New white paper launched by Emirates Foundation and H.E. Badr Jafar, Special Envoy of the UAE Minister of Foreign Affairs for Business and Philanthropy, with Oliver Wyman, sets out where philanthropy can fund what markets and governments cannot
Emirates Foundation signs agreements with the Responsible AI Future Foundation and Current AI at the close of a roundtable attended by the President of the World Bank Group, the Chair of the Gates Foundation, and the UN Secretary-General’s envoy on technology
NEW YORK, September, 2026 – More than 60 leaders from government, business, philanthropy and technology met at the Permanent Mission of the United Arab Emirates to the United Nations today to examine how artificial intelligence can be shaped by, and not only delivered to, the countries and communities of the Global South, at a private roundtable held during the 81st session of the UN General Assembly.
The roundtable, ‘AI, Philanthropy and Inclusive Growth’, was co-hosted by Emirates Foundation and H.E. Badr Jafar, Special Envoy of the UAE Minister of Foreign Affairs for Business and Philanthropy. It marked the launch of a white paper, ‘From Access to Agency: How philanthropy can support AI development in the Global South’, developed by Emirates Foundation and the Office of the Special Envoy with Oliver Wyman, and continued a conversation begun at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January around the ‘AI impact flywheel’, in which public policy sets direction, philanthropy de-risks experimentation and business scales solutions.
Participants included Bill Gates, Chair of the Gates Foundation; H.R.H. Princess Sarah Zeid; H.E. Omran Sharaf, UAE Assistant Minister of Foreign Affairs for Advanced Science and Technology; H.E. Dr Mohamed Al Kuwaiti, Head of the UAE Cybersecurity Council; H.E. Dr Tareq Al Ameri, Director General of the Office of Development Affairs at the UAE Presidential Court; Natasha Crampton, Chief Responsible AI Officer at Microsoft; Vilas Dhar, President of the Patrick J. McGovern Foundation; Edward Norton, UN Goodwill Ambassador for Biodiversity; and senior leaders from G42, General Atlantic, S&P Global, Majid Al Futtaim, Mubadala, Minderoo Foundation, Piramal Foundation, EdelGive Foundation, the Raspberry Pi Foundation, Data Science Nigeria, Dalberg and the Atlantic Council.
Opening the roundtable, H.E. Badr Jafar said: “Philanthropy’s job is to fund what others will not: local-language data, independent evaluation, the missing middle of people who keep a system working after the pilot ends, and the institutions that take a decade to build. An AI model can cross a border in seconds. Trust, skills and institutions cannot. They are built with people, over years, on terms communities can sustain. This is the UAE way.”
AI attracted US$258.7 billion in venture capital in 2025, 61 per cent of all venture investment worldwide, according to the OECD, yet less than 1 per cent of AI investment is directed towards social impact and the capabilities that determine who benefits remain concentrated in a small number of markets. The Gates Foundation’s Goalkeepers 2026 report, published last week, found that more than 90 per cent of the data used to train early large language models came from English-language sources, and that leading speech-recognition systems make errors less than 6 per cent of the time in English and more than 60 per cent of the time in Yoruba. The white paper describes a ladder from access to adoption, adaptation, creation and governance, and identifies where philanthropy can fund what is too early, too shared, too local or too long-term for commercial investors and governments: local-language data, independent evaluation, shared infrastructure, the technicians and local firms who sustain systems after pilots end, and institutions that take a decade to build while most grants last one to three years.
H.E. Ahmed Talib Al Shamsi, Secretary General of Emirates Foundation, said: “Technology creates meaningful social impact when it strengthens the capabilities of people and institutions serving their communities. At Emirates Foundation, our focus is on connecting innovation with real community priorities, building the skills and partnerships needed to translate promising ideas into practical solutions, and ensuring that those solutions can grow, sustain their impact and create long-term value for society.”
Discussion focused on capability across the full AI talent stack, from frontline users to frontier researchers and the practitioners between them; on building locally led AI capability in the Global South; on philanthropy’s distinctive role and appetite for early risk; and on the institutions, shared infrastructure and communities of practice that turn access into agency. Participants also considered how the UAE’s assets in compute, research institutions, capital and convening can be put behind locally led capability, including through the UAE’s AI for Development initiative for Africa and the AIM for Scale partnership with the Gates Foundation, which delivered AI-based monsoon forecasts to 38 million Indian farmers in 2025.
At the conclusion of the roundtable, Emirates Foundation and the Responsible AI Future Foundation signed a Memorandum of Understanding, marking a further step towards advancing responsible and inclusive applications of artificial intelligence.
The agreement was signed by H.E. Ahmed Taleb Al Shamsi, Secretary General of Emirates Foundation, and Dr. Mark Latonero, Chief Global Affairs Officer of the Responsible AI Future Foundation.
The collaboration will explore practical approaches that enable communities and institutions to responsibly adopt, shape and sustain AI solutions, while supporting knowledge exchange and the development of scalable models with relevance across the Middle East and the Global South.
The Responsible AI Future Foundation was launched by G42 and Microsoft, with Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence as a research partner, to advance responsible AI standards and implementation across the Middle East and the Global South.
About Emirates Foundation:
Emirates Foundation was established in 2005 by His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, President of the UAE, as a national platform for social impact. The Foundation creates and scales initiatives that serve society, empower youth, strengthen community resilience and catalyse social change, bringing together public, private and community partners to deliver sustainable national impact. Over two decades, Emirates Foundation has built initiatives and platforms designed to create lasting social value and respond to the UAE’s national priorities.
About the white paper:
‘From Access to Agency: How philanthropy can support AI development in the Global South’ was developed by Emirates Foundation and the Office of the Special Envoy of the UAE Minister of Foreign Affairs for Business and Philanthropy with Oliver Wyman. It examines why critical AI capabilities in the Global South fall between commercial investors and governments, and where philanthropic capital can help countries and communities move from using AI to shaping it.
About the Special Envoy of the UAE Minister of Foreign Affairs for Business and Philanthropy:
The appointment by His Highness Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs, of a Special Envoy for Business and Philanthropy strengthens the country’s diplomatic influence by integrating business and philanthropy into its global engagements. It champions a diplomacy-driven approach that leverages the power of multi-stakeholder partnerships to drive sustainable impact and shared prosperity. The Special Envoy’s strategic objectives are connecting (facilitating engagement between the private sector and government entities in the UAE and internationally), mobilising (enabling business and philanthropy stakeholders to support the UAE’s diplomatic and strategic objectives) and advocating (promoting public, private and philanthropic coordination and collaboration). The mandate embodies the principles of the UAE’s national visions, including ‘We the UAE 2031’ and ‘Centennial 2071’.
