From September 9 to 11, 2026, the Global Conference on Responsible AI and Elections brought  together more than 200 attendees from over 60 countries and 100-plus institutions and partner organizations at the Rogers Centre Ottawa. The event was  jointly organized by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and Elections Canada, with support from Global Affairs Canada and additional backing from AECID, Sida, and Microsoft.

The conference was very significant in that it brought together participants from all regions, including representatives from EMBs, governments, regulatory bodies, civil society, academia, technology companies, and regional and international organizations. The three-day programme featured high-level plenary sessions, interactive dialogues, and hands-on workshops addressing topics such as responsible AI use across the electoral cycle, resilience to AI-driven threats to information integrity, digital readiness of EMBs, and collaboration among electoral stakeholders, technology companies, and civil society.

As the conference wraps up on September 11, its resources and materials — agendas, session outputs, and the founding documents of the new community of practice — are expected to be made publicly available, giving election bodies that couldn’t attend in person a way to plug into the same standards and lessons emerging from Ottawa.

From the SADC region – the Electoral Commissions of Lesotho , Malawi , Mozambique together with the Executive Secretary of the ECF-SADC Secretariat participated  at this global conference.

For the full agenda, speaker list, and conference resources, visit ai4elections.org.