June 22 2023, Africa Meetup

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Date: Thursday, June 22

Time: 3pm SAST / 1pm UTC / 4pm EAT / 9am EDT

Who: Facilitated by Mardiya & Tawanda

Where: BigBlueButton link will be shared in the following rooms on the IFF Mattermost one or two hours before the start of the meeting: Sub-Saharian Africa.

• Don't have an account to the IFF Mattermost? you can request one following the directions here.

Collectives Notes: Please put notes here: https://pad.riseup.net/p/africa-meetup

Notes

Community Updates:

Having travel checklists and contact persons for attendees of global event will help mitigate information gaps that put African travelers at risk.

Focus Topic of the Meetup: Gaps in digital rights and justice work in Africa

• A New research focuses on digital rights and freedoms in Francophone African countries, represents the first of its kind and a step towards the right direction.

• While the research and insights on digital freedoms ranking is an essential foundation, community members identified the need for organizers, researchers and digital justice practitioners from anglophone speaking African countries to provide insight and capacity support on ways to advance such studies and fill existing contextual gaps.

• Advancing the study includes bringing together local french speaking digital rights communities in Africa to expand on the themes introduced and document violations, issues, and progress in the region.

• The community members also shared that such rankings and documentation of digital  justice cases and issues have forced states and governments to create and rectify protective policies, and help rights defenders' advocacy work in english speaking African countries. Meanwhile, given the darth of information and documentation in french speaking regions of Africa, digital freedom is lagging. Thus such studies helps activists and practitioners in the regions advance their work