Artificial intelligence (AI) offers innovative solutions for addressing a range of illegal activities that impact Africa’s environment. This paper explores how AI is being used in Africa to provide intelligence on organised environmental crime, craft tools to assess its impact, and develop methods to detect and prevent environmental criminal activities. It discusses the challenges and opportunities AI poses for policing environmental crime in Africa, and proposes recommendations that would allow AI-powered policing to make a real difference on the continent.
About the author
Romi Sigsworth is a Research Consultant at the ISS’s ENACT Organised Crime Programme. She was previously an ISS Gender Specialist, and a Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation Senior Researcher. She has an M.St. in Women’s Studies from Oxford University.
Image: © Adapted from Albert Aschl/Flickr