As world leaders gather in New York, African voices are being lost amid the AI storm

Next week, the hectic UN general assembly will be in full swing in New York, where the cost of a cup of coffee – and hotel rooms – are marvelled at by attenders as much as the great problems of the world.

The sustainable development goals were once held as a collective blueprint for progress here. But those 17 targets set 11 years ago now seem like a vintage poster from the olden times when aid flowed and dignity, if not always integrity, was generally agreed to be a requirement in a world leader.

The goals are not only woefully off-track – thanks mostly to geopolitical conflicts and no one taking the climate emergency seriously – but even their ambition is overshadowed at this year’s UN general assembly, as the voices of the poorest nations are again lost in New York, this time in the great wind of the AI crisis.

Even the grandaddy of the software giants, Bill Gates, a man happy discussing HIV drug availability and maternal mortality, is using the general assembly stage to signal great alarm over the direction of the runaway tech.

African nations are left out, yet again, without a meaningful seat at the table. Despite 600 million people on the continent still not having access to electricity, rich and unrestrained tycoons are knowingly playing games with world destruction in their voracious drive to be AI supremos in China, the EU and the US.

In four years’ time, 40% of all young people in the world will be African. This fabulously ambitious new generation face being thwarted in their potential to build a better future by a handful of middle-aged gamblers who care about nothing but power and the value of their shares.

As the UN secretary general, António Guterres, pointed out earlier this year: “The charter of the UN begins with the words: ‘We the peoples.’ Not we the powerful.”

If only “the peoples” could afford the eye-watering hotel prices of New York, there might be a little more equity in the discussions.
Tracy McVeigh, editor, Global development

Ebola | Authorities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo have announced that the Ebola outbreak in the country has reached its peak, with infection rates slowing. Almost 3,500 people have died since the epidemic was announced in May.

FGM | Activists and leaders in the fight against female genital mutilation have welcomed an unprecedented $15.5m (£11.4m) fund aimed at creating “unstoppable momentum” to finally end the practice, which has affected more than 230 million women and girls worldwide,

India | The Naga people celebrated after an Oxford museum agreed to return human remains belonging to their ancestors that had been on display in a British museum for nearly a century. “Our forefathers are coming back” said A Peihwang Wangsa, whose ancestors’ remains were among those being returned.

Aid | Last week, figures revealed 64 million fewer people received humanitarian aid last year. Women, children, elderly and displaced people were hardest hit, as the system suffered one of its biggest contractions since being formed in the post-second world war era.

Every morning, on her way to work in Johannesburg’s Alexandra township, Tsholofelo Mphela stops at a yellow shipping container to buy a few spoonfuls of sugar. This is one of six local weigh-and-pay shops designed to tackle South Africa’s “poverty tax” head on. Run by a social enterprise, customers can buy exactly what they can afford, enabling them to purchase foods that would be too expensive in bulk, as well as other essentials such as detergent and nappies. Shopkeeper Lerato Khangale says her customers say the shops help them “because they cannot afford life”.

African literature website Brittle Paper is one of our go-to sites for books inspiration. Its round-up of seven African non-fiction books worth reading is our latest bookmarked page. The focus of the list is memoirs, ranging from Patrice Nganang’s coming of age story to Bolaji Abdullahi’s account of two-decades in Nigerian politics.