Prospects and Challenges for Adopting Artificial Intelligence and Digital Tools in Climate Resilience in Rural Southern Africa: A Systematic Review

Rural Southern Africa’s (SA) status quo with regards to digital technologies and artificial intelligence (AI) tools’ contribution to climate resilience remain veiled in obscurity. This study explores the available literature based on empirical research to understand the prospects and challenges of digitalization and AI tools in climate resilience building in rural areas within SA, using existing literature. Findings show that some creditable successes have been made in using digital technologies to fortify the communities against climate change. There are enormous prospects for leveraging on the existing community structures, learning cultures, and commitment to execute digitalization projects and use artificial intelligence tools to reinforce climate resilience in rural areas of SA. Rural SA has the potential to support more effective early warning and emergency response systems, improve food and water security, improve power infrastructure performance, enable citizen engagement and participatory adaptation measures, and reduce the effects of climatic hazards. However, a plethora of socio-economic and political challenges perpetually threaten the region’s potential to become climate resilient, leaving it vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. The study proposes viable paths for overcoming the barriers to digitalization to maximize the vast potential that exists in support of climate change resilience building.