When South Africa withdrew its first draft national AI policy after fictitious sources were found in the reference list, the debate that followed was not really about artificial intelligence. It was about credibility and trust. And when public trust is broken, the damage extends beyond a single document or policy. It reverberates, reinforcing a deeper doubt – that the systems meant to serve citizens cannot be relied on at all.
Across Africa, what we often celebrate as resilience is, in part, a response to something much more fragile: weak trust in the systems around us. People adapt with remarkable ingenuity – navigating power cuts, hospital stockouts, transport disruptions. But this adaptation is not neutral. It shifts risk from institutions onto individuals. Families build their own backup systems not because they prefer to, but because they cannot rely on the primary one.
We see this every day across our work in childcare and public health. Parents keep children at home because they do not trust available childcare. Patients delay going to hospitals because they are unsure they will be treated well. Families raise money for medical travel because local care feels uncertain. Citizens stop believing public promises because they have seen too many announcements fade without impact. We are conditioned to anticipate the worst-case scenarios and plan around them because when trust is weak, everyone builds their own backup system.
Survey data from Afrobarometer consistently show that trust in public institutions is on the decline and remains low and uneven across many African countries. Where trust is weak, people are less likely to seek care early, follow public guidance, or believe official communication. The result is a pervasive pattern of people routing around systems rather than through them.
In healthcare, trust can be the difference between containment and a crisis. During West Africa’s Ebola outbreak, fear and mistrust led to significant, preventable loss of life. In Nigeria, however, the country’s outbreak response is remembered through the courage of frontline workers like Dr. Ameyo Stella Adadevoh, who refused to discharge the index patient despite pressure. Her actions helped create confidence and trust in the system, which Nigeria needed to enable rapid compliance with public health measures. Without it, even the best protocols would have failed. More broadly, trust in health systems determines whether a mother seeks care early, whether a patient follows medical advice, and whether a community believes public health guidance during an outbreak.
In childcare, trust is not abstract. It is operational. A mother leaving a child with a caregiver is making one of the most intimate trust-based decisions imaginable. At Kidogo, we see that parents do not choose centres based on cost or convenience alone. They choose based on whether they believe their child will be safe and cared for with dignity. When that trust is missing, the alternatives are stark: leaving a child with a neighbour, home alone, or pulling an older sibling – often a girl – out of school. The cost of mistrust is paid in children’s safety and women’s economic participation.
These breakdowns do not stay contained within the sectors. They compound. A mother who is failed by a clinic may mistrust the next health campaign. A parent who has a bad childcare experience may hesitate to engage with other services. A community ignored during one pandemic may resist guidance during the next. Trust, once broken, travels.
So how do we rebuild it?
First, we must make systems transparent. Families should be able to see what quality childcare looks like and know which centres meet basic safety requirements. Patients should know what care they are entitled to, at what cost, and where to go when those standards are not met. Governments should be clear about what they are promising, who is responsible for delivery, and how progress will be measured. Trust grows when expectations are visible, and accountability is real.
Second, we must make honesty safe. Health workers should be able to report errors without fear of punishment. Childcare providers should have access to coaching and supervision – not just inspection – so they can improve before harm occurs. Systems improve when people are not punished for telling the truth about them.
To be sure, trust is not a substitute for investment. Africa’s systems still need financing, infrastructure, regulation, workforce development and political will. But without trust, even well-designed reforms struggle to take root.
Trust is not rebuilt through slogans or campaign promises. It is built through repeated experiences of competence, honesty, fairness and care. When a mother returns to the same clinic because she was treated with respect. When a parent sends their child back to a daycare, because they experienced peace of mind. When citizens begin to expect systems to work and are not proven wrong.
This is the system the continent needs to rebuild – not from the top down but from the accumulation of everyday experiences that prove, again and again, that our institutions can be trusted.
