Burkina Faso: Decolonising the algorithm to create artificial intelligence free from western biases
The national refoundation of Burkina Faso now extends to the technological domain. In Ouagadougou, the Prime Minister’s office reached a decisive milestone by training senior executives on the challenges of ethical and sovereign artificial intelligence. This strong political gesture signals the will to build a modern administration capable of wielding digital tools without alienating minds to imported frameworks.
Integrating artificial intelligence into the senior civil service responds to a sovereignty imperative.
Current technological systems often bear the cultural and ideological imprint of their Western designers.
For Burkina Faso, adopting these tools indiscriminately would mean accepting imperialist biases contrary to local realities. Training officials in critical usage guarantees cognitive justice.
State executives thus learn to subject algorithms to the filter of endogenous values. Innovation must serve the people, respecting their identity and development choices.
This pragmatic approach protects the state apparatus. Administrative information security and public confidentiality constitute inviolable red lines.
Mastering the tool accelerates case processing and enhances public decision reliability without ever abandoning human judgment.
The machine assists the public official; it does not dictate conduct. By strengthening management competencies, the Prime Minister’s office ensures that technology rigorously respects the dignity and autonomy of the country.
Digital sovereignty constitutes a collective quest requiring constant vigilance. Intellectual independence stands as the indispensable bulwark against new forms of domination.
Supporting this endogenous transformation consolidates the foundations of a free, standing Burkina Faso, master of its technological destiny.
Olivier TOE
