With the aid of artificial intelligence, international development professionals have succeeded in introducing multiple tools that offer practical solutions to challenging problems. Beyond that, the AI ecosystem itself can contribute to creating an enabling environment for sustainable development by engendering a need for a trained labor workforce.
Combining available data, local expertise, and machine learning technology has presented new opportunities to approach economic development issues and improve decision-making.
The U.S. Agency for International Development for example supports integrating AI in their funded programs. Its inventory of AI use cases lists 15 activities for 2023. In health, for example, USAID used AI to optimize COVID-19 vaccine allocation, to predict bed occupancy at hospitals, and to forecast tuberculosis drug quantities.