March 18, 2026 - March 20, 2026
Pretoria, South Africa
World Development Report 2026 Regional Consultation in Africa
The Institute for Economic Development and the African Institute of Data Science and Artificial Intelligence (AfriDSAI) at the University of Pretoria are hosting a regional consultation in South Africa of the upcoming World Bank World Development Report 2026: Artificial Intelligence for Development.
The World Development Report (WDR) 2026 will examine the promise and pitfalls of artificial intelligence (AI) through the lens of developing countries, exploring its effects on productivity, jobs, service delivery, governance, and inequality, and offering tailored policy guidance.
The consultation will include a series of roundtable sessions organized around the core themes from the report. The event in will convene regional experts and representatives from the government, academia, and private sector to discuss and provide inputs on how AI is shaping development trajectories across Africa.
AI is no longer the stuff of science fiction; it is unleashing a new wave of technological change. In the past few years alone, the application of AI models has evolved from prediction (machine-learning algorithms that can better forecast the future) to perception (image and voice recognition embedded in digital assistants and chatbots) and cognition (content creation with large language models such as ChatGPT, Llama, and DeepSeek). The potential economic impacts are manifold.
There is optimism about AI enabling developing countries to leapfrog by reducing human error, optimizing complex production and distribution processes, and facilitating decision-making. Such optimism should not be unbridled. AI could widen the gap between rich and poor countries because of its onerous computing power, data, and skill requirements. Advances in AI could automate many jobs and lower wages. There are also concerns about competition—namely, that a few large technology companies headquartered in rich countries could have an unfair advantage in creating and deploying AI.
The World Development Report (WDR) 2026 will investigate the development implications of AI as a general-purpose technology and assess what might be the best policy choices to leverage the benefits of AI while offsetting potential risks.
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