Many conflicts on the African continent are poorly understood today due to a lack, sometime even an absence, of independent, factual and easily accessible sources of information. In our view, this information vacuum is a cause for concern as it allows fallacious narratives, fanciful figures, fake news and hate speech to flourish. African Facts has made it its mission to fill this vacuum which is conducive to misinformation.
Our main mission: to inform.
African Facts aim to focus on countries where armed conflicts are taking place, areas where hate speech is developing and regions where crimes against humanity are at risk of being committed. We monitor these situations closely on a daily basis, collecting and compiling data, conducting investigations and verifying and contextualising facts, in order to produce independent information that meets the highest editorial and ethical standards.
We believe that better information in the general interest can contribute to dialogue, justice, and conflict resolution. This conviction is the foundation of our initiative and guides all our actions.
A local and collaborative approach
In each of the geographical areas covered by African Facts, a small number of people — both professionals and self-taught individuals — are attempting to independently monitor and document these conflicts. These initiatives often remain isolated from one another and lack a dissemination platform. African Facts aims to bring them together to work collectively and collaboratively, amplifying and enriching their work with additional skills.
African Facts is not a new initiative designed to allow “experts” to tell the story of this continent on behalf of its inhabitants. The aim here is to bring together people from the regions concerned so that they can produce better information and thus contribute to a better understanding of the situations and issues at stake.
Contributing to dialogue, curbing hate speech, participating in conflict resolution
African Facts wishes to contribute locally to victims’ access to their rights, dialogue between communities and conflict resolution. That is why our organisation works on the ground with local actors involved in these processes and remains attentive to initiatives that can advance them. To this end, African Facts is developing partnerships with local and international non-governmental organisations to exchange information, share resources and cooperate on joint projects.
We are also open to collaborations with local and international media to disseminate information that is as accurate and fair as possible.
African Facts also wishes to create tools that are available to everyone, both locally and globally. We are therefore planning to develop an interactive and dynamic platform where users can consult the data our organisation collects and the studies it carries out.
Training and advice
African Facts aims to develop local skills to produce high-quality information, but also to contribute to a better understanding of the region among all stakeholders. In addition to developing internal skills and pursuing our core mission of producing and disseminating information, we offer courses and trainings for local and international stakeholders in the region.
African Facts also offers consultancy services. Our team has extensive experience in the field and in-depth knowledge of local dynamics. We are available to advise on and support efforts to prevent and resolve conflicts, initiatives that contribute to dialogue and peace, and the fight against disinformation and fake news.
We have defined the five main steps for launching our project.
Step 1: Launch
African Facts is currently assembling, expanding and training its team. This team will conduct the investigations and create the content that will be published by African Facts. We plan to launch an initial fundraising campaign soon to finance the team, increase our capacity, and move on to the next steps.
Step 2: Translation of our content into several languages
African Facts aims to make its content accessible to as many people as possible, both locally and globally. That is why we plan to translate our content into English and Kiswahili as soon as possible.
Step 3: Creation and online publication of tools for visualising the collected data
One of African Facts’ main objectives is to compile and harmonise the information it already collects, making several datasets on security, conflicts, and hate speech in the areas we cover accessible and understandable online.
Step 4: First training cycles
We are currently developing our initial courses and trainings offer, designing multidisciplinary cycles and modules for all audiences in the fields of development, conflict resolution, peacebuilding, security, journalism, media, information technology education and open source. These will be available soon.
Step 5: Launch of a first regional newsletter
If we succeed in meeting our initial goals, we plan to launch a regional newsletter covering the Great Lakes region. This periodic publication would provide an overview of evolving situation and then explore key issues in greater depth. It will also report on incidents that have occurred and list and translate hate speech.