Kingston, Jamaica — 7 February 2026
As governments around the world accelerate their use of artificial intelligence, a quieter but more consequential question is emerging beneath the surface: who is shaping the intelligence that governments rely on?
This week, UNESCO, alongside the University of Oxford’s Saïd Business School and the Mohammed Bin Rashid School of Government, announced the launch of an Arabic-language version of the global course AI and Digital Transformation in Government. The initiative, unveiled at the World Governments Summit in Dubai, is designed to equip civil servants across the Arab States with the skills needed to govern artificial intelligence responsibly, inclusively, and in line with regional realities.
On its face, this is a capacity-building story. In practice, it signals something far more strategic: a recognition that AI is not neutral, and that language, culture, institutional history, and regional values matter deeply in how digital systems are designed, …
