Developing a Context-Sensitive AI Governance Framework for Zambia

The paper identifies an important policy gap: Zambia lacks a dedicated AI governance framework despite growing AI adoption across sectors such as agriculture, healthcare, and public administration. The motivation is well articulated, and the emphasis on adapting governance to Zambia's local institutional context, rather than directly adopting international frameworks, is appropriate. The author also demonstrates familiarity with key governance literature, including UNESCO, OECD, and the African Union AI Strategy.

However, the submission reads more like a research proposal than a completed project. While it outlines a methodology involving policy analysis, stakeholder interviews, and thematic analysis, it does not present the proposed governance framework, comparative findings, interview results, or any validated artifact. The listed deliverables are future outputs rather than completed contributions.

The paper would also benefit from stronger comparative analysis to explain how Zambia's governance needs differ from those of other African countries and why existing frameworks are insufficient. Most importantly, the work should present the actual governance framework—with concrete principles, institutional roles, and implementation mechanisms—supported by at least a preliminary evaluation or expert validation. This would demonstrate a substantive contribution beyond an outline of future research.

This is a well-motivated and policy-relevant proposal that addresses a clear gap in AI governance in Zambia, with strong grounding in African regional frameworks and global AI ethics literature. The comparative framing effectively situates the work within broader debates on context-sensitive AI governance.

The main area for development is methodological specificity. The proposal would benefit from a clearer account of how qualitative evidence will be systematically collected, analysed, and translated into concrete governance mechanisms. Greater detail on sequencing, stakeholder engagement, and validation processes would also give the framework development a more structured and credible foundation. The direction is timely and the policy relevance is clear. Sharpening the methodological approach would provide a more defined pathway from policy analysis to an implementable governance framework.

The submission is incomplete. The research question and its sub-questions are relevant, so further work in this direction would be beneficial.