The Southern African Broadcasting Association (SABA) and the African Union of Broadcasting (AUB) are actively working on strengthening cooperation between the two entities. 

AUB Chief Executive Officer, Grégoire Ndjaka, says there is great scope for cooperation between the regional and continental bodies.

Ndjaka, who had been in Abu Dhabi attending the BRIDGE summit, met with SABA President Stanley Similo with the aim of further discussing possibilities of cooperation. 

This meeting culminated in an agreement that a SABA delegation - led by Similo - will attend the upcoming AUB General Assembly in the Gambia in April next year, after which Ndjaka and his delegation will attend the SABA General Assembly in the Seychelles, also in 2026.

"That is the beginning of the journey. I tell you we have been cooperating not far, but now we decided to come together to make Africa a continent that matters in this landscape. We have to show that we can do things and we can do things for African media; we can organise common training. We have so many things in the pipeline; please allow me not to go into detail. Because the most important thing is to bring together members because it becomes easier for us to cooperate with Saba to see how we can make the continent stronger, and in the near future I think we will make it, we will make it," stressed Ndjaka.

The use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) dominated many conversations at the Bridge Summit, and Ndjaka says Africa cannot afford to be a passive observer of the development of the technology.

The AUB itself has created an AI Observatory, with some countries in the running to host the observatory. A decision on which country will host it will be made at the AUB General Assembly in the Gambia next April.

Ndjaka added, "So we had been taking this as a challenging subject, something which is important because if we do not master AI, AI will tell the story of Africa in its own way, and what is very important now is that we do not only stay with what is done in AI; we have to see how we bring our own algorithm to AI, because you know AI does not speak Swahili, does not speak Xhosa, does not speak Hausa. We as Africa must bring our contribution; this contribution must be an added value to artificial intelligence."

The AUB head also urges responsible use of AI.

"If we do not use AI with best practices. It will destroy our culture. We have things we do not accept in Africa. Let us use AI to promote our culture and to fight against hate messages of political hatred, deep fakes and all that is bad. So we have to have our way, but a way which is based in best practices and the promotion of our culture."

The African Union of Broadcasting was established as URTNA in 1963 but changed to AUB in 2006. Ndjaka had been at the helm of the continental body since 2016.