In an age where misinformation spreads faster than truth, Africa faces a paradox: while digital connectivity promises inclusion, it often amplifies colonial power structures and silences Indigenous voices. Fact-checking—the global response to misinformation—remains rooted in Western frameworks, sidelining Africa’s rich traditions of communal truth-seeking. My work aims to bridge this gap by developing a hybrid model that not only challenges the dominance of Western knowledge systems but also offers actionable insights for enhancing fact-checking practices that are better aligned with Africa’s diverse realities. Through this research, I seek to empower African communities by providing more culturally relevant ways to verify truth, ensuring that African voices and knowledge systems play a central role in combating the spread of misinformation.

The research investigates how African fact-checking organizations, operating within diverse socio-political environments, confront misinformation while dealing with the legacies of colonialism and modern geopolitical influences. I explore how Africa’s unique cultural, historical, and linguistic context shapes the verification process, particularly through oral traditions and communal consensus that have long been central to African societies. By engaging with both contemporary fact-checkers and indigenous knowledge keepers such as elders, this research develops a framework to integrate African epistemologies with current global information networks, thus contributing to decolonizing the fact-checking practice.

The recent suspension of USAID, one of the most significant funders of fact-checking organizations in Africa and globally, shows the urgent need for this research. As funding for these initiatives becomes increasingly unstable, the reliance on external, often Western, sources for truth verification intensifies, further perpetuating epistemic colonialism. This shift makes my work even more critical. By centering African epistemologies and traditional truth-seeking methods, my research aims to foster self-sustaining, culturally relevant fact-checking frameworks that are less dependent on foreign funding. In a time when Africa’s sovereignty over its knowledge systems is under threat, this project offers a path to greater autonomy, ensuring that African communities can combat misinformation on their own terms and strengthen their democratic processes without being beholden to external powers.

If you’re interested in supporting or learning more about this project, I would love to connect.