The African AI & Equality Toolbox Launch
2025-09-08 16:00 - 17:00 (Europe/Moscow)
The African AI & Equality Toolbox is a strategic initiative designed to empower African stakeholders—policymakers, technologists, civil society actors, and communities—to shape Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems that are contextually relevant, inclusive, and grounded in human rights.
Developed in collaboration with Women at the Table and the African Centre for Technology Studies (ACTS), and adapted from the global <AI & Equality> Human Rights Toolbox Initiative in collaboration with the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), this African iteration provides practical tools and methodologies to guide equitable AI development across the continent.
The Toolbox applies a Human Rights-based AI Lifecycle Framework, integrating reflective questions and the Human Rights Impact Assessment (HRIA) developed with the Alan Turing Institute. It emphasizes participatory, multidisciplinary approaches and is rooted in feminist, decolonial, and Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) principles and incorporates lessons from emerging digital rights challenges, ensuring AI systems are designed with safety and dignity at their core.
This launch webinar will present the methodology and the process of development of the toolbox featuring the contributors and introduce the webinar series that focus on each stage of the lifecycle with the selected case studies.
1PM GMT | 3PM SAST | 4PM EAT
Register here

The African AI & Equality Toolbox Webinar 1: Introduction & Stage 1
2025-09-15 16:00 - 17:00 (Europe/Moscow)
Across African contexts, development and technology projects are often driven by external actors with little grounding in local priorities. Solutions frequently arrive pre-packaged—built around assumed problems, rather than those identified by communities themselves. This is particularly evident in AI deployments in agriculture, education, and public health, where tools may miss the mark, or worse, exacerbate inequities.
This webinar serves to explore Stage 1 of AI Development which is fundamentally a participatory and grounded approach which is crucial for centering gender equity, given that women often carry the brunt of labor in agriculture and caregiving, yet remain underrepresented in AI design and governance.
The African AI & Equality Toolbox is a strategic initiative designed to empower African stakeholders—policymakers, technologists, civil society actors, and communities—to shape Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems that are contextually relevant, inclusive, and grounded in human rights.
Developed by Women at the Table and the African Centre for Technology Studies (ACTS), and adapted from the global AI & Equality Human Rights Toolbox Initiative in collaboration with the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), this African iteration provides practical tools and methodologies to guide equitable AI development across the continent.
The Toolbox applies a Human Rights-based AI Lifecycle Framework, integrating reflective questions and the Human Rights Impact Assessment (HRIA) developed with the Alan Turing Institute. It emphasizes participatory, multidisciplinary approaches and is rooted in feminist, decolonial, and Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) principles and incorporates lessons from emerging digital rights challenges, ensuring AI systems are designed with safety and dignity at their core.
1PM GMT | 3PM SAST | 4PM EAT
Register here

The African AI & Equality Toolbox Webinar 2: System Requirements
2025-10-06 16:00 - 17:00 (Europe/Moscow)
In many African AI deployments, system requirements are defined by international technical partners or funders, often without fully understanding the day-to-day realities of use. This leads to design choices—like requiring high-speed internet, English-only interfaces, or complex interfaces—that make tools ineffective or even harmful.
This webinar looks at how requirement setting should function as a bridge between vision and use: Aligning system features with cultural context, infrastructure gaps, and social expectations; Identifying constraints early on—connectivity, literacy, consent, power dynamics—and building around them and making conscious trade-offs between speed, scale, and equity.

The African AI & Equality Toolbox is a strategic initiative designed to empower African stakeholders—policymakers, technologists, civil society actors, and communities—to shape Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems that are contextually relevant, inclusive, and grounded in human rights.
Developed by Women at the Table and the African Centre for Technology Studies (ACTS), and adapted from the global AI & Equality Human Rights Toolbox Initiative in collaboration with the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), this African iteration provides practical tools and methodologies to guide equitable AI development across the continent.
The Toolbox applies a Human Rights-based AI Lifecycle Framework, integrating reflective questions and the Human Rights Impact Assessment (HRIA) developed with the Alan Turing Institute. It emphasizes participatory, multidisciplinary approaches and is rooted in feminist, decolonial, and Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) principles and incorporates lessons from emerging digital rights challenges, ensuring AI systems are designed with safety and dignity at their core.
1PM GMT | 3PM SAST | 4PM EAT
Register here

The Latin American AI & Equality Toolbox Introduction
2025-10-16 15:00 - 16:00 (Europe/Moscow)
AI & Equality partnered with the Chilean Centro Nacional de Inteligencia Artificial, CENIA, to co-construct a Latin American Spanish language version of the validated <AI & Equality> Toolbox, with use cases relevant to the regional experience.

The partnership builds on the learnings from the workshop structure and outreach from the African <AI & Equality> Toolbox.

Translating and adapting tools like the <AI & Equality> Human Rights Toolbox can facilitate the co-creation of a common vocabulary and common understanding on the specific needs and challenges of each region of the world, unlocking informed debates about their visions for data with purpose and collaboratively finding examples of regional use cases of AI.

3PM ET | 10AM Santiago
Register here

The African AI & Equality Toolbox Webinar 3: Data Discovery
2025-10-20 16:00 - 17:00 (Europe/Moscow)
In many African AI projects, available datasets are either imported (trained on non-African populations) or incomplete (lacking local language, gender, or cultural nuance). This misalignment risks perpetuating systemic bias under the guise of neutrality.This webinar will offer a deep dive into the Essential Questions of Data Discovery including a case study on the requirement for building effective TFGBV prevention datasets that include African languages.

The African AI & Equality Toolbox is a strategic initiative designed to empower African stakeholders—policymakers, technologists, civil society actors, and communities—to shape Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems that are contextually relevant, inclusive, and grounded in human rights.
Developed by Women at the Table and the African Centre for Technology Studies (ACTS), and adapted from the global AI & Equality Human Rights Toolbox Initiative in collaboration with the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), this African iteration provides practical tools and methodologies to guide equitable AI development across the continent.
The Toolbox applies a Human Rights-based AI Lifecycle Framework, integrating reflective questions and the Human Rights Impact Assessment (HRIA) developed with the Alan Turing Institute. It emphasizes participatory, multidisciplinary approaches and is rooted in feminist, decolonial, and Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) principles and incorporates lessons from emerging digital rights challenges, ensuring AI systems are designed with safety and dignity at their core.
1PM GMT | 3PM SAST | 4PM EAT
Register here

The African AI & Equality Toolbox Webinar 4: Model Selection
2025-11-05 16:00 - 17:00 (Europe/Moscow)
Imported or generalized models often underperform—especially when they are trained on data that does not reflect local language, environment, or lived experience. For AI to be trustworthy, accuracy alone is not enough.
This webinar dives into what inclusion and efficiency means ensuring the development or building of systems that don’t require technical expertise to interpret—ensuring that trust, oversight, and agency are accessible to all users. Whether a rural health worker, a student, or a community organizer, each person should be able to understand what a system is doing and why.
The African AI & Equality Toolbox is a strategic initiative designed to empower African stakeholders—policymakers, technologists, civil society actors, and communities—to shape Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems that are contextually relevant, inclusive, and grounded in human rights.
Developed by Women at the Table and the African Centre for Technology Studies (ACTS), and adapted from the global AI & Equality Human Rights Toolbox Initiative in collaboration with the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), this African iteration provides practical tools and methodologies to guide equitable AI development across the continent.
The Toolbox applies a Human Rights-based AI Lifecycle Framework, integrating reflective questions and the Human Rights Impact Assessment (HRIA) developed with the Alan Turing Institute. It emphasizes participatory, multidisciplinary approaches and is rooted in feminist, decolonial, and Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) principles and incorporates lessons from emerging digital rights challenges, ensuring AI systems are designed with safety and dignity at their core.
1PM GMT | 3PM SAST | 4PM EAT
Register here

The African AI & Equality Toolbox Webinar 5: Model Interpretation
2025-11-12 16:00 - 17:00 (Europe/Moscow)
In African deployments, there is often pressure to launch rapidly, without thorough contextual testing. But skipping this step is where trust breaks down—and harm begins. Testing must happen with communities, not just on them.
This stage examines the opportunity to reflect on how power operates in AI: Who gets to say if it works? Who can question it? Who can stop it?
The African AI & Equality Toolbox is a strategic initiative designed to empower African stakeholders—policymakers, technologists, civil society actors, and communities—to shape Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems that are contextually relevant, inclusive, and grounded in human rights.
Developed by Women at the Table and the African Centre for Technology Studies (ACTS), and adapted from the global AI & Equality Human Rights Toolbox Initiative in collaboration with the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), this African iteration provides practical tools and methodologies to guide equitable AI development across the continent.
The Toolbox applies a Human Rights-based AI Lifecycle Framework, integrating reflective questions and the Human Rights Impact Assessment (HRIA) developed with the Alan Turing Institute. It emphasizes participatory, multidisciplinary approaches and is rooted in feminist, decolonial, and Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) principles and incorporates lessons from emerging digital rights challenges, ensuring AI systems are designed with safety and dignity at their core.
1PM GMT | 3PM SAST | 4PM EAT
Register here

The Latin American AI & Equality Toolbox Launch
2025-11-13 14:00 - 15:00 (Europe/Paris)
AI & Equality partnered with the Chilean Centro Nacional de Inteligencia Artificial, CENIA, to co-construct a Latin American Spanish language version of the validated <AI & Equality> Toolbox, with use cases relevant to the regional experience.

The partnership builds on the learnings from the workshop structure and outreach from the African <AI & Equality> Toolbox.

Translating and adapting tools like the <AI & Equality> Human Rights Toolbox can facilitate the co-creation of a common vocabulary and common understanding on the specific needs and challenges of each region of the world, unlocking informed debates about their visions for data with purpose and collaboratively finding examples of regional use cases of AI.

2PM ET | 10AM Santiago
Register here

The African AI & Equality Toolbox Webinar 6: Deployment
2025-11-19 16:00 - 17:00 (Europe/Moscow)
In African contexts, post-deployment oversight is often underfunded or overlooked. Once a system is launched—especially by international actors—it can become invisible, even as its consequences grow. This final stage and webinar of The African AI & Equality Toolbox looks at what true accountability means: planning for ongoing monitoring, shared governance, and the possibility of “no.” The webinar will also explore what it means for systems to be responsive—not just to data—but to dignity.
The African AI & Equality Toolbox is a strategic initiative designed to empower African stakeholders—policymakers, technologists, civil society actors, and communities—to shape Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems that are contextually relevant, inclusive, and grounded in human rights.
Developed by Women at the Table and the African Centre for Technology Studies (ACTS), and adapted from the global AI & Equality Human Rights Toolbox Initiative in collaboration with the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), this African iteration provides practical tools and methodologies to guide equitable AI development across the continent.
The Toolbox applies a Human Rights-based AI Lifecycle Framework, integrating reflective questions and the Human Rights Impact Assessment (HRIA) developed with the Alan Turing Institute. It emphasizes participatory, multidisciplinary approaches and is rooted in feminist, decolonial, and Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) principles and incorporates lessons from emerging digital rights challenges, ensuring AI systems are designed with safety and dignity at their core.
1PM GMT | 3PM SAST | 4PM EAT
Register here

CSW70 | When Algorithms Discriminate: Gender Bias in Justice Systems
2026-03-11 16:30 - 18:00 (America/New_York)
Wednesday, 11 March 2026
4:30 – 6:00 PM ET
NGO CSW
10th Floor, Church Center of the United Nations
777 United Nations Plaza, New York
An In Depth Discussion: What happens when courts replace judges with computer algorithms? We are told these systems are “objective” and “fair” but the evidence tells a different story. From bail decisions to sentencing, algorithms are making life-changing choices about women based on biased data and male-centered assumptions. A woman seeking justice after assault may find her credibility automatically questioned. A mother may be flagged as “high risk” simply because of where she lives or her employment history. Meanwhile, these same systems treat men’s violence as more predictable and less dangerous.
This is not science fiction, it is happening right now in courts worldwide. Join us to uncover how technology is creating new barriers to justice for women and girls, and what policy solutions can effectively address it.
Laura Nyirinkindi | UN Special Procedures Member, Working Group on discrimination against women and girls
Africa Regional Vice President of the International Federation of Women Lawyers (Federación Internacional de Abogadas)
Fernanda K. Martins | Fundacion multitudes, Director of Strategy and Advocacy
Caitlin Kraft–Buchman | Women At The Table; CEO
