CDAC x Access Now event: AI for good – but governed how?
Artist’s illustration of AI. Aurora Mititelu for Google DeepMind/Unsplash
What does responsible AI adoption actually require in humanitarian contexts? How can donors, UN agencies, NGOs, local actors, media, and technology partners prevent AI from deepening existing power asymmetries?
Join CDAC and Access Now at the UNIGE Centre of Humanitarian Studies to answer these critical questions.
Date: Tuesday 7 July 2026
Time: 10:30–11:30 (CEST)
Location: Room U159, Université de Genève / Uni Dufour, Rue du Général-Dufour 24, 1204 Genève
Register to attend by completing the form.
Humanitarians are increasingly using AI, believing that it will support decision-making and reduce operational burdens. Growing pressure to be ever-more efficient in this sector means that AI and algorithmic systems are entering humanitarian operations faster than governance and accountability processes can adapt.
Access Now’s report, Reinventing Humanitarian Aid Procurement for the Age of AI, argues that humanitarian procurement systems are not yet equipped for the realities of algorithmic and cloud-based technology. AI-enabled systems are often integrated through add-ons or informal staff use, rather than through deliberate decisions. This blind-spot creates new risks around accountability, vendor dependency, surveillance, digital divides, and the protection of affected communities.
CDAC Network’s SAFE AI: Standards and Assurance Framework for Ethical AI responds to the humanitarian AI governance gap by offering a practical framework for governing AI use across the humanitarian lifecycle. SAFE AI places humanitarian principles, community accountability, and the ‘right to know’ at the centre of AI governance, helping organisations move from abstract principles to real-life safeguards.
This joint briefing, hosted by the University of Geneva’s Centre of Humanitarian Studies during AI for Good Week, will bring these two pieces of work into conversation. It will ask: what does responsible AI adoption actually require in humanitarian contexts? How can donors, UN agencies, NGOs, local actors, and technology partners stop AI from deepening existing power asymmetries?