UNESCO

2024 the Year of Democracy: African Electoral Authorities Release Guidelines for Social Media Use

By CIPESA Writer |

Over the last couple of years, digital and social media have come to play a central role in elections in Africa. That role has many bright sides, such as enabling swift voter education by electoral bodies, efficient campaigns by candidates, as well as monitoring and reporting malpractice. For the bigger part, in many African countries, the focus…

Social Media 4 Peace: An Initiative to Tackle the Quagmire Of Content Moderation

By Juliet Nanfuka|

Content moderation has emerged as a critical global concern in the digital age. In Africa, coinciding with increasing digital penetration and digitalisation, along with problematic platform responses to harmful content and retrogressive national legislation, the demand for robust and rights-respecting content moderation has reached a new level of urgency.

Online content platforms and governments are increasingly getting caught in…

Advancing Awareness of the UNESCO Internet Universality Assessments in Africa

By Juliet Nanfuka |

In 2015, the 38th General Conference of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) endorsed a new definition on the universality of the internet. It was based upon four principles, namely Rights, Openness, Accessibility to all and Multi-stakeholder participation, or the ROAM principles.

The addition of cross-cutting indicators in 2018 resulted in the ROAM-X Indicator framework…

CIPESA At the 2022 Internet Governance Forum

By CIPESA Writer |

The global internet governance community is set to convene in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, for the 17th Internet Governance Forum (IGF) from November 28-December 2, 2022. Ethiopia is hosting the IGF 2022 against a backdrop of internet freedom reforms, a recently liberalised telecommunications sector and an ongoing conflict that has seen the Tigray region without internet access…

Confronting the Challenges to Journalism in the Digital Age

By Edrine Wanayama |

Across the world, journalists face daily affronts physically and online for the work they do. Although the proliferation of technology has come with benefits for the practice of journalism, it has also adversely affected the media landscape to the extent that in some countries journalism has come under siege under the digital era.

Technology has served to enable…

African Countries Engage in Regional Dialogue Over Internet Universality Indicators Study

By UNESCO’s Writer |

On 16 March 2022, UNESCO, jointly with the Collaboration on International ICT Policy for East and Southern Africa (CIPESA) convened a regional dialogue on implementing Internet Universality ROAM-X Indicators (IUI) in Africa.

The event, supported by the  International Program for Development of Communication (IPDC) of UNESCO,  gathered a number of leading  national actors and experts who shared best…

#FIFAfrica21: Deliberating Europe-Africa Digital Rights Cooperation

FIFAfrica21 | 

As a supporter of the upcoming Forum on Internet Freedom in Africa 2021 (FIFAfrica21), the Slovenian Presidency of the Council of the European Union (EU) will seek to enhance digital rights cooperation between Africa and Europe.

Ambassador Tadej Rupel, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Slovenia, Presidency of the Council of European Union 2021, will be part of a keynote panel to kick off FIFAfrica21 on September…

Forum on Internet Freedom in Africa (FIFAfrica) Set to Kick Off in South Africa

Press Statement |

On September 27–29, 2017, the Forum on Internet Freedom in Africa 2017 (FIFAfrica17) will be held in Johannesburg, South Africa. The landmark event convenes various stakeholders from the internet governance and online rights arenas in Africa and beyond to deliberate on gaps, concerns and opportunities for advancing privacy, access to information, free expression, non-discrimination and the free flow…