLMs) to solve problems. For the international development sector, this raises many questions about how to invest our limited resources into the correct model, technique, or approach. We must know if our choices today will become obsolete, unaffordable, or unsafe tomorrow.

That’s where an AI Sandbox comes in, argues Fernando Ferreyra in our blog “Signal vs Noise: Making Smart AI Choices”. A sandbox is a controlled environment where we can test high-risk technology against real-world problems without compromising data, processes, or organizational integrity.

This approach allows us to explore what AI can do while being deliberate about where and how it is used. Development Gateway’s AI Sandbox focuses on two aspects: efficiency and trust. While others openly consider replacing humans with agents, we look for use cases where we trust an AI agent to do the heavy lifting – like retrieving and synthesizing data – while keeping the human in the loop. In our framework, the human provides verification, direction, and an ethical compass to align outputs with national values and laws.

We are building this Sandbox not just as a series of tools, but as a blueprint for the international development sector, sharing our findings as we go. To learn more, read the full blog at:

Signal vs Noise: Making Smart AI Choices – Development Gateway: An IREX Venture – Data and digital solutions for international development. As the AI landscape evolves rapidly, it’s increasingly difficult to know which investments will last. This blog shares how Development Gateway uses sandboxing to test AI in controlled environments, focusing on efficiency, trust, and practical use cases while keeping humans in the loop.

📣 DG is hiring! We are searching for a Program Lead for the Early Grade Education Activity (EGEA, also known as ‘ASAS’) program and soliciting requests for proposals for our Business Development and Proposal Development Consultant roster. Information and details about how to apply ⬇️

ASAS Program Lead, 📍Amman, Jordan:

As our full-time program lead for ASAS - a consortium that we are part of (led by IREX), you will serve in a pivotal leadership capacity, managing DG’s arm of the program, bridging relationships both within the consortium and with external partners, strategic positioning, and technical ex*****on.

DG will review applications on a rolling basis until position is filled. Interviews expected to begin in early October.

Apply here: https://developmentgateway.org/careers/?bzid=a7ad5a02d36b

Business Development and Proposal Development Consultant Roster, 📍Worldwide:

Development Gateway seeks to establish a roster of qualified individual consultants to provide business development and proposal development support across a range of technical and operational areas.

This RFP is intended to support surge and ongoing proposal needs across Development Gateway’s portfolio. Offerors may submit qualifications for one or more functional areas. Development Gateway anticipates awarding multiple contracts and establishing a pre-qualified pool of consultants.

Applications due September 30, 2026.
Apply here: https://developmentgateway.org/careers/?bzid=fb119116fbea

We are excited to join colleagues from around the world at events focused on the 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly. UNGA Week’s focus on a critical push to accelerate progress on the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through collective action aligns with our longstanding commitment to build the data systems and digital tools that drive lasting transformation, improve public services, and promote equality.

Our colleagues, Josh Powell, Beverley Hatcher-Mbu, and Sarah Orton-Vipond will be in attendance at side events throughout the week, including the UN Digital Cooperation Day, Foreign Policy’s Tech in AI Forum, and Devex’s Tech that Delivers event.

We are also pleased to be co-hosting an event on September 24 at the Institutional Intelligence Forum, Africa Edition with Athena Infonomics, focused on AI-enabled public service delivery. Additionally, DG will join our colleagues at Civic Strength Partners, Accountability Lab, and the Ban Ki Moon Foundation for the September 22 event on “Civil Society and Climate Futures in an Age of Fracture”.

If you are at UNGA Week, be sure to say hi to the team, especially if you want to discuss digital transformation, data governance, and how digital public infrastructure is vital to the SDGs.

💡 Conversations on Soil Health and Data at 🌱

On the sidelines of The Africa Food Systems Forum - AGRF in Kigali, Development Gateway hosted a strategic breakfast dialogue bringing together stakeholders from government, research, implementation, finance, the private sector, and technology for a vibrant conversation on soil health, agricultural data, and decision-making.

A few takeaways:

⭐ Good agricultural decisions start with good data, and that means investing in the foundation underneath it – ownership, quality, validation, and governance – not just the tools built on top. But that doesn’t mean waiting for perfect data. Working with what’s already available while closing those gaps gets countries further.

⭐ Real insight on soil health comes from bringing diverse data together – soil, crop, climate, and economic – across disciplines, rather than treating fertilizer data as the whole picture.

⭐ AI is proving genuinely useful, both in the analysis itself and in how people get to interact with it, and it’s showing real promise for bridging gaps between systems that aren’t yet interoperable.

⭐ Evidence works best when it’s built to move at the pace policymakers actually need it. That means designing it to arrive early and plug directly into real planning and budget cycles, not around them.

⭐ Translating continental agriculture commitments into national plans works best when priorities are grounded in each country’s own context and backed by real evidence, rather than a one-size-fits-all approach.

These conversations are closely aligned with what we’re building through the Soil Nutrient Roadmap (SNR) – a tool that brings together geospatial and agricultural data to help countries identify nutrient needs, design tailored solutions, and plan investments. We’re also building an AI layer that allows users to explore the model, ask questions, test scenarios, and generate tailored analysis and visualizations. (Launching soon – stay tuned!)

Learn more about SNR: https://youtu.be/fG6yEDOvbMk

📣 DG is hiring!

We are looking for a Program Coordinator to support a three-year, multinational program that will focus on improving AI use and effectiveness among government agencies. This full-time role is based in Washington, DC.

In this early career role, you will support the project in preparing communications materials; tracking data for monitoring and evaluation frameworks; event coordination and support; coordinating budget tracking and subcontractor budget tracking, etc.

Requirements include:

✅ Bachelor’s degree, Master’s degree preferred, or the equivalent professional related experience. Candidates from all academic majors are encouraged to apply.
✅ Experience managing budget progress, tracking expenditures, and assisting in successful project ex*****on
✅ Experience with managing event planning and logistics, including online events
✅ Familiarity with basic concepts in monitoring and evaluation and artificial intelligence
✅ Experience working with a remote/distributed team and with globally distributed stakeholders

Applications reviewed on a rolling basis starting Monday, September 14th, until the position is filled.

For more information and to apply, visit: https://developmentgateway.org/careers/?bzid=e9736def319b

📣Meet our SACOTT 2026 Speaker!

Mbaita Maka, a development finance professional and researcher with expertise spanning public health and agriculture, will join the 2nd Southern African Conference on To***co Taxation (SACOTT 2026) as a panelist.

Mbaita will bring her expertise to the important discussion on “Industry Interference and the Political Economy of To***co Taxation,” exploring the complex dynamics that influence to***co tax policies and the need to safeguard public health and domestic resource mobilization from vested interests.

Join us on 10–11 September 2026 in Windhoek, Namibia, as policymakers, researchers, civil society, and development practitioners engage in critical conversations on strengthening to***co taxation systems in Southern Africa.

📍 Mövenpick Hotel, Windhoek



Tax Justice Network Africa Campaign for To***co-Free Kids ATCA - African To***co Control Alliance Development Gateway Ministry of Health Zambia Zambia Revenue Authority To***co Control Data Initiative - TCDI Centre for the Study of the Economies of Africa ATCA - African To***co Control Alliance African Tax Administration Forum (ATAF) Namibia Development Foundation

⏰ Reminder! You don’t want to miss next week’s webinar on how to move from AI ambition to implementation in higher education in Africa.

Building on the global report From Ambition to Adoption: Insights into University AI Readiness from Around the World, this regional webinar shifts the focus from understanding readiness to accelerating real implementation. Our conversation will share experiences on practical pathways for universities to lead the continent’s digital transformation and opportunities for regional collaboration.

This interactive discussion will be co-hosted by DG, IREX, and the African Research Universities Alliance (ARUA), and feature experts from academia, research, international development, and philanthropy.

📅 Wednesday, September 9, 2026
🕒 3 PM EAT | 1 PM WAT | 8 AM ET
Register: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_Vx_AM5hLTRSqkMjA0UpKQA #/registration

In a recent blog, Digital Public’s Sean McDonald uses the current problems facing FEWS NET- a globally implemented early warning system for the 38.1m people at risk of famine- as an example of the challenges facing global data collection as a whole.

“At a global level,” writes Sean, “amidst significant public and political upheaval, there’s a critical need to reorganize and redesign public interest information systems technically, organizationally, and financially.”

Sean notes how we’ve built an extraordinary amount of infrastructure designed to collect, collate, synthesize, and share data on everything from public health to human rights evidence to weather and climate. But the cost and complexity of this has typically been funded, if not implemented, by governments, development assistance budgets, and philanthropists, whose funding is now often not available.

As a result, Sean highlights the need to design for new networks and structures that program public and expert participation into resilient, independent, high-integrity digital infrastructure and information, and shares the key learnings that have helped Digital Public and Development Gateway successfully support similar systems and institutions through these transitions. This includes:

–Assembling primary stakeholders, affirming and prioritizing points of alignment.
–Mapping the supply chains, stakeholders, and dependencies for priority use cases.
–Strategic analysis and use-case-specific viability mapping.
–Technical implementation design.
–Risk assessment and accountability design.
–Coordinating renewed alignment and formalizing agreement.

You can read more about Sean’s recommendations in the link below ⬇️

FEWS NET’s Future is a Blueprint – Development Gateway: An IREX Venture – Data and digital solutions for international development. Digital Public’s Sean McDonald uses FEWS NET as an example of the challenges facing global data collection and shares the key learnings that have helped Digital Public and Development Gateway successfully support similar systems and institutions through these transitions.