This Comment arose out of a workshop entitled ‘Designing an Approach and Methodology for Building Evidence for the Responsible Design and Use of Generative AI for Sustainable Development in Low-Resourced Contexts’, at which the authors participated. The workshop was organised by Research ICT Africa with support and funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and was held as a side event of the AfricAI Conference in June 2023 in Kigali, Rwanda, hosted by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit GmbH (GIZ), International Development Research Centre of Canada and Niyel.