AI could reduce poverty, but poor Africans risk being left behind – World Bank

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Artificial intelligence (AI) could help expand Nigeria and other African countries’ digital economy and reduce poverty, but poor households risk being excluded from its benefits, according to the World Bank’s latest report.

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In the bank’s October 2026 Africa Economic Update, it said AI could be a poverty-reducing platform in Africa but is constrained by limited access to affordable internet, devices, electricity and digital skills.

The financial institution said Nigeria’s developer community has recorded rapid growth since the global AI boom, noting that the country’s GitHub developer base has expanded tenfold since 2020.

It added that Ghana also recorded nearly an eightfold increase in its GitHub developer base, with registrations accelerating after free AI coding assistants became available.

“Some early signals are encouraging, showing that African countries have become increasingly active in software development since the AI boom,” the report said.

AI economic potentials

World Bank said the growth shows what AI could deliver if access is expanded across the continent, including a larger digital services sector, stronger regional collaboration and productivity gains in sectors that affect poor households.

“These early signals point to what AI could deliver if access broadens: a larger digital services sector, stronger regional collaboration, and productivity gains in the sectors that touch poor households, from agriculture to education, health, and finance,” the Bank stated.

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However, the report warned that Africa’s ability to benefit broadly from AI remains constrained by affordability and access to digital infrastructure.

“The expansion of AI use faces a fundamental constraint: only a relatively well-off minority can reliably access and afford the technologies through which it is delivered,” the World Bank said.

Challenges

It said mobile internet in Sub-Saharan Africa remains the least affordable in the world relative to income, with a basic data package costing about twice the United Nations’ affordability target of two per cent of average monthly income.

The cost of internet-enabled devices also remains a barrier, with the Bank saying an entry-level handset costs the poorest fifth of the population the equivalent of about three-quarters of a month’s income.

The report further linked digital access to electricity, noting that having a mobile phone alone does not guarantee meaningful access to digital services.

“Mobile phone ownership alone does not provide meaningful digital access without reliable electricity,” the report said.

Across 19 African countries for which data on both indicators are available, only 12 per cent of households in the poorest income quintile have both a phone and an electricity-grid connection, compared with 54 per cent among households in the richest quintile.

Internet use also varies significantly according to household welfare, with the World Bank saying that in many African countries fewer than 10 per cent of adults in the poorest quintile are online, compared with more than 60 or 70 per cent in the richest quintiles in better-connected economies.

The Bank said the problem could result in AI’s productivity gains being concentrated among people and businesses that are already better positioned to use the technology.

It warned that farmers, informal businesses, schools, clinics and communities in underserved areas could remain excluded from the benefits of AI.

“Consequently, the immediate risk for most African economies is not mass displacement of poor workers by AI, but rather that the productivity gains from AI accrue almost entirely to highly educated workers, formal firms, and richer urban households.

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“The divide is therefore not simply between countries that adopt AI and those that do not; it is between countries able to diffuse its benefits widely and those where adoption remains an enclave phenomenon,” World Bank said.

The international organisation said African countries need to move from simply connecting markets to connecting poor people and places, with investments in connectivity, electricity, digital skills and computing capacity.

It said achieving transition could allow AI to become a platform for broader productivity growth and poverty reduction.

“If African countries make that transition, AI can become a platform for broad-based productivity growth and poverty reduction. If they do not, it will amplify the advantages of those already connected,” the World Bank said.