YOUTH CHALLENGED TO SHAPE GLOBAL AI GOVERNANCE
Published: April 09, 2026<< BACK TO NEWS
Minister of Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities Sindisiwe Chikunga has challenged young people to take the lead in setting global standards for artificial intelligence (AI) governance to ensure the technology advances equity, rather than deepens global inequality.
Delivering the keynote address at the 4th BRICS Youth Innovation Summit 2026, currently underway at Tshwane University of Technology, Chikunga positioned youth as central actors in shaping a more just and multipolar global order.
She warned that artificial intelligence is not neutral, urging young innovators across BRICS nations to play an active role in defining how it is governed globally.
"AI must work for people and their wellbeing — not the other way around. This means insisting on African and BRICS participation in setting global AI governance standards.
"It means asking who owns the data, who benefits from the model, and who bears the cost when the model fails. Innovation in AI without democratic accountability is not progress. It is a new form of enclosure,” the Minister said.
Held under the theme: "Youth-Led Innovation for Sustainable Development”, the summit, taking place from 8-10 April 2026, serves as a meeting point between promising young entrepreneurs, including business leaders, investors, partners and experts from BRICS+ countries and the Global South.
Chikunga opened her address by commending the South African BRICS Youth Association and its partners for sustaining the summit platform over four years, describing it as critical to building "a more just, humane and sustainable world.”
She reminded delegates that BRICS leaders had already recognised youth as a driving force behind development during the 15th BRICS Summit 2023, where commitments were made to place young people at the centre of sustainable development efforts.
The Minister highlighted that the summit is not only an opportunity for BRICS youth to convene, innovate, and connect across borders, but should also serve as a vehicle for accountability.
"The summit should serve as a space in which young people exercise their right to hold their governments to what was promised in their name — and to demand evidence that the commitment to youth leadership is being translated from declaration into young people’s lived realities,” the Minister said.
BRICS in an increasingly contested world
Highlighting the growing influence of the BRICS bloc, Chikunga noted that it now represents more than 45% of the world’s population and over a third of global Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
She said the bloc’s significance lies in its assertion that the architecture of global governance must reflect the world as it is — not as it was drawn up in 1945.
"From an economic development standpoint, BRICS nations are home to the largest concentration of young people on the planet. The median age in India is 28. In South Africa, it is 27. In Ethiopia, it is 19.
"The question is not whether these young populations will shape global markets, labour forces, and innovation ecosystems. The question is whether you will do so on terms that serve your own societies — or on terms dictated by others,” Chikunga said.
Chikunga warned that the threat landscape confronting the new generation is not a series of isolated crises, but a system of interconnected failures, with each one compounding the next.
"The threats around which the youth must innovate are increasingly existential. The international order constructed after 1945 was built on a particular bargain: that productivity gains would be broadly shared, that trade would lift all boats, and that democratic institutions would mediate the tensions between capital and labour. That bargain has collapsed," she said.
Four pillared call to action for BRICS youth
Chikunga outlined four key priorities for BRICS youth, and these include defending sovereignty through innovation; challenging orthodox approaches to economic models; adopting a critical approach to the AI bubble; and strengthening people-to-people relations.
"Young people must develop indigenous technological capacity and data governance frameworks that protect African and BRICS citizens from digital extraction. Innovate new economic thinking, grounded in productive capacity, industrial strategy, and the redistributive role of the developmental state. Your task is not to reject AI [but to] approach it critically.
"The strength of BRICS will never reside solely in trade agreements or development finance, but will reside in the depth of connection between the peoples of its member states. People-to-people relations — cultural exchange, academic mobility, artistic collaboration, and shared intellectual production — are the infrastructure of lasting solidarity,’ the Minister said.
In closing, Chikunga urged young people to take ownership of the future, despite mounting global challenges.
"The world you inherit is not the world that was promised. But you are not inheriting this world as passive recipients. You are here because you have chosen to act.” – SAnews.gov.za
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