The #Ouaga2018 Summit

Concept Note

Second Summit of the African League of Web Activists and Bloggers for Democracy

Theme

“Digital democracy in Africa: What mechanisms can foster collaboration between governments and civil society actors?”

Venue: Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso
Dates: 22–23 June 2018

Contents

• Second Summit of the African League of Web Activists and Bloggers for Democracy
• Second Summit of the African League of Web Activists and Bloggers for Democracy
• Context
• Starting situation
• Statement of the problem
• Overview of civic initiatives and digital democracy projects
• The Dakar Summit (November 2015)
• Outcomes of the Dakar Summit
• The Africa Media Cyber Security programme
• Local open-data initiatives led by Africtivistes after the 2015 Dakar Summit
• Open data in Africa: commitment of the AFRICTIVISTES network
• The Ouagadougou Summit (June 2018)
• Discussion topics
• Objectives
• Specific objectives
• Summit themes
• Expected results
• Launch of the Data.Africa platform
• DataSchool and DataCamp: activities and events to strengthen collaboration and local initiatives
• The organiser (AFRICTIVISTES)
• History of the AFRICTIVISTES network

Second Summit of the African League of Web Activists and Bloggers for Democracy

This pan-African gathering of changemakers aims to bring together youth-led online movements from across Africa so that they can reflect on their work, review their achievements to date and define their next steps.

Africtivistes wants to create a space for young people to share strategies and build bridges between activist movements and those responsible for governance. We also want to promote solidarity and joint action.

The gathering will lead to a shared programme for using our collective voice to influence regional institutions. It is important to align the vision of youth-led movements around the African cause and combine our efforts to develop appropriate, practical solutions to the problems standing in the way of Africa’s development and unity. This means influencing decision-making at regional level.

This second gathering of African web activists also takes a co-creative approach, encouraging collaboration and the pooling of resources between democracy activists and political actors. It aims to bridge the gap between those who govern and the people of the continent.

Following the first AFRICTIVISTES Summit in Dakar in November 2015, Africtivistes will meet in June 2018 in Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso.

Over three days, web activists, bloggers and digital citizens from across the continent will meet to discuss:

1. E-engagement and participatory democracy;
2. Digital democracy and new relationships between citizens and politicians;
3. Co-creation; and
4. Civic tech in Africa: tools for transforming political engagement.

A significant part of the programme will focus on how open data can contribute to better governance.

For one week, Ouagadougou will become the capital of civic engagement and digital democracy. The choice of Burkina Faso’s capital reflects the central role web activists have played in the country’s events, both positive and difficult, over the past four years. Ouagadougou was also due to host the 2015 summit.

The theme of the 2018 Ouagadougou edition is: “Digital democracy in Africa: What mechanisms can foster collaboration between governments and civil society actors?”

Digital democracy is not easy to define, just as democracy itself is an unfinished process that is constantly evolving.

For us, democracy consists of a range of practices, structures, institutions and civic actions. It is a form of organisation involving many elements, and it is the sum of these elements that we mean by democracy. It is therefore unsurprising that digital democracy has many definitions.

There is no single definition of digital democracy in the literature. It sits at the intersection of citizenship, participation, transparency, accountability, governance, e-government, civil society, and the public and private spheres.

For some, the term refers to using digital tools to provide information and promote transparency. For others, it describes how information and communication technologies (ICTs) can broaden and deepen civic participation. Others use it to describe empowering citizens to make decisions directly through online tools. We will use a simple, one-sentence definition of digital democracy: “the practice of democracy through the use of digital tools and technologies”.

Digital democracy aims to give citizens access to information and enable them to interact with government. Examples include online public consultations — in June 2013, Senegal’s National Commission for Institutional Reform launched a large-scale public consultation to gather “views and suggestions on the changes to be made to the Constitution” — and making administrative services available online. Zambia, for example, digitised its visa application process through an online e-visa application.

Digital democracy creates a more participatory role for citizens. It offers a new way for government officials and citizens to work together on how communities are governed and to monitor and manage public policy.

Moreover, people use the term in different ways, referring to different models of democracy — representative, participatory (deliberative or collaborative), or direct.

With the exception of the “Big Five” — Mauritius, Tunisia, South Africa, Morocco and Seychelles — the rest of the African continent ranks near the bottom of the table of countries that have adopted e-government. This is another reason why the theme is relevant to the second Africtivistes Summit. How can we help our countries integrate digital tools into democratic processes? How can digital technologies make government more open, accessible and transparent? What mechanisms can citizens use to raise concerns and sound the alarm? How can we create a space for dialogue between those who govern and those who are governed?

More recently, the concept of “open government” has created new ways for citizens and governments to interact. This has helped improve outcomes through access to information, greater transparency and access to institutional data.

Digital democracy can improve public services by making public administration more efficient and effective, and substantially reducing management and service costs. Integrating ICTs into administrative processes has a direct impact on making democracy more effective and participatory.

We are aware that the more citizens understand their role and rights, the stronger democracy becomes. Africa needs a responsible, mature population that understands its civic responsibilities.

The 2018 Ouagadougou Summit will be an opportunity to review experiences of civic engagement and digital solutions that can help our countries build and consolidate democracy. It will also create a space for dialogue and exchange, encouraging authorities to listen to activists and citizens to embrace responsible activism. With nearly 200 participants from civil society organisations, non-governmental organisations, politics and government, Ouagadougou 2018 will provide a forum for discussion, exchange and proposals to advance Africtivistes’ objectives.

On the first day, the summit will set the scene by hearing from a range of stakeholders on the state of digital democracy in Africa: myth, unspoken ambition, or fear of citizens taking power? Political actors will then discuss new forms of collaboration with citizens.

The second day will be devoted to working sessions and workshops. Topics will include democracy, anti-corruption and e-activism; the importance of opening and reusing public data; the need for a legal framework guaranteeing access to information and civic oversight of public policy; and the role and involvement of regional and sub-regional institutions.

The third day will be an opportunity to report back on the group work completed in the workshops. Given the importance of the issues facing young people across the continent in 2016 and 2017, a United Youth Manifesto will be published at the end of the summit. The manifesto will: 1) set out action plans to address young people’s concerns; 2) urge governments to commit to respecting established freedoms; and 3) emphasise the role and importance of young people and all citizens in democratic processes and civic participation.

Context

Over the past fifteen years, new forms of youth-led civic movements have emerged across Africa. They are driven above all by younger generations’ desire to protect constitutional gains and individual freedoms and rights, contribute to sustainable development based on their communities’ needs, and fight corruption. These generations are eager to explore new models of politics and governance.

Authorities have often responded to young people organising across the continent with state-backed violence and repression. Young people do not always receive full support from traditional civil society either. The African Youth Charter states that “every young person shall have the right to express and disseminate his or her ideas and opinions, subject to the restrictions prescribed by law”. Yet the African Union Commission remains silent when states retaliate against youth movements in Africa.

Civic space is shrinking steadily. Traditional civil society seems unable to adapt to new government strategies for silencing dissent, avoiding public scrutiny or circumventing the Constitution to remain in power. Today’s youth movements respond to gaps left by civil society’s absence from some debates on democracy and governance. The landscape has changed: youth movements are now watchdogs. They monitor, criticise and sometimes propose solutions, using messages that are more accessible to the public. Technology has become a popular tool that helps these movements reach one another. They take different approaches to their countries’ constitutions and assert their freedoms, including the right to protest peacefully, freedom of expression and freedom of assembly.

Enhanced citizenship has given rise to a new kind of active and proactive citizen. These newly engaged citizens often participate actively beyond election periods. Some contribute to their country’s development and solve problems facing young people in their communities.

A wave of civic participation in monitoring and shaping public policy is now sweeping across African countries. To respond to the need for a platform that promotes respect for citizens’ rights and the restoration and protection of democracy in African countries, the League of Cyber Activists for Democracy (Africtivistes) was launched in November 2015. The organisation brings together engaged Africans on the continent and in the diaspora to address challenges related to democratisation, governance and freedoms. It aims to act as a bridge through country representatives and partner youth organisations working on democracy issues. The idea is to provide a forum for communication at national and continental levels and across the diaspora.

The African Union declared 2018 the year of anti-corruption under the theme “Winning the Fight Against Corruption: A Sustainable Path to Africa’s Transformation”. This initiative offers youth-led movements an opportunity to speak about transparency and the fight against corruption, raise concerns about the lack of attention paid to young people’s views, and propose ways to tackle this scourge through digital democracy. In 2017, the African Union emphasised the need to invest in young people and accelerate their empowerment to realise the demographic dividend. The previous year, in 2016, the African Union focused on human rights. These themes are closely connected, and none can be achieved without the others.

The fight against corruption in Africa depends first and foremost on respecting citizens’ right to benefit from good governance. This requires greater transparency and accountability in the management of public funds, as well as regular reporting to the appropriate institutions. This will help African states prevent the loss of resources. Those resources can then be reinvested in policies and programmes that help them realise the demographic dividend to which they aspire.

The summit is therefore an opportunity for youth-led movements to take an active part in their countries’ development through work that goes beyond voting during elections.

Starting situation

After the optimism of independence and the Cold War era — with its patchwork of one-party states and authoritarian regimes punctuated by successive coups — Africa entered a period of democratic pluralism.

This transition has not been smooth. Election periods often bring sudden increases in tension, and Heads of State do not always resist the temptation to manipulate constitutions in order to remain in power.

Two examples illustrate the situation:

• 3,248 people died during Côte d’Ivoire’s 2010 post-election crisis.
• 44 people were killed and 625 injured during the two days of uprising on 30 and 31 October 2014, which led to the fall of President Blaise Compaoré, who had been in power for 27 years.

In countries where people under 25 make up nearly 50% of the population and represent the future, public authorities are trying to secure democratic transitions while addressing the challenges of human and economic development.

In an increasingly connected world, Africa too has entered the information, relationship and conversation society. For the younger generation, social media, online media and digital applications have become tools for communication and civic action.

The spread of internet access, mainly through mobile devices, is transforming relationships between Africans and their public administrations. Technology is changing how societies function and how people communicate in private and public spaces. It is therefore changing how politics is conducted and how countries are governed. Relationships between those in power and citizens are evolving.

“Citizen internet” has gone through several phases of development in sub-Saharan Africa over the past ten years.

This context offers a historic opportunity to make young people part of the solution to the continent’s challenges, rather than an additional problem. Alongside the “open data” and “open government” movements, “civic tech” offers an opportunity to renew dialogue within societies and rebuild relationships eroded by mutual distrust between citizens and politicians, and between public administrations and civil society organisations.

More fluid exchanges, greater participation in decision-making and stronger collaboration in developing shared rules all align with the imperatives of economic development. The aim is to create a virtuous circle that gives young people a place in decision-making and in shaping the future, while establishing the conditions for economic development that can help them escape the hardship of unemployment, which generates anger and frustration.

Several countries have already demonstrated what can be achieved when mobilised young people make informed use of digital tools:

• In 2008, during the post-election crisis, young Kenyans created the Ushahidi web application, which enabled people living near conflict zones to identify “dangerous places”. The application has since been used around the world.
• From 2010 to 2011, Tunisians experienced an unprecedented revolution in their political history. Led by young people, it resulted in the departure of President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, who had been in office since 1987.
• In 2010, Ivorians launched the hashtags #CIV2010 and #CIVSOCIAL, two civic initiatives created by young people to address the challenges of the election period and the crisis that followed the announcement of the results.
• In 2012, Senegalese bloggers used a new digital monitoring and election-observation system, SUNU2012, to cover the election for the first time, helping to prevent fraud and, to a lesser extent, an electoral crisis.
• In 2012, young Ghanaians launched GhanaDecides, an initiative to promote citizen participation in electoral processes.

From 2012 to 2015, Africa saw several other civic initiatives: Vote229 in Benin, GuinéeVote in Guinea, Mackymètre in Senegal, Buharimètre in Nigeria, Présimètre in Burkina Faso, Talonmètre in Benin and, more recently, Africtivistes — the African League of Web Activists for Democracy — at continental level.

All these initiatives revolve around the same keywords: young people, engagement, citizenship, digital tools, good governance, participatory democracy and accountability. Young people therefore have a crucial role to play in social change, not only in the future as adults, but also right now as active citizens who develop, implement or contribute to individual and collective action.

Success in this area depends in particular on young civic actors having the right training and skills. It also depends on their ability to build local, sub-regional and international partnerships so that they can work as effectively as possible and achieve lasting impact. This programme aims to address these challenges.

Statement of the problem

In this context, it is important to help develop the emerging civic tech sector in Africa. Civic tech can be defined as the use of technology to strengthen democratic ties between citizens and government. It includes any technology that increases citizens’ influence over political life — in the original sense of life in the city — or makes government more accessible, efficient and effective.

These pioneers do not belong to any one sector. They may be journalists, engineers, architects, web developers, geographers, activists, marketing specialists and others. In general, they have a good initial education and have developed their basic digital skills independently. They want to engage in public life, locally or nationally. Rather than joining traditional political parties, which they tend to distrust, they prefer direct action focused on a particular place and period, with immediately measurable results.

These engaged young citizens now have access to digital tools and unprecedented potential to mobilise the communities they serve. However, they face multiple obstacles:

• A lack of project-management training, which prevents good ideas from being realised and wastes the energy invested by young people;
• A lack of attention from public administrations and authorities, despite the potential for mutually beneficial cooperation;
• Difficulty accessing public data;
• A lack of interest from local media; and
• A shortage of technical and financial resources to develop their ideas.

Overview of civic initiatives and digital democracy projects

In March 2015 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), authorities disrupted a press conference launching a joint initiative, Filimbi, which includes the Struggle for Change (LUCHA) and aims to educate young people about democratic and governance processes. Many of the activists present were arrested; most were released in the following days. Fred Bauma and Yves Makwambala were released at the end of August 2016, after being held for more than a year awaiting trial. Their trial is still pending.

LUCHA protested delays to the 2016 elections and called for the constitutional limit on presidential terms to be respected. These activities led to increased state repression of the movement. LUCHA activists are regularly arrested when they organise peaceful public protests.

Since February 2016, at least nine members of the movement have been imprisoned in the DRC. Six received a presidential pardon one month before the end of their sentence, which was reduced to six months in prison. LUCHA was founded in 2012 to address social challenges facing residents of Goma, the capital of North Kivu. The movement gradually attracted local, national, regional and international attention through members’ courageous, peaceful protests for access to safe drinking water in Goma. It also called on UN forces and the Congolese army to protect civilians in Beni, North Kivu.

Y’en A Marre was founded in Senegal in 2011 to protest against President Abdoulaye Wade’s ineffective policies, which had failed to reduce youth unemployment, corruption and frequent power cuts. The protests also addressed the President’s failure to keep his election promises and his intention to seek a third term. The group took a bold position, organising community meetings and press conferences to call for a vote against President Wade in the 2012 election. Since then, Y’en A Marre has established itself as an influential voice expressing public concerns and criticism of ineffective government policies.

Founded in 2013, Balai Citoyen began mobilising people locally to encourage responsible citizenship through clean-up and awareness-raising activities. These actions helped strengthen civic engagement. In 2015, its members took to the streets to express the Burkinabè people’s frustration with President Blaise Compaoré’s attempt to remain in power beyond the constitutional term limit. The pressure led to the President’s resignation.

In Ethiopia in 2012, young bloggers created the Zone 9 platform to express their frustration with government repression of the independent press and civic space.

In Angola, 17 young pro-democracy activists were convicted for questioning government policies on corruption and expressing hope for alternative governance in the country.

In North Africa, the Arab Spring movements were created and led by young people committed to justice and respect for human rights in their countries. Youth pressure calling for individual freedoms and democracy helped overthrow the regimes of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt and Ben Ali in Tunisia.

The Dakar Summit (November 2015)

Summit of the Pan-African Cyber-Activists for Democracy — 26–28 November 2015, Dakar, Senegal
Photo: Pamphile Oudiane – Amath Niane

A summit was held in Dakar, Senegal, from 27 to 28 November 2015 to officially launch AFRICTIVISTES. This founding summit was held under the theme: “Africa: a generation of young people committed and determined to safeguard and build democracy”.

What were the objectives of the gathering?

The main objectives were:

• Strengthen young people’s capacity to take on leadership roles;
• Encourage active participation in key democratisation events, particularly electoral processes;
• Build a shared understanding of the organisation; and
• Develop an action plan with common priorities, while allowing for differences between countries.

The gathering brought together 150 activists from 35 countries. It gave youth leadership and active participation a continental dimension. The two days were devoted to explaining Africtivistes’ context and objectives and aligning the format of Africtivistes campaigns so that they could communicate clear democratic messages effectively on behalf of young people. Particular emphasis was placed on the role and importance of young people and all citizens in democratisation and participatory citizenship across the continent.

Participants were also trained to use key tools to protect themselves and secure their online communications. Today, Africtivistes is a pan-African network active in 40 countries on the continent, with 200 members.

Our values as AFRICTIVISTES

Africtivistes are united by the following values:

• We pledge to conduct all our activities within the law.
• We are committed to upholding democracy in our countries and across Africa through participatory citizenship.
• We renew our commitment to non-partisan civic engagement.
• We are committed to safeguarding democratic and electoral processes.
• We are committed to supporting movements and initiatives for participatory democracy.
• We reaffirm our commitment to promoting good governance, strengthening African solidarity and defending human rights.

Outcomes of the Dakar Summit

The Africa Media Cyber Security programme

AFRIQUE MÉDIA CYBERSÉCURITÉ is a theoretical and practical internet security training programme dedicated to our late friend Anna Gueye. It is intended for professional journalists and civil society media actors — bloggers, citizen journalists, cyber-activists and others — from ten countries in West Africa.

The programme will train 500 media professionals and civil society actors in cyber security.

What are the objectives?

The training seminars aim to equip journalists, web activists and social media users with digital security skills and appropriate technologies for circumventing censorship. By the end, participants will have the tools and knowledge they need to work safely, communicate securely, reduce the risks of infiltration and hacking, and bypass internet censorship and surveillance technologies.

After the seminars, the 500 participants will join the AFRIQUE MÉDIA CYBERSÉCURITÉ online community, a space for sharing good practice and providing mutual support among French- and English-speaking media actors in West Africa. They will also receive regular updates on anti-censorship technologies introduced during the training.

How many sessions have taken place so far?

The programme launched in July 2017 and runs from 17 July 2017 to 17 April 2018. The first session, which marked the start of the programme, took place in Guinea during the week of 17–22 July 2017. It brought together 50 motivated participants selected from 118 applicants. After Guinea, the programme moved to Mauritania, Senegal, Niger and The Gambia. In January 2018, it reached Burkina Faso, where it trained 25 civil society media actors and 25 professional journalists.

How many people have participated so far?

The first phase, delivered in six countries — Guinea, Senegal, Mauritania, The Gambia, Niger and Burkina Faso — has trained more than 250 people. In every country, many people want to take part, so we often have to select participants from among the applicants. This shows the strong interest the programme has generated.

For this first edition, ten theoretical and practical training seminars are being organised, each with 50 participants. Each session consists of two groups of 25 and lasts six days.

The sessions will be held in the French-speaking countries of West Africa and in The Gambia:

1. Senegal
2. Benin
3. Côte d’Ivoire
4. Guinea
5. Togo
6. Mali
7. Mauritania
8. Niger
9. Burkina Faso
10. The Gambia

Guinea-Bissau will also be covered.

B. Local open-data initiatives led by Africtivistes after the 2015 Dakar Summit

Guinea: The Guinean Bloggers Association (ABLOGUI) developed the LAHIDI platform by collecting election promises and turning them into a tool for monitoring and assessing how well Presidents and governments deliver on their governance programmes.

The network then supported the Guinean government and civil society in the country’s accession to the Open Government Partnership and its efforts to meet the partnership’s objectives. It also plans several other capacity-building activities to improve civil society actors’ data literacy.

Fodé Sanikayi Kouyaté, President of ABLOGUI, took part in CFI’s Open Data Media projects 1 and 2, which aim to train a network of African data activists.

Benin: Maurice Thantane, President of the Bloggers Association of Benin and a member of Africtivistes, is a data journalist and participant in CFI’s Open Data Media project.

Senegal: Through its “Sénégal Ouvert” project, the Open Knowledge Senegal community was one of Senegal’s first open-data initiatives. Its coordinator, Mamadou Diagne, a member of Senegal’s open-data community and the AFRICTIVISTES network, is part of the proposed coordination team for this work. This community, which includes AFRICTIVISTES members, aims to:

• Promote freedom of access, and the creation and sharing of knowledge;
• Develop, support and promote projects, communities and tools that encourage and facilitate the creation, access to and sharing of knowledge; and
• Campaign against legal and non-legal restrictions on the creation, access to and sharing of knowledge.

Côte d’Ivoire: Some of the country’s first open-data and data-use advocates launched the OVillage third-place project. Cyriac Gbogou and Florent Youzan, founders of this well-known community space and both active AFRICTIVISTES members, will be key contacts and contributors in supporting ideas and innovation. Since Côte d’Ivoire joined the Open Government Partnership (OGP) on 28 October 2015 at the Global Summit of the Open Government Partnership in Mexico, initiatives to improve access to and openness of data have multiplied.

C. Open data in Africa: commitment of the AFRICTIVISTES network

AFRICTIVISTES has become one of the continent’s most influential and representative networks of web activists. In member countries, Africtivistes work both on the ground and online to promote transparency, participatory democracy and accountability. Open data has become an essential tool for civic oversight of public policy, governance reform and the development of new digital services for the public good.

At this second summit, an African open-data initiative will be officially launched. The Data.Africa project and its capacity-building component, Data School, will be developed alongside the summit and formally launched during its proceedings, in the presence of government and international institution representatives.

The Ouagadougou Summit (June 2018)

The Africtivistes network is a counterweight to those in power, but it is also a source of proposals to help our governments and defend the aspirations of young Africans. The Ouagadougou Summit, under the theme “Digital democracy in Africa: What mechanisms can foster collaboration between governments and civil society actors?”, will showcase the many civic initiatives that contribute to effective public policy and encourage governments to collaborate and co-create. It will place particular emphasis on the role and interest of different stakeholders in working together to address shared challenges.

The summit will also be a space for advocacy in favour of more open, transparent and accountable governance in Africa. It will invite and encourage citizens to reuse public data to innovate and strengthen their ability to monitor and propose change.

Discussion topics

• Youth-led movements in Africa: how do we define ourselves?
• In 2010, young Ivorian bloggers launched #CIV2010 to promote civic monitoring and provide support during the post-election period, which was marked by civil war.
• Youth-led movements and the Arab Spring: what motivates our engagement? What have we achieved? What changed the course of events? What are the strengths and weaknesses of youth-led movements today? Is the youth agenda a priority for new leaders?
• The crisis in Burkina Faso and the role of youth mobilisation in the overthrow of President Blaise Compaoré: lessons learned and the current situation, including the role and agenda for young people.
• The role of Y’en A Marre in protecting the Constitution and advocating alternative development policies; the youth agenda under Macky Sall’s administration.
• LUCHA and Filimbi: youth-led movements in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the 2016 constitutional crisis ahead of the election period. Why is LUCHA engaged? What are its expectations, and how do other youth groups in the country view its work?
• Youth movements [students?] in South Africa and the campaign for equal access to higher education. What is the ANC/EFF/DA agenda for young people?
• Constitutional crises in Africa: leaders circumvent constitutions to stay in power. What motivates them to remain in office? What effective means can ensure a peaceful change of government?
• Government and traditional civil society responses to young people organising and protesting.
• The African Union’s and regional organisations’ inaction on issues affecting young people in Africa.
• What laws are in force? Security training is planned, including training on internet use, online security and anonymity.
• Democracy and cyber-activism: the importance of the internet and existing internet laws in Africa.
• The importance of open data for developing public-interest services and enabling civic oversight of public policy.
• How and why can activists take part in the fight against corruption?
• What does the African Year of Anti-Corruption mean for youth-led movements?
• Whistle-blowers: a new African force for transparency and good governance, or a myth about a new form of journalism in Africa?
• NGOs and international institutions: what projects can strengthen democracy in Africa?

Objectives

Create a space for interaction and collaboration between governments, continental institutions and African youth-led movements.

Specific objectives

• Create a space for youth-led movements to share experiences of activism and the motivations behind their engagement. It will also help identify shared interests for joint initiatives.
• Build a coordinated network of cyber-activists and other young activists working to protect democracy and the rule of law, strengthening solidarity and peer support among youth-led movements.
• Map and create a directory of open initiatives and open-data projects in Africa.
• Draft and adopt a strategy for collaboration with governments, the African Union Commission and other regional bodies.

Summit themes

• Civic participation and engagement;
• Education;
• Information and access to public data;
• Participatory governance;
• Whistle-blowing; and
• The fight against corruption and human rights violations.

Expected results

• Stronger solidarity among youth-led movements through mutual campaign support and joint action in individual cases;
• A coordinated African youth activism network;
• Members of youth-led movements equipped to secure their online communications and protect their data;
• Communication tools and strategies defined for African youth activism;
• The Data.Africa platform designed and deployed;
• A strategy for collaboration between activists, governments, the African Union and other regional bodies;
• A United Youth Manifesto drafted; and
• The Data.Africa platform launched.

Launch of the Data.Africa platform

Several local, civic and institutional initiatives to promote and open up data have been launched in French-speaking African countries. Without a single platform or directory, it is often difficult to learn about dedicated websites and activities that have been completed or are under way. A lack of targeted communication also limits the use of datasets by local media and other intended audiences.

We propose creating an African platform called www.data.africa to document all existing initiatives and projects. It will also aggregate the latest content published through national projects. The platform will serve as a database and, above all, as an effective way to communicate about projects led by members and other stakeholders in the community.

DataSchool and DataCamp: activities and events to strengthen collaboration and local initiatives

AFRICTIVISTES plans to divide the French-speaking countries into two zones for organising activities and events as part of this project. The zones reflect the countries’ relative proximity to one another:

• Zone A: Niger, Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, Mali, Senegal, Togo and Mauritania.
• Zone B: Gabon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Republic of the Congo, the Central African Republic, Cameroon and Chad.

DataSchool Libreville (Zone B) — Central Africa

DataSchools are training and introductory events on open data. They provide opportunities to share experience and, above all, equip local stakeholders to understand the issues, produce open data and integrate it into their work.

DataCamp Niger (Zone A) — West Africa

DataCamp focuses on the challenges of collecting, producing and using data. It is an opportunity to bring the Africtivistes community together in a country where data issues have not yet been widely raised. This is why Niger was selected: it is one of the few West African countries where civic initiatives are almost non-existent. There is little engagement or involvement, and few projects concerning data. DataCamp is intended to be a space for training and production. The session will culminate in the launch of an open-data web portal, with the participation of the local community. It will also be an opportunity to establish the first local open-data network.

DataSchool in Libreville and DataCamp in Niamey will be held during the first quarter of the project.

In addition to these two regional activities, national events will be organised in each participating country. There will be one in-person, one-day event per quarter, making four events per country. The AFRICTIVISTES country focal points will coordinate these quarterly meetings.

The organiser (AFRICTIVISTES)

The African League of Bloggers and Cyber-Activists for Democracy, commonly known as AFRICTIVISTES, is a Senegalese-law association with an African reach. It is registered under No. 17857/MINTSP/DGAT/DLP/DLA-PA in Dakar, where its headquarters are located. Africtivistes brings together bloggers and web activists from across the continent to promote and defend democratic values, human rights and good governance through digital technology.

AFRICTIVISTES was founded in November 2015 to connect changemakers across Africa and develop practical, appropriate solutions to the major challenges holding back the continent’s development and unity.

As a dynamic organisation spanning African countries, AFRICTIVISTES focuses on consolidating democracy, both within individual countries and, above all, across the continent. By this, we mean any action that advances genuine and participatory democracy, cyber-democracy, e-governance and the effective entrenchment of democratic culture in our countries.

AFRICTIVISTES is a guardian of democracy across Africa. The organisation is committed to intervening directly or advocating for other actors to become involved in political and social change. It leads projects that promote development and civic participation in democratic processes. It also develops strategies to monitor political leaders and track their actions and delivery on promises, in order to encourage transparency and good governance. AFRICTIVISTES is a showcase for enhanced citizenship in Africa.

AFRICTIVISTES’ main areas of work are:

• Participatory democracy;
• Good governance;
• Transparency, particularly open data;
• The fight against corruption;
• A culture of peace; and
• Cyber security.

Our values as AFRICTIVISTES

Africtivistes are united by the following values:

• We pledge to conduct all our activities within the law.
• We are committed to upholding democracy in our countries and across Africa through participatory citizenship.
• We renew our commitment to non-partisan civic engagement.
• We are committed to safeguarding democratic and electoral processes.
• We are committed to supporting movements and initiatives for participatory democracy.
• We reaffirm our commitment to promoting good governance, strengthening African solidarity and defending human rights.

History of the AFRICTIVISTES network

The creation of social movements in Africa in response to human rights violations, the growth of participatory citizenship and civic engagement, and the spontaneous online solidarity of young Africans all contributed to the creation of a pan-African network: a new generation of African citizens committed to socio-democratic change. Across the continent, citizens have initiated, funded and carried out many civic actions.

In 2008, young Kenyans created a web application called Ushahidi during the post-election crisis. It enabled people living near conflict zones to identify “dangerous places”. The application has since been used around the world.

In 2010, young Ivorians launched #CIV2010 and #CIVSOCIAL, two hashtags linked to civic initiatives addressing the challenges of the election period and the post-election crisis.

In 2012, Senegalese bloggers used #SUNU2012 to monitor the entire electoral process with a new digital system for election observation, helping to prevent fraud and, to a lesser extent, a post-election crisis. This electronic observation was a breakthrough for civic participation in Africa.

The only tool available to young people was the mobile phone. Their plan was to photograph the results forms at each counting centre, while an app reported results in real time, informing the public ahead of journalists.

In 2012, young Ghanaians launched #GhanaDecides, an initiative to promote citizen participation in electoral processes.

From 2012 to 2016, Africa saw several other civic initiatives: electronic election observation through #Vote229 in Benin and #GuinéeVote in Guinea; and monitoring the fulfilment of election promises through Mackimètre in Senegal, Buharimètre in Nigeria, Présimètre in Burkina Faso, Lahidi in Guinea and Talonmètre in Benin. All these projects, except Mackimètre and Buharimètre, were led by members of the AFRICTIVISTES network.

We have observed that elections often trigger crises in Africa. Incumbent parties seek to cling to power, while opposition parties tend to reject election results. In some countries, activists, bloggers, whistle-blowers and sources are viewed by these parties as the new “enemies of the state”.

The involvement of this new kind of citizen — a guardian of democracy — in elections, public administration and demands for accountability strengthens the idea of young Africans taking control of their own future.

Beyond transparency, good governance and accountability, AFRICTIVISTES also carries out advocacy and supports communities, with many of these efforts bearing fruit. These include:

• #FreeMakaila, which prevented Senegalese authorities from extraditing journalist Makaila Nguebla to Chad and expelling him to Guinea. The community mobilised to welcome him there before he was granted asylum in France.
• #GiveUsTheSerum, which protested that Ebola serum was available only to people infected with Western nationalities, even though hundreds of people had already been infected and some had died of Ebola in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone.
• #FreeSanna, which called on Gambian authorities not to charge journalist Sanna Camara for publishing articles about human trafficking.
• #FreeSait, which called for the release of activist Sait Matty Jaw, whose only offence was preparing to conduct an opinion poll in The Gambia.
• #Juste1Pourcent, which called on Burkinabè MPs to pass a new Mining Code requiring mining companies to pay 1% of their gross revenue into a local development fund.

We have now launched a major training programme for civil society media actors and professional journalists. The cyber security programme will equip 500 participants from ten West African countries. Afrique Média CyberSécurité was launched in Conakry on 17 July 2017. It will cover the four remaining countries — Côte d’Ivoire, Mali, Benin and Togo — completing the first edition before the Ouagadougou Summit in June 2018.

The creation of AFRICTIVISTES has demonstrated the importance of meeting in person to bring together members’ expertise and strengthen joint offline action. Members had maintained strong online connections for years, working to help build a better and more democratic Africa.