Inclusive AI Safety Governance: Amplifying Rural African Voices

Raising $40,000active

Aru Consult Impact Hub Limited proposes 12-month participatory research & advocacy project to ensure emerging global & national AI governance frameworks incorporate the perspectives, needs of rural underserved African communities.

Endorsements made here support Aru Consult Impact Hub Limited.

Project Details

What the project does:
This 12-month participatory research and advocacy project documents the AI-related vulnerabilities, priorities, and governance needs of rural communities in Uganda’s Teso sub-region—especially farmers, women’s groups, and youth. It will conduct focus group discussions, key informant interviews, and participatory mapping across six districts; synthesize findings into a policy brief for Ugandan policymakers and international AI governance bodies; convene local and national multi-stakeholder workshops; and produce a practical guide for replicating participatory AI governance research in rural African contexts. The goal is to ensure AI safety and governance frameworks include rural African perspectives and are more context-aware, legitimate, and robust.

Who is doing it:
The project is led by ACIM HUB, a Ugandan social enterprise based in Soroti City, Teso Region, under founding director Chris Aru. ACIM HUB has strong community trust and experience implementing community health and development projects reaching over 15,000 people in Teso. The project team will include a Research Lead, Community Engagement Coordinator, Policy and Advocacy Officer, and Finance/Admin Officer, working with local community groups, district officials, technology developers, civil society, and policy stakeholders.

Where it is up to:
The project is currently at the proposal/application stage for the grantmaking.ai Launch Round. It has not yet started implementation and is pending funding. Preparatory work is already in place: project design, methodology, target districts, stakeholder mapping, and a detailed 12-month budget of $50,000. Upon award, ACIM HUB will begin with ethics approvals, community entry, recruitment and training, followed by research, policy brief development, multi-stakeholder workshops, and dissemination.

Theory of Impact

Theory of Impact

This project reduces catastrophic and existential risk from advanced AI primarily by strengthening the global governance and field-building foundations that any effective risk-reduction effort requires. It does not attempt to solve technical alignment directly. Instead, it addresses a structural blind spot: AI governance is being designed largely without the perspectives of rural African communities, who will be among the most affected and least able to influence or resist harmful deployments. By embedding their voices into governance, the project makes AI safety frameworks more context-aware, legitimate, and globally representative—conditions necessary for coordinated, enforceable, and resilient AI risk reduction.

Concrete causal chain:

Inputs → Activities. ACIM HUB uses its community trust and $50,000 grant to conduct participatory research with 120 farmers, women, and youth across six Teso districts; produce a policy brief; convene local and national multi-stakeholder workshops; and create a replicable methodology.

People

Chris Aru

Team Member

Grants Received– no grants recorded

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Funding Asks

Funding ask

Open

Minimum

$40,000

Ideal

$50,000

How the money will be spent

Rough Budget Breakdown — $50,000 (12 months)
Category Amount (USD) % What it covers

Salaries & personnel $28,000 - 56%

Project Director, Research Lead, Community Engagement Coordinator, Policy & Advocacy Officer, Finance/Admin Officer — part-time roles; includes statutory costs where applicable.
2. Contractors & research support $5,500 - 11%

Local research assistants, focus group facilitators, note-takers, translators/transcribers, and short-term policy/research consultants.
3. Travel & field logistics $4,500 - 9%

Transport and fuel for fieldwork across six Teso districts; community entry visits; stakeholder meetings; national policy dialogue travel.
4. Workshops & convenings $6,000 - 12%

2 local governance workshops, 1 national policy dialogue, 6 community feedback sessions — venue, catering, participant transport, materials.
5. Policy brief & dissemination $2,000 - 4%

Design, printing, translation into Ateso/Kumam, media engagement, conference presentation support.
6. Translation & transcription $1,500 - 3%

Professional translation/transcription of FGDs, KIIs, and community validation sessions.
7. Operations & communications $1,500 - 3%

Airtime, internet, office supplies, data storage, basic analysis software/licenses, printing.
8. Contingency $1,000 - 2%

Unforeseen costs, currency fluctuations, or security-related adjustments.
TOTAL $50,000 100%

Compute: This is a participatory research, policy, and advocacy project — not a model-training or technical alignment project. Any minor data storage or analysis software costs are included under Operations.

Notes:

Salaries are the largest cost because the project depends on sustained local research, community engagement, and policy work over 12 months.

Contractors are used for specialized tasks: translation, transcription, facilitation, and short-term policy analysis.

Travel is kept modest by using local coordinators and clustering field activities across the six districts.

The budget is designed to be lean, community-rooted, and adaptable if the grantmaker requires a revised line-item format.

Discussion

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