In his presentation during the symposium on artificial intelligence at the ongoing 57th session of the Southern African Development Community Parliamentary Forum (SADC PF) at the Elephant Hill Resort in Victoria Falls today, Mr. Liberty Dandira from the Midlands State University explored how AI-powered intelligence systems can transform parliamentary operations in the SADC region.
The key focus of his presentation was on enhancing decision-making capabilities for lawmakers through the application of advanced AI technologies.
One of his slides depicted a modern, technology-enabled parliamentary chamber, reflecting the kind of environment where these AI systems could be deployed. He said the diverse group of representatives engaged in the debate highlighted the need for intelligent tools to support complex policy discussions and deliberations.
“My goal is to showcase how AI can elevate the quality of parliamentary intelligence and empower more informed, data-driven decision-making across the SADC region. Committee-specific dashboards provide real-time data and insights to help parliamentarians make informed decisions for their respective policy areas. The Finance Committee dashboard includes budget performance metrics, economic indicators, and analysis of public spending impact,” he said.
He revealed that the Health Committee dashboard tracks regional health statistics, medical resource distribution, and disease outbreak alerts to support healthcare policy decisions. The Education Committee dashboard presents school performance data, educational access metrics, and resource allocation insights to guide education policy. These tailored dashboards empower committees to quickly access the most relevant information and identify trends to improve government oversight and service delivery.
The ICT guru said parliamentarians can use their decision support system to forecast the effects of proposed legislation, helping policymakers understand the potential impacts before implementation. By comparing proposed laws to similar past legislation, MPs can provide valuable context and insights to inform the decision-making process.
He added that reviewing how similar laws have been implemented in other countries can give us a broader perspective and highlight best practices. The system can analyze funding options to identify the highest-impact investments and help optimize budget allocations.
In using AI, data privacy is critical – there is a need to have strict protocols to protect citizen information, anonymize personal data, and limit access to secure storage. It is also important to regularly audit algorithms for fairness and avoid bias, use diverse training data, and maintain human oversight of recommendations to mitigate algorithmic bias.
He said while doing this, transparency is a key principle – striving for explainable AI decisions, public disclosure of methodologies, and clear documentation of data sources.
