South Africa has been excluded from the World Bank's global map that displays economies with a national artificial intelligence strategy. This is a direct consequence of the withdrawal of the national AI policy project, which occurred in April.
South Africa has been excluded from the World Bank's global map that displays economies with a national artificial intelligence strategy. This is a direct consequence of the withdrawal of the national AI policy project, which occurred in April.
This exclusion was presented in the Bank's annual flagship publication, 'World Development Report 2026: The Promise of Artificial Intelligence,' published on Tuesday. A note accompanying the map of national AI strategies states that South Africa is not included in the list of economies with a strategy due to the withdrawal of the national policy project in April 2026.
As of June 2026, the Bank has accounted for over 80 countries that have published national AI strategies. A strategy is defined as an independent, government-led framework that defines a country's vision and action plan regarding AI. The Bank's central observation is that the countries that stand to gain the most from this technology are often the least prepared for it: out of 25 low-income countries, only Rwanda published a dedicated AI strategy, while more than half of high-income economies possess such documents.
South Africa, being a upper-middle-income economy and possessing the continent's most developed technological sector, is now completely absent from this group.
Communications Minister Suli Malatsi withdrew the draft national AI policy on April 26 after internal checks revealed that the list of sources contained fabricated data. The 86-page document, officially published on April 10 with 67 references, turned out to cite articles from academic journals that did not actually exist—which was likely generated by an AI tool and published without proper verification.
Malatsi stated at the time that the failure was not only technical but also undermined the integrity and trust in the policy itself. Following this, he appointed an independent expert group chaired by Professor Benjamin Rosman, an AI researcher from the University of Witwatersrand, to revise the document.
The World Bank map reflects the situation as of June 2026, but it is unlikely that South Africa's absence will be rectified in the near future. The Department of Communications and Digital Technologies informed parliament that the consolidated report from the expert group is expected in August, and the revised draft will be presented to the cabinet in November, with public consultations scheduled for January 2027.
Thus, South Africa will not be able to publish a national AI policy until next year, which will be almost three years after the National AI Summit that initiated this process in April 2024.
The report itself contains another awkward point: the acknowledgments section of the World Development Report mentions the Department of Communications and the Department of Science, Technology and Innovation as organizations that provided information, alongside the communications regulator Icasa and the South African Revenue Service.
The report's recommendations to governments include ensuring reliable electricity supply, broadband access, and basic literacy. The argument is that these elements are complements that the private sector will not finance independently, and without them, AI tools yield little result.
In other aspects of the report, South Africa shows weak results, particularly concerning power supply issues. In the chapter on AI and the environment, the World Bank names Brazil and Malaysia as promising areas for hyperscale data center operations, citing chronic power outages in South Africa as an illustration of how grid limitations hinder large-scale AI investment.
The new edition of South Africa's national artificial intelligence policy will not establish rigid rules for industries. Instead, individual sectors will be able to develop their own AI strategies based on a set of general national recommendations.
According to Jannette Morweyn, the current Deputy Director-General of the Department of Communications and Digital Technologies, the review will be conducted with a deliberately soft approach. She explained that the policy's goal is to provide guidance so that sectors can begin creating their own AI strategies, as they better understand their industry architecture. Thus, the policy should only offer national guidelines for use.
One of the most controversial elements of the initial draft—the proposal to create seven new institutions, including the National AI Committee, the AI Ethics Council, the AI Insurance Fund, and the National AI Security Institute—is also being reviewed. When asked about the fate of this structure in the new version, Morweyn replied that they are considering the issue but cannot give a final answer yet.
Parliament has already expressed its position: members prefer a more concise design based on South Africa's existing regulators. Khusela Diko, chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Communications and Digital Technologies, stated that creating numerous new bodies is unnecessary. Instead, existing institutions should be strengthened and their mandates clearly defined.
Diko mentioned regulators such as Icasa, the Information Regulator, the Competition Commission, and the National Consumer Commission. She paid special attention to the Forum of Regulators on Information, Information Technology and Media, established in 2024, as an important coordination mechanism. She expressed hope for a simpler policy compared to the first version, especially regarding institutions. In her view, the policy should go beyond principles, as the constitutional structure already provides a foundation, and regulations need to be implemented to facilitate business innovation and economic development.
The revised policy is planned to be presented to the cabinet in November, with a backup deadline of January 2027, which was communicated to parliament in May. Morweyn clarified that due to holidays, the deadline might be pushed to January, although it is likely to happen sooner, depending on the cabinet's schedule. Broader consultations will follow the adoption of the policy.
The initial draft was withdrawn by Minister of Communications Sulli Malatsi in April after it was discovered that at least six out of 67 items in the bibliography were fictitious, likely generated by an AI tool without verification. Subsequently, an independent expert group led by AI researcher Benjamin Rosman from the University of Witwatersrand was appointed to restore the document.
Despite the withdrawal, the core ideas of the original document remain. Morweyn noted that the principle of training AI on local languages to prevent exclusion remains unchanged. The task is to create governance structures to mitigate AI risks while ensuring its optimal use to boost the economy and national productivity.
Morweyn also reported that South Africa has signed an agreement to establish a World Organization for AI Cooperation, an intergovernmental body initiated by President Xi Jinping and created in Shanghai in mid-July. This pact will focus on creating indigenous AI innovations and tools, rather than solely relying on foreign solutions.
At the event, Diko emphasized that the analysis of international AI regulation revealed a gap that South Africa's own policy must address—the space between data entering AI systems and the decisions emerging from them. She warned that AI must not be a 'black box' but a 'glass box,' open to scrutiny, so that 'discriminatory laws of our past do not appear in digital form.'
Sulli Malatsi, who was supposed to open the symposium, apologized and did not attend. Diko added that the committee has had no further contact with him regarding the review since the expert group was announced. Until the revised policy is officially published, South Africa lacks a formal national framework for AI regulation, even though this technology is increasingly integrated into hiring, lending, and public administration, and the consequences of unregulated implementation are already being felt within the government.
