Promoting Effective and Inclusive ICT Policy in Africa

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  HomeCollaboration on International ICT Policy for East and Southern Africa (CIPESA)  /  surveillance
29Dec

Sarah Kekeli Akunor

Author CIPESA Posted on

Who is Sarah Kekeli Akunor?

I am a young woman with visual impairment. I recently graduated from the University of Ghana with a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science and Philosophy. I am a member of the Mastercard Foundation’s Alumni Network Committee, serving as the lead for Inclusion, Gender, and Safeguard. I am also a Disability Inclusion Facilitator under the Mastercard Foundation’s ‘We Can Work’ programme. I also serve as an interim executive for the newly inaugurated Ghana Youth Federation, where I hold the position of Secretary for Gender Equality and Social Inclusion. I am a passionate advocate for disability rights and digital rights, and inclusion. I have a certificate in Disability Leadership in Internet Governance and Digital Rights from the Internet Society (ISOC).

Before I lost my sight, I had a very limited understanding of disability or its challenges. I have a genetic eye condition called Retinitis Pigmentosa, which was only diagnosed when I was 24 years old. I was born with the condition, but I could see with the help of glasses until the condition deteriorated through my teenage years and early twenties. After I lost my sight, I couldn’t read Braille, so I needed to learn how to use a computer. I noticed that leveraging technology made it possible for me to live a more fulfilling life. This served as a basis for my strong passion for advocating for digital rights, not just for myself, but for the countless persons with disabilities who are out there. Through my experience, I witnessed the transformative impact of Assistive Technology in the lives of persons with disabilities.

In Africa, there is inaccessibility everywhere. I noticed that persons with disabilities are left behind even in the digital space. I started by advocating in my own space, such as discussing disability inclusion with family and friends. I entered the digital space by volunteering at the Ghana Blind Union Assistive Technology lab and with Inclusive Tech Group. Now that I have a platform, my goal is to see the rights of persons with disabilities mainstreamed in all spaces, especially online, as online spaces have become increasingly central to how the world functions.

Across Africa, there are several innovators creating brilliant solutions for various categories of persons with disabilities. In Ghana, for example, a young innovator has developed an app called DeafCanTalk, which enables deaf people to communicate through sign language. The app converts the signs into written or spoken text for the other party to understand.

Other initiatives in Ghana, such as the “Disability Conclusion Hackathon”, organised by the Inclusive Tech Group, make it possible for young innovators without disabilities to co-design and co-create disability-relevant tech solutions together with their counterparts with disabilities. One organisation I belong to, The Phoenix Unity Club, is also championing the accessibility of apps and websites in Ghana by advocating strongly for the development of Ghana’s own ‘Web Content Accessibility Policy.’

In furtherance of these goals, I have held positive engagements with the authorities at the National Information Technology Agency and the Ghana Investment Fund for Electronic Communication. Across Africa, InABLE is doing great work promoting digital rights through its annual Inclusive Africa Conference. The Collaboration of ICT Policy for East and Southern Africa (CIPESA), with its Forum on Internet Freedom in Africa, the Internet Society, the Internet Governance Forum, and Paradigm Initiative, with its Digital Rights and Inclusion Forum (DRIF), are all actively promoting the realisation of digital rights for persons with disability across Africa.

The deployment of various apps, technologies, and AI platforms in Africa is definitely worth commending. However, there is a real risk of widening the digital divide if these technologies and AI platforms are not accessible to persons with disability, either because they are too expensive or poorly designed without consideration for accessibility needs. There are also real risks of data protection issues, particularly for persons with disabilities and those with little or no education.

To stay ahead of the curve, policymakers need to ensure that new technologies in Africa are only deployed for public use after they have been proven to be compliant with diverse accessibility needs. Again, innovators must be encouraged to co-create with persons with disabilities. And finally, data protection laws must be strengthened and strictly enforced.

There are several things that we should be doing. First, we need to make sure that we build meaningful collaborations and partnerships among all stakeholders across policy, civil society, digital rights activists, government, and persons with disabilities from different parts of Africa, and foster a spirit of true friendship and openness in discussing the common problems of access to assistive devices, online accessibility, data privacy breaches, etc., and develop solutions that are relevant to our local African context.

Secondly, it is important to promote co-creation and co-design of all innovations in Africa with persons with disabilities. Persons with disabilities, women, youth, and older persons must be involved in the innovation process right from the ideation stage. Once these innovations are complete, these groups of people must be consulted in testing the products before they are released to the market.

In addition, as digital rights advocates, we must not only make passionate arguments for inclusion but also insist that there is a business case for including persons with disabilities and other vulnerable groups in the development of new technologies. After all, there are countless funding and grant opportunities that make accessibility a non-negotiable requirement before these funds are granted. In short, disability inclusion is not a matter of charity but a long-term business strategy.

15Dec

Inform Africa Expands OSINT Training and DISARM-Based Research With CIPESA

Author CIPESA Posted on

ADRF |

Information integrity work is only as strong as the methods behind it. In Ethiopia’s fast-changing information environment, fact-checkers and researchers are expected to move quickly while maintaining accuracy, transparency, and ethical care. Inform Africa has expanded two practical capabilities to address this reality: advanced OSINT-based fact-checking training and structured disinformation research using the DISARM framework, in collaboration with the Collaboration on International ICT Policy for East and Southern Africa (CIPESA).

This work was advanced with support from the Africa Digital Rights Fund (ADRF), administered by CIPESA. At a time when many civic actors face uncertainty, the fund’s adaptable support helped Inform Africa sustain day-to-day operations and protect continuity, while still investing in verification and research methods designed to endure beyond a single project cycle.

The collaboration with CIPESA was not only administrative. It was anchored in shared priorities around digital rights, information integrity, and capacity building. Through structured coordination and learning exchange, CIPESA provided a partnership channel that strengthened the work’s clarity and relevance, and helped position the outputs as reusable methods that can be applied beyond a single team. The collaboration also reinforced a regional ecosystem approach: improving practice in one context while keeping the methods legible for peer learning, adaptation, and future joint work.

The implementation followed a phased timetable across the project activity period from April through November 2025. Early work focused on scoping and method design, aligning the training and research approaches with practical realities in newsrooms and civil society. Mid-phase work concentrated on developing the OSINT module and applying DISARM as a structured research lens, with iterative refinement as materials matured. The final phase focused on consolidation, documentation discipline, and packaging the outputs to support repeatable use, including onboarding, internal training, and incident review workflows.

A central focus has been an advanced OSINT training module built to move beyond tool familiarity into a complete verification workflow. Verification is treated as a chain of decisions that must be consistent and auditable: how to intake a claim, determine whether it is fact-checkable, plan the evidence, trace sources, verify images and videos, confirm the place and time, and document each step clearly enough for an editor or peer to reproduce the work. The aim is not only to reach accurate conclusions but also to show the route taken, including which evidence was prioritized and how uncertainty was handled.

This documentation discipline is not bureaucracy. It is a trust technology. In high-risk information environments, preserved sources, verification logs, and clear decision trails protect credibility, strengthen editorial oversight, and reduce avoidable errors. The module prioritizes hands-on, production-style assignments that mirror real newsroom constraints and trains participants to avoid overclaiming, communicate uncertainty responsibly, and present evidence in ways that non-expert audiences can follow.

In parallel, Inform Africa has applied the DISARM framework to disinformation research. DISARM provides a shared language for describing influence activity through observable behaviors and techniques, without drifting into assumptions. The priority has been to remain evidence-bound: collecting and preserving artifacts responsibly, maintaining a structured evidence log, reducing harm by avoiding unnecessary reproduction of inflammatory content, and avoiding claims of attribution beyond what the evidence supports. This DISARM-informed approach has improved internal briefs, strengthened consistency, and made incidents easier to compare over time and across partners.

Three lessons stand out from this work with CIPESA and ADRF. First, quality scales through workflow, not only through talent. Second, evidence discipline is a strategic choice that protects credibility and reduces harm in both fact-checking and research. Third, shared frameworks reduce friction by improving clarity and consistency across teams. Looking ahead, Inform Africa will integrate the OSINT module into routine training and onboarding and continue to apply DISARM-informed analysis in future incident reviews and deeper studies, reinforcing information integrity as a public good.

This article was first published by Informa Africa on December 15, 2025

01Dec

CIPESA @Africa BitCoin Conference

Author CIPESA Posted on

Update |

Every year, the event brings together activists, innovators, and decision-makers to explore how Bitcoin safeguards fundamental freedoms, strengthens economic autonomy, and paves the way for lasting sovereignty. The event is taking place between December 3-5, 2025, at Caudan Arts Centre, Port Louis, Mauritius.

Click here for information on the event.

18Nov

Uganda Data Governance Capacity Building Workshop

Author CIPESA Posted on

Event |

The AU-NEPAD and GIZ in collaboration with CIPESA are pleased to convene this three-day capacity-building and stakeholder engagement workshop to support the Government of Uganda in its data governance journey.

The three-day workshop will focus on providing insights into data governance and the transformative potential of data to drive equitable socio-economic development, empower citizens, safeguard collective interests, and protect digital rights in Uganda. This will include aspects on foundational infrastructure, data value creation and markets, legitimate and trustworthy data systems, data standards and categorisation, and data governance mechanisms.

Participants will critically evaluate regulatory approaches, institutional frameworks, and capacity-building strategies necessary to harnessing the power of data for socio-economic transformation and regional integration, in line with the African Union Data Policy Framework.

The workshop will take place from November 19th to 21st, 2025.

12Nov

Safeguarding African Democracies Against AI-Driven Disinformation

Author CIPESA Posted on

ADRF Impact Series |

As Africa’s digital ecosystems expand, so too do the threats to its democratic spaces. From deepfakes to synthetic media and AI-generated misinformation, electoral processes are increasingly vulnerable to technologically sophisticated manipulation. Against this backdrop, THRAETS, a civic-tech pro-democracy organisation, implemented the Africa Digital Rights Fund (ADRF)-supported project, “Safeguarding African Elections – Mitigating the Risk of AI-Generated Mis/Disinformation to Preserve Democracy.”

The initiative aimed to build digital resilience by equipping citizens, media practitioners, and civic actors with the knowledge and tools to detect and counter disinformation with a focus on that driven by artificial intelligence (AI) during elections across Africa.

At the heart of the project was a multi-pronged strategy to create sustainable solutions, built around three core pillars: public awareness, civic-tech innovation, and community engagement.

The project resulted in innovative civic-tech tools, each of which has the potential to address a unique facets of AI misinformation. These tools include the  Spot the Fakes which is a gamified, interactive quiz that trains users to differentiate between authentic and manipulated content. Designed for accessibility, it became a key entry point for public digital literacy, particularly among youth. Additionally, the foundation for an open-source AI tracking hub was also developed. The “Expose the AI” portal will offer free educational resources to help citizens evaluate digital content and understand the mechanics of generative AI.

A third tool, called “Community Fakes” which is a dynamic crowdsourcing platform for cataloguing and analysing AI-altered media, combined human intelligence and machine learning. Its goal is to support journalists, researchers, and fact-checkers in documenting regional AI disinformation. The inclusion of an API enables external organisations to access verified datasets which is a unique contribution to the study of AI and misinformation in the Global South. However, THRAETS notes that the effectiveness of public-facing tools such as Spot the Fakes and Community Fakes is limited by the wider digital literacy gaps in Africa.

Meanwhile, to demonstrate how disinformation intersects with politics and public discourse, THRAETS documented case studies that contextualised digital manipulation in real time. A standout example is the “Ruto Lies: A Digital Chronicle of Public Discontent”, which analysed over 5,000 tweets related to Kenya’s #RejectTheFinanceBill protests of 2024. The project revealed patterns in coordinated online narratives and disinformation tactics, achieving more than 100,000 impressions. This initiative provided a data-driven foundation for understanding digital mobilisation, narrative distortion, and civic resistance in the age of algorithmic influence.

THRAETS went beyond these tools and embarked upon a capacity building drive through which journalists, technologists, and civic leaders were trained in open-source intelligence (OSINT), fact-checking, and digital security.

In October 2024, Thraets partnered with eLab Research to conduct an intensive online training program for 10 Tunisian journalists ahead of their national elections. The sessions focused on equipping the participants with tools to identify and counter-tactics used to sway public opinion, such as detecting cheap fakes and deepfakes. Journalists were provided with hands-on experience through an engaging fake content identification quiz/game. The training provided journalists with the tools to identify and combat these threats, and this helped them prepare for election coverage, but also equipped them to protect democratic processes and maintain public trust in the long run.

This training served as a framework for a training that would take place in August 2025 as part of the Democracy Fellowship, a program funded by USAID and implemented by the African Institute for Investigative Journalism (AIIJ). This training aimed to enhance media capacity to leverage OSINT tools in their reporting.

The THRAETS project enhanced regional collaboration and strengthened local investigative capacity to expose and counter AI-driven manipulation. This project demonstrates the vital role of civic-tech innovation that integrates participation and informed design. As numerous African countries navigate elections, initiatives like THRAETS provide a roadmap for how digital tools can safeguard truth, participation, and democracy.

Find the full project insights report here.

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