Consultative engagement of stakeholders toward a roadmap for African language technologies

Ther e has been a rise in natural language processing (NLP) communities across the African continent (Masa-khane , AfricaNLP workshops). With this momentum noted , and given the existing power asymmetries that plague the African continent , there is an urgent need to ensure that these technologies move toward shared goals between organizations and stakeholder s , not only to improve the representation of African languages in cutting-edge NLP research but also to ensure that NLP research enables technological advances toward human dignity, well-being, and equity for those who speak African languages. This study investigates the mo-tivations, focus, and challenges faced by various stakeholder s who ar e at the core of the NLP process. We perform structured stakeholder identification to identify core stakeholder s in the NLP process. Interviews with representatives of these stakeholder groups are performed and are collated into relevant themes. Finally, a set of recommendations are proposed for use by policy and artificial intelligence (AI) researchers.