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Fifty fact-checking organisations in Africa have jointly signed an agreement to curb the spread of fake news on the continent and establish information integrity.
This follows the sixth Africa Facts Summit, which was held in Accra, Ghana, from Oct. 9 to 10, 2024, under the Africa Fact Network.
This summit witnessed the gathering of fact-checkers and information experts from 30 countries to share ideas and discuss strategies critical to curbing the spread of fake news.
The agreement, titled “Accra Declaration on Information Integrity and Resilience,” would promote the goals and objectives of civil societies, government operations, technology setups, and diverse geographical and social entities, mainly to sanitise the information ecosystem.
“For the last decade, we have been speaking about the value of honest public debate, maintaining information hygiene, and ensuring that public figures in Africa make decisions based on quality data and facts. Now, we have put all the ideas on paper as a first step to building – or rebuilding – information resilience and integrity on the continent,” said Noko Makgato, Africa Check’s Executive Director.
DUBAWA and other fact-checking organisations across Africa are signatories to this agreement.
List of signatory organisations to this agreement.
In line with the agreement, fact-checkers from the pledging organisations would teach information resilience to young people in Africa to help them learn faster, be adept conversation listeners, and identify and verify fake news.
Taking fact-checking to the grassroots
The group has also agreed to undertake fact-checking outreach to residents in local communities to promote the importance of identifying fake news and knowing how to debunk it.
It would do this by partnering with community radio and local media platforms, which have become the only reliable sources that residents turn to for public information in the face of abject internet access failure.
Fact-checkers would also extend their outreach to schools, community centres, and private homes—areas that have been sidelined due to poor internet access—teaching them to be conscious of the kinds of information they listen to, read, watch, and share and how to tackle fake news.
“Seeing the Africa Facts Network’s footprint in more than 30 countries within twelve years of Africa Check’s pioneering role on the continent signals the enormity of the harm done by false information and the urgency to innovate and work together to fight mis- dis- and malinformation,” said Hlalani Gumpo, Africa Check’s Head of Outreach and Impact.
The agreement would allow the group to explore gendered misinformation, linguistic diversity, vulnerable communities, climate crisis, public distrust in the media, resource challenges, and politically threatening environments.
Furthermore, the agreement also spotlights how fact-checkers and investigative journalists experience threats, restrictions, and violence. Consequently, while engaging government authorities and civil society groups, the group intends to advocate civil policies that would inhibit such crackdowns.
The group plans to benefit from existing artificial intelligence (AI) tools by partnering with technology companies and platforms that fact-checkers and journalists can use to tackle fake news.
