Too often peacebuilding efforts leave out the group with the biggest stake in the continent’s future: its young people. But that is starting to change.
Africa’s first generation of citizens to grow up with the internet is using its digital know-how and familiarity with the online environment to build systems aimed at countering false information, preventing conflict and working toward peaceful solutions to chronic problems.
“Today, constant access to social media and online platforms enables youth to mobilize their communities, participate directly in peace processes outside formal hierarchies and exercise agency in digital spaces,” researcher Emmaculate A Liaga wrote recently in a report for the Institute for Strategic Studies (ISS).
By using online tools and developing new ones, young activists are creating important online content, not simply consuming it. They are using online tools such as Kenya’s Ushahidi and Nigeria’s Dataphyte to analyze activities during moments of political unrest or to identify public corruption. Other tools, such as the United Nations’ iVerify, is used routinely in Zambia to flag false information circulating online.
Young people also are combining technological savvy with knowledge of the continent’s estimated 2,000 indigenous languages to close crucial linguistic gaps on social media platforms. Those gaps often let hate speech, slang and inflammatory rhetoric slip past social media monitors who are focused on English, French or other broadly spoken languages.
“Including African languages, indigenous knowledge and youth participation is vital to prevent digital peacebuilding from reproducing the very exclusions it aims to address,” Liaga wrote.
Working with Peace Tech Lab, for example, young people have built a glossary of indigenous hate speech terms that can help AI systems detect and counter such speech online in Cameroon, Ethiopia, Kenya and South Sudan.
Liaga notes, however, that such projects apply primarily to Africa’s urbanized areas, where 57% of internet users live, compared to less than 25% in rural areas. Although countries such as Kenya, Morocco, Nigeria and South Africa have some of the continent’s highest rates of internet use, just 38% of Africa’s entire population had internet access in 2024.
For that reason, peace advocates need to combine their online efforts with offline tools such as radio to reach populations that might lack the ability to use digital tools easily.
“Digital peacebuilding is most effective when it is connected to offline actions,” Liaga noted.
Africa’s digital divide presents an important stumbling block when it comes to using the internet to build youth-led peace efforts. Another potential hurdle is overly broad cybersecurity laws that can be used to shut down the internet during times of unrest or to criminalize criticism of government actions.
“These actions erode the credibility of any peacebuilding process in which participants cannot engage or speak freely,” Liaga wrote.
To avoid that problem, governments could bring youth voices into the process of crafting legislation related to cybercrime or false information.
“To realize tangible peace gains, governance must foster inclusion, bridge digital gaps and embed youth as architects of Africa’s digital peace future,” Liaga wrote.
