Arab AI Governance Lab
ENFRع

Areas of work

Regulatory and legal frameworks

How Arab League states regulate, encourage or leave aside artificial intelligence through law, policy and institutional design.

Key messages

  • Ten states have adopted a national AI strategy and nine have a dedicated governance body. A standalone AI law is still to come in all 22.
  • The draft AI law in Bahrain (38 articles, approved by the Shura Council in April 2024) is the most advanced legislative initiative in the region.
  • Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar account for 27 of the 53 AI-relevant regulatory instruments coded.
  • Eight states have enacted a data protection statute, the instrument on which most current AI oversight rests; the prevailing instrument mix combines soft law, sector rules and cybercrime legislation.

Governance in the region rests on an instrument mix of soft law, data protection statutes, sector rules and cybercrime legislation. Saudi Arabia records the largest number of AI-relevant instruments (11) and governance bodies (6); the United Arab Emirates and Qatar follow with eight instruments each.

Outside the Gulf, Egypt has moved to a second-generation strategy with a phased path from guidance to binding rules, and Tunisia and Morocco anchor their frameworks in long-standing data protection statutes. International alignment is widest in the United Arab Emirates and Egypt (four frameworks referenced each).

Figure 1Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar account for 27 of the 53 AI-relevant regulations coded across the region
SAU11UAE8QAT8TUN6IRQ6EGY5MAR5BHR4
Source: Lab coding, table F1 (n_ai_regulations); Regulations.AI country pages. States with zero regulations are listed in Table 1.
Figure 2Nine states have at least one dedicated AI governance body; ten of the 19 displayed have none
SAU6UAE5QAT4EGY4BHR3TUN3IRQ3MAR2OMN1
Source: Lab coding, table F1 (n_governance_bodies).
Figure 3Saudi Arabia registers 64 initiatives with the OECD.AI observatory; no other state registers more than eight
SAU64UAE8EGY8TUN7MAR3DZA1
Source: OECD.AI Policy Observatory, as recorded in table F1.
Table 1Regulatory indicators by state, 2025 release
StateStageAI strategy (generation)Data protection law (year)AI-relevant regulationsGovernance bodiesInternational frameworksOECD.AI initiatives
UAEAdvanced2nd20218548
SAUAdvanced2nd2021116364
QATAdvanced1st20168430
BHRIntermediate1st20184310
KWTInitialnonenone0010
OMNEmerging1st20210110
EGYIntermediate2nd20205448
MAREmerging1st20095233
TUNIntermediate2nd20046337
DZAInitialnonenone0001
LBYNascentnonenone0000
MRTInitial1stnone0000
JORInitialnoneDraft0000
LBNNascentnonenone0000
PSENascentnonenone0000
SYRNascentnonenone0000
IRQEmerging1stnone6310
YEMNascentnonenone0000
SDNNascentnonenone0000
DJINascentn/an/an/an/an/an/a
SOMNascentn/an/an/an/an/an/a
COMNascentn/an/an/an/an/an/a

Note. Tiers are built from cumulative indicators in table F1. Comoros, Djibouti and Somalia are at the Nascent stage; their indicator values are not displayed in the 2025 release.

The Lab designs and delivers capacity building for ministries, regulators, data protection authorities and regional bodies: executive programmes, regulator training and institutional development, grounded in its comparative evidence and delivered in Arabic, English or French.

Contact the Lab

Other areas

AI readiness and digital governmentAI research and publicationsDigital infrastructureAI, culture and communicationGovernance typologyHuman capital and capacityCybersecurity