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12Nov

Commentary: Africa’s Endless Struggle for Internet Freedom Is Always in Motion, But Rarely Forward

Author CIPESA Posted on

By Jimmy Kainja |

In September 2025, the Collaboration on International ICT Policy for East and Southern Africa (CIPESA) hosted the 12th edition of the Forum on Internet Freedom in Africa (FIFAfrica) in Windhoek, Namibia. I have attended six of these Forums over the years, with my first being in 2017, when the event was held in Johannesburg, South Africa. I have also contributed to several editions of FIFAfrica’s flagship report, the State of Internet Freedom in Africa and thus through these activities, have been witness to CIPESA’s role in contributing to and shaping the continent’s digital policy conversations.

Each year, FIFAfrica provides a platform for governments, civil society, private sector actors, and researchers to reflect on emerging challenges and opportunities around digital rights and internet governance in Africa. Over time, the Forum has engaged with various themes which have mirrored global technological and policy shifts including internet shutdowns, data privacy and surveillance concerns, digital inclusion, disinformation and more recently, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI). This adaptability demonstrates how FIFAfrica continues to engage with the evolving digital ecosystem and the continent’s responses to emerging digital and internet governance shifts. Yet, beneath this progress lies a paradox: Africa keeps moving on with the latest trends in internet freedom and internet governance concerns, but the foundational problems remain unresolved. 

When FIFAfrica began over a decade ago, Africa’s internet freedom challenges were clear and urgent: limited access, prohibitive data costs, state surveillance, weak legal protections, and rampant censorship. Governments often justified internet restrictions in the name of “national security” or “public order”. The term “fake news” soon emerged as another pretext for silencing critics and regulating online speech. Fast forward to 2025, and while the vocabulary of digital repression has evolved, the logic remains the same. Several African states continue to shut down internet access, particularly during times of public protest and elections, with Ethiopia, Sudan, Senegal, Uganda, and most recently Tanzania being prominent examples. Across the continent, privacy and data protection laws exist on paper but are inconsistently enforced or manipulated to align with political interests.

In essence, Africa has not yet achieved the baseline of internet freedom that would allow citizens to safely express themselves, access information, and participate fully in digital spaces. Instead, the continent’s policy agenda has become increasingly aspirational, focused on AI ethics, big data, and digital transformation, while the fundamental guarantees of access, security, and expression remain precarious.

Moving on Without Fixing the Old

The evolution of FIFAfrica’s agenda, from internet shutdowns to AI governance and digital identity, is both natural and necessary and might signal thought leadership, but it can also obscure the persistence of unresolved injustices. Take, for example, personal data and identity systems, which were popular topics of discussion at FIFAfrica. Across Africa, governments have introduced biometric ID programmes to modernise administration and improve service delivery. Yet, these systems are deeply entangled with long-standing concerns, surveillance, exclusion, and control, issues that FIFAfrica has grappled with since its inception. The technology has changed, but the regulatory dynamics have remained the same.

Similarly, AI ethics and data governance frameworks are now fashionable discussion points. However, how meaningful are these debates in countries where citizens still lack affordable, reliable internet access or where independent journalists risk arrest for their online commentary? Can we genuinely talk about algorithmic bias when freedom of expression itself is under threat? The danger, then, lies in what might be called “thematic displacement”, which is the tendency to move on to emerging global trends without consolidating progress on foundational freedoms. This displacement risks turning digital rights discourse into a treadmill: always in motion but not moving forward.

The persistence of old internet freedom problems is not accidental. It reflects deeper structural continuities in African digital governance and political economy. States continue to see the internet as both a tool of modernisation and a threat to political interests. Digital technologies are embraced for economic growth, service delivery, and image-building, but their democratic potential remains tightly controlled. This is especially true of authoritarian states. This duality produces a familiar pattern: governments invest in connectivity infrastructure while simultaneously tightening control over civic engagement and digital expression. Regulatory authorities are strengthened, but often in ways that expand state power rather than protect citizens’ rights. Surveillance capacities grow, but transparency and accountability shrink. The internet, once hailed as a space of liberation, increasingly mirrors the offline hierarchies of control, privilege, and exclusion.

In this sense, the continuity of control outweighs the rhetoric of freedom. The instruments may change, from content filtering to biometric registration and AI-enabled surveillance, but the underlying power relations remain largely intact.

Towards a More Grounded Internet Freedom Agenda

As FIFAfrica continues to play a role in convening a diverse spectrum of stakeholders with vested interests in a progressive internet freedom landscape in Africa, perhaps the most urgent task is to reconnect Africa’s digital policy discourse to its unresolved foundations. The continent does not need to reject new topics like AI or digital identity, but rather to approach them through the lens of continuity, recognising how they reproduce or intensify older struggles for rights, accountability, and inclusion. An agenda for the next decade of internet freedom in Africa must therefore balance innovation with introspection. It must ask: Who still lacks meaningful access to the internet, and why? How are digital laws being weaponised against journalists and citizens? Who benefits from datafication and AI, and who is being left out or surveilled? How can the African Union and sub-regional bodies ensure genuine enforcement of digital rights commitments?

Africa’s journey with internet freedom mirrors its broader democratic trajectory, marked by aspiration, innovation, and resilience, yet haunted by persistent constraints. The Forum has provided a vital mirror to this journey, reflecting both progress and contradiction. But as the themes evolve, one truth endures: Africa cannot truly move forward without resolving its unfinished struggles for internet freedom. Until access becomes equitable, laws become just, and expression becomes truly free, the continent’s digital future will remain suspended between promise and paradox.

About the author:

Jimmy Kainja is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Malawi and a PhD candidate at the Wits Centre for Journalism, University of the Witwatersrand. He researches media and communications policy, journalism, digital rights, freedom of expression, and the intersection of telecommunications, democracy, and development.

07Nov

The Four Pillars Shaping The Trajectory of AI in Africa

Author CIPESA Posted on

By Juliet Nanfuka |

Mainstream narratives often frame Africa’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) rollout in Africa as a technological challenge. However, four key pillars are informing the trajectory of AI in Africa, and in so doing, are laying bare a chasm that influences the broader digital ecosystem, including access, development, civic participation, and digital democracy. These pillars are a country’s democratic credentials, economic gaps, legacy governance structures and fragmented regulation, and in-built influence in the design of AI that serves to exclude more than it serves to include users, particularly in Africa. 

According to the 2025 edition of the State of Internet Freedom in Africa report, political regimes and their associated democratic credentials have come to play a key role in the trajectory of AI in various African countries. Countries categorised as democratic, such as South Africa, Ghana, Namibia, and Senegal, have displayed the capacity to deploy AI aimed at improving governance, accountability, and accessibility. 

For example in South Africa, the South African Revenue Service (SARS) employs the Lwazi AI-powered assistant to streamline tax assessment processes, enhancing efficiency and reducing corruption.  In Kenya, the Sauti ya Bajeti (Voice of the Budget) platform uses AI to help citizens query and track public expenditure, empowering civic participation and fiscal accountability. Meanwhile, Ghana has been a standout innovator with Khaya, an open-source AI translator supporting local languages and easing communication barriers, as well as  DeafCanTalk, an app enabling real-time translation between sign language and spoken word. These apps have utilised AI to meet digital inclusion needs, and have  improved accessibility and communication within the country. 

In contrast, in more authoritarian regimes like Cameroon, Egypt, Ethiopia, and Rwanda, AI runs the risk of becoming another tool used by the state to entrench digital authoritarianism and restrict civic freedoms. These countries also rank as weak performers on the Freedom in the World Report, such as Cameroon, which scored 15 points, followed by Egypt (18), Ethiopia (18), and Rwanda (21), which rate as Not Free. Regarding internet freedom, a similar pattern emerges with Egypt scoring 28 points out of 100, followed by Ethiopia (27) and Rwanda (36), leading to a Not Free ranking.

Examples of the problematic use of AI include the case of Rwanda, where pro-government propagandists used Large Language Models (LLMs) to mass-produce synthetic online messages that mimic grassroots support while suppressing dissent. Although Rwanda has also introduced AI in judicial and border management systems, these technologies have dual-use potential which blur the line between governance and surveillance.

A second pillar that influences the trajectory of AI in African countries is economic and infrastructural inequality. Countries with stronger infrastructure, higher Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita, higher internet penetration levels, and better Human Development Index (HDI) scores have proven more likely to shape AI development. These include countries such as South Africa, Tunisia and Egypt. Countries with weaker digital infrastructure, limited data networks and high connectivity costs, face the risk of being left behind or becoming dependent on external technologies.

Africa still has a small share of global data centres and accounts for only 1% of global compute capacity, making it hard to train, fine-tune, or evaluate models locally and cheaply.

This power imbalance has resulted in a two-tier continent which is seeing parts of the continent progressively adopt, integrate AI and also benefit from AI infrastructure investment, while parts of the continent remain lagging and reliant on adopted systems that may not be responsive to their intended uses in different contexts. Albeit, the bulk of the continent remains a consumer of AI and largely dependent on external funding to build its AI infrastructure.

Examples of private sector entities making significant investments in the African AI industry include Microsoft and G42 which in 2024, launched a USD 1 billion initiative to develop a sustainable AI data centre in Kenya. In September 2025, Airtel commenced construction of its 44 MW sustainable data centre in Kenya, which is expected to be the largest in East Africa, once completed in 2027. Earlier this year, in March, Microsoft announced a USD 297 million investment to expand its cloud and AI systems in the country. Meanwhile, Google is also funding the South African Centre for Artificial Intelligence Research (CAIR) for infrastructure and expertise to strengthen local AI capacity.  In October 2025, Rwanda received a USD 17.5 million investment from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to establish the Rwanda AI Scaling Hub, an initiative designed to drive AI innovation across various sectors, including health, agriculture, and education.

A third pillar which also has direct consequences for democracy, is the fact that AI governance has an entrenched power imbalance which favours the state. In many countries, particularly those with weaker democratic credentials, civil society, media and private actors are often sidelined. The report notes that despite AI’s swift evolution, across 14 countries (Cameroon, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, Tunisia, Uganda, and Zimbabwe) studied, none have developed a comprehensive AI-specific legislation yet resulting in the reliance on existing and fragmented legal frameworks that do not adequately regulate or address complex AI concerns.

The leading countries have developed guidelines, AI policies and strategies, data protection laws, and applied sector legislation to AI governance. In contrast, the lagging countries generally lack this foundational framework, creating a vacuum which could heighten AI-driven risks in the absence of effective oversight. Rwanda was among the first countries to adopt a national AI policy in 2023.  Since then, various other countries, including Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, and Tunisia, have either launched national AI strategies or have been developing foundational policy frameworks over the last two years. 

However, in some instances, these policy processes, when they exist, often occur behind closed doors, without meaningful multi-stakeholder participation. In many instances, economic growth objectives dominate national AI strategies, while digital rights, transparency and accountability are sidelined. 

The fourth pillar pertains to AI as an instrument of inequality and social fracturing. The spread of deepfakes, AI-generated misinformation and algorithmic exclusion have become a real threat to political participation and access. This has played out on several occasions and is present in all countries despite their democratic credentials such as in the 2024 elections and protests in Kenya. In Namibia and South Africa, AI-driven campaigns are believed to have influenced perceptions of legitimacy and outcome.

For the myriad of languages that exist on the continent. Only a handful are factored in the machinery of AI. This has seen low-resource languages get lost in the digital ecosystem, content moderation is designed for Western norms as a result of the languages used in the training of AI, and many users in the continent do not have the savvy or skills to challenge these systems. This has resulted in an algorithmic second-class citizenship which is seeing AI bypass the needs of users in Africa, including the resources required to enable adequate civic engagement, transparency and accountability. 

Through these four pillars, the State of Internet Freedom in Africa 2025 highlights that AI design, deployment, and impact are ultimately reflections of the power structures that define it globally. This power imbalance plays out within the continent at the national level where decision making on AI’s trajectory remains largely confined.

The report calls for a human-centred AI governance in Africa, through deliberate and inclusive approaches. Find the full report here

03Nov

Can African Commission Resolution 580 Stem Rising Tide of Internet Shutdowns?

Author CIPESA Posted on

By Edrine Wanyama |

In March 2024, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights passed a resolution that calls on states to desist from shutting down the internet during elections. Yet, that same year registered a spiral in internet disruptions, and 2025 has similarly seen several countries disrupt digital networks. This begs the question: Can this resolution actually be leveraged to stem the tide of network disruptions on the continent?

The Resolution on Internet Shutdowns and Elections in Africa – ACHPR.Res.580 (LXXVIII) urges states to ensure unrestricted access to the internet before, during and after elections. This, it states, is in line with protecting freedom of expression and access to information, which are guaranteed by article 9 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Right. 

Last year, the number of internet disruptions in Africa rose to 21, up from 17 in 2023, according to figures by the KeepItOn coalition. In 2025, a number of countries holding elections have imposed disruptions, and shutdowns. Tanzania, Cameroon are the latest addition to electoral related disruptions while Sudan over examinations and Libya over public protests in the same year implemented internet disruptions. 

The Resolution among others calls for state parties’ compliance with the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Good Governance and other regional and international human rights instruments. It also calls for open and secure and while also sounds the call for telecommunications and internet service providers to inform users of potential disruptions and exercise due diligence to resolve any disruptions expeditiously.

Eight years ago, Resolution on the Right to Freedom of Information and Expression on the Internet in Africa – ACHPR/Res.362(LIX)2016 was passed which urged States Parties to not only respect but also to “take legislative and other measures to guarantee, respect and protect citizen’s right to freedom of information and expression through access to Internet services.”

However, to date, neither of these Resolutions appear to have an impact on the path that access to information nor freedom from internet shutdowns have taken in Africa. The spaces to exercise digital democracy remain shrinking as do the spaces for citizens to assert their rights for government transparency and accountability.

The latest mis-happenings have been recorded in the October 2025 election in  Cameroon which bore witness to  internet disruption.. Within the same month, Tanzania imposed internet disruptions similarly blocking access across the country. 

Conversely, these disruptions are implemented despite constant calls from civic actors from the local and international community on governments of Tanzania and Cameroon to desist from internet disruptions due to the associated dangers including erosion of public trust in the electoral process and undermining credibility of elections, cutting off expression, access to information and documentation of human rights violations. 

Trends by African governments in total disregard of the efforts and calls by the Commission lie squarely on often applied broad and ambiguously fronted justifications of managing disinformation and maintaining public order.

Internet shutdowns and disruptions are a tool for controlling or limiting electoral narratives, suppressing the gathering and flow of evidence and information by key actors such as journalists, citizens and election observers.

Electoral processes including voter turn-up, electoral malpractices, intimidation, human rights violation, and brutality of governments and their agencies often go hidden and unnoticed. Internet shutdowns and disruptions constitute a tool for demobilising opposition actors by curtailing coordination, vote counting and the opportunity to mobilise, assemble and associate. 

As other countries including Côte d’Ivoire, Central African Republic, Guinea-Bissau, Namibia, Guinea-Bissau, gear up for elections in the remainder of year, and in 2026 including Cape Verde, Benin, Republic of the Congo, Morocco, Gambia, Ethiopia, Djibouti, São Tomé and Principe, South Sudan, Uganda and Zambia, fears of mirroring actions are more intense than ever. 

Without clear punitive measures and enforcement mechanisms, the Commission’s resolutions continue to suffer impunity actions which potentially dominate curtailment of the democratic landscape that further exacerbate economic losses, cripple businesses, stifle innovation, and human rights violations. 

The continued undermining of the Resolutions that emerge from the Commission on democracy and an open internet during elections requires joint and collaborative actions by both the state and non-state actors to give them the legal effect they deserve. 

The Collaboration on International ICT Policy for East and Southern Africa (CIPESA) hence calls on stakeholders including:

  • Civil society organisations, human rights defenders, and legal practitioners to proactively pursue strategic litigation in both national and regional courts to secure strategies, actions and measures that push States parties into compliance with the regional human rights instruments.
  • The African Union political organs such as the peace and Security Council (AUPSC) and the election observation missions to adopt and integrate internet freedoms in the undertakings as a key security and governance tool. 
  • Establish legal harbours that protect telecommunications companies and internet service providers from the overreach powers of governments that often rely on overly broad laws to order internet shutdowns especially in election periods. 
30Oct

Tanzania’s Internet Disruption Undermines Electoral Integrity and Imperils Livelihoods

Author CIPESA Posted on

By CIPESA Staff | 

The ongoing internet disruption in Tanzania is gravely undermining the integrity of the country’s general elections and jeopardising livelihoods. With citizens unable to access credible and diverse information, the blackout not only erodes public trust but also risks intensifying ongoing demonstrations. It further prevents citizens, journalists, and civil society actors from documenting human rights violations committed by security agencies and other actors.

The Collaboration on International ICT Policy for East and Southern Africa (CIPESA) expresses solidarity with the people of Tanzania and joins the local and international community in urging the Government of Tanzania to immediately and fully restore internet access and to refrain from any form of network disruption.

CIPESA has joined numerous international organisations in calling on Tanzania’s Ministry of Communication and Information Technology to uphold digital rights and to keep the internet on before, during, and after the elections.

CIPESA also supports the #KeepItOn coalition which is a global network of more than 345 organisations across 106 countries working to end internet shutdowns in its appeal to President Dr. Samia Suluhu Hassan to publicly commit to ensuring that all people in Tanzania have unrestricted access to the internet, digital platforms, and communication channels throughout the electoral period.

In addition, CIPESA has joined the Net Rights Coalition, a network of internet freedom advocates working to share knowledge and combat digital rights threats, in calling on the Government of Tanzania to respect and promote digital rights.

These calls come against a backdrop of declining digital freedoms in Tanzania, marked by increasing restrictions on online expression, threats to media independence, and a shrinking civic space. Restoring full internet access is not only a democratic imperative. It is essential for protecting human rights, fostering transparency, and ensuring that citizens can freely participate in shaping their country’s future.

CIPESA’s efforts are in line with the principles of the African Declaration on Digital Freedom and Democracy that emphasises digital democracy as a cornerstone of open, inclusive, and rights-respecting societies.

24Oct

Why African Languages and Knowledge Systems Matter in Online Governance

Author CIPESA Posted on

By Juliet Nanfuka |

During a multistakeholder consultation held at the Forum on Internet Freedom in Africa (2025) that took place in Windhoek, Namibia, participants called attention to the urgent need to elevate African languages and indigenous knowledge systems within global internet governance. The consultation, hosted by UNESCO and the Collaboration on International ICT Policy for East and Southern Africa (CIPESA) highlighted the urgent need for the digital ecosystem to be more representative and responsive to the realities of African users. The consultation which comprised experts from academia, artificial intelligence (AI) experts, civil society and the media took place on September 26, 2025. One of the strongest concerns raised related to the ways in which big tech companies classify African languages. It was noted that current language identification models are often inaccurate, frequently misclassifying African language datasets which has often resulted in weak or unusable models and contributed to content moderation systems that are inadequately built to address the information disorder in African digital spaces.

Opening the session, John Okande, Programme Coordinator at UNESCO highlighted the UN International Decade of Indigenous Languages (2022-2032) which provides a global mandate to protect and promote linguistic diversity. He noted that this initiative aligns with the principles of UNESCO’s Guidelines for the Governance of Digital Platforms and the UN Global Principles on Information Integrity, which both call for multi-stakeholder action to ensure technology serves all communities equitably. Okande emphasised that these global frameworks “require deliberate adaptation to Africa’s unique linguistic and cultural contexts.” Various initiatives by UNESCO to promote multilingualism in cyberspace demonstrate the value of localised interventions that safeguard freedom of expression while building community resilience including. Among these is the Social Media for 4 Peace (SM4P) global initiative aimed at building societies’ resilience to online harmful content, disinformation and hate speech, while safeguarding freedom of expression and fostering peace through social media.

The consultation also laid bare how AI and Large Language Models (LLMs) can amplify harm. LLMs sometimes provide harmful or dangerous responses due to the data they are trained on being low-quality or biased. In many cases, outsourced data trainers lack supervision, and limited regulatory frameworks to ensure ethical or safe training processes.

Many LLMs lack basic safety guardrails for African languages in comparison to English where harmful queries are often flagged and blocked. This disparity is illustrative of the persisting data inequalities in the AI ecosystem.

Tajuddeen Gwadabe, Programs and MEL Lead at Masakhane African Languages Hub noted that while languages like Hausa have tens of millions of speakers, only one dialect, often the standardised, formal variant is what gets represented online. Entire linguistic communities, such as speakers of the Sokoto dialect, are rendered invisible in digital datasets.

Participants shared similar concerns as they noted that the broader online representations of African languages tend to reflect how language is used when written, and not how languages are spoken. They noted that code-mixing, slang, tonal nuance, gestures, and layered cultural meaning are nearly impossible for AI to capture without intentional investment.

“Despite African languages having a large number of speakers, digital spaces often only represent one variant or standardised dialect. For instance, in Hausa, only the standard writing from Kano is represented, while dialects from Sokoto “are hardly ever present.”

The consultation highlighted concerns in African intellectual infrastructure which serves as the basis for knowledge creation and dissemination including the facilitation of downstream productive activities, including information production, innovation, development of products, education, community building and interaction, democratic participation, socialisation, and many other socially valuable activities.

Dr. Phathiswa Magopeni, Executive Director of the South Africa Press Council, noted the urgent need to build African intellectual infrastructure alongside efforts to elevate African languages in the digital society. She highlighted the dominance of the English language including in African policy and regulatory documents across many countries and argued that this serves to protect English, but at the cost of indigenous languages.

She noted, “We are often willing to compromise the essence of our own languages in the belief that doing so will grant us access to spaces dominated by English. Meanwhile, the speakers of English continue to protect their language.” Dr. Magopeni emphasised that many African languages lack foundational datasets across academic, scientific, legal, and technical fields that are essential for the long-term strengthening of African intellectual infrastructure.

The consultation went on to raise various dynamics about the state of the current ecosystem including on the extent to which African identity gets lost online as Africans adjust their identity to suit the limitations of digital platforms. Further, there was debate on the extent to which platforms should be compelled to adapt to African contexts with consensus reached on that fact that political will is necessary to advance African languages in digital spaces. It was noted that without policymakers prioritising local languages including in Parliament, service delivery and publicly accessible data, there will be limited improvement.

Digital Rights research and political analyst Dércio Tsandzana illustrated the case of Mozambique noting that in Parliament, some members of parliament do not effectively participate all through their mandate due to their inability to speak Portuguese which is the national language. “If we don’t have politicians or policy makers that want to change first in their countries we will not see any change (by platforms).” Tsandzana noted.

Ultimately gaps in African languages online will continue to remain a sore point for disinformation and continent moderation due to the deep-seated issues concerning data quality, the nature of language use, and the limitations of AI technology.

The consensus from the consultation was that there is a need for more collaboration between stakeholders and an ecosystem-wide approach in African AI development. It was noted that universities, particularly African language departments, hold extensive expertise on standardised linguistic forms. Meanwhile, stakeholders such as governments which hold immense amounts of public data, through to community institutions such as local radio stations reflect how languages are used today all have a role to play in contributing to how African languages are integrated in AI. Thus, big tech companies need to work more cohesively with a broader spectrum of stakeholders.

Further, there was agreement in the urgency of populating the internet with more African content including  stories, proverbs, folklore, and history. As AI continues to learn using whatever data is available, African content must be present and accurate. Thus there is a need to invest in indigenous language content development, strengthen African intellectual infrastructure, and to also demand accountability from global platforms. These efforts require the development of practical and context-specific action plans for policymakers and tech platforms to realise African indigenous language and knowledge systems in the digital ecosystem.

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