A new study by the Global Public Policy Institute (GPPi) has identified four important steps in mitigating digital threats to elections while engaging with over 100 experts and practitioners in Africa.
The report stated that digital threats to elections are evolving worldwide, posing risks to democratic institutions and potentially inciting violence.
Despite efforts by various organizations to mitigate these threats, it’s difficult to determine which strategies are effective, and limited resources hinder learning from past elections.
The study noted that its findings offer valuable lessons for safeguarding elections from digital threats globally.
“To address this, our team spent the past year engaging with over 100 experts and practitioners from civil society organizations (CSOs), governments, international bodies, and election assistance funders across Africa, through interviews, workshops and scenario exercises.
“Our research identified four key “building blocks for success” present in programming that managed to mitigate digital threats to elections. We also explored how different levels of investment (high, medium and low) can contribute to each of these building blocks,” the study stated.
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The study affirmed that the innovative strategies demonstrated by the organizations that was consulted not only provide valuable lessons for addressing digital threats in Africa, but also offer insights for implementers and funders worldwide who aim to develop effective programmes to protect elections from digital threats.
It further noted that the four foundational elements include: understanding the digital threat landscape; varied actors for varied digital threats; taking an institutional approach to digital threats; and hybrid fixes for hybrid problems.
The research stated that funders make decisions based on flawed assumptions gleaned from headlines, leading to ineffective or counterproductive interventions in electoral issues.
“In many cases, we found that funders rely on faulty or uninformed assumptions – often drawn from headlines – about the most pressing electoral issues or the most useful contributions they could make, which resulted in ineffective or even counterproductive interventions. More successful efforts have used baseline surveys, iterative learning and post-programming reviews to target real needs and follow effective theories of change.
When working alone, organizations will always struggle to respond to the multiple issues entailed by digital threats at the scale required. More successful efforts have brought together a variety of stakeholders (through coalitions, strategic coordination and facilitated networking) and developed multi-pronged solutions, which tackled a diverse range of threats by sharing information and coordinating action,” it added.
The study also noted that training programmes that exclusively enhance individual-level skills for specific groups like journalists, activists, or electoral management representatives may have limited impact if their respective organizations cannot effectively integrate these improvements.
Successful initiatives, on the other hand, focus on strengthening entire organizations through collaborative project design, comprehensive training across all levels, and addressing fundamental institutional capacity gaps—not solely increasing project funding which are more sustainable in the long run.
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Additionally, the study said that solely concentrating on digital solutions overlooks the fact that digital threats often transcend into offline realms, risking the implementation of strategies that are ill-suited to their context.
“More effective efforts prioritize understanding the genuine digital needs and the technological capabilities of Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) and their intended audiences. This approach often results in more suitable solutions, which may not always be high-tech, to address urgent threats effectively,” it concluded.
Seasoned fact-checker and researcher Fatimah Quadri has written numerous fact-checks, explainers, and media literacy pieces for The FactCheckHub in an effort to combat information disorder. She can be reached at sunmibola_q on X or [email protected].
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