Dataphyte Foundation Calls for Collaboration Across Africa on Election Monitoring 

 
Mary Nnah

 
 
The Dataphyte Foundation has issued a call for collaboration by stakeholders across Africa to improve election monitoring and data accessibility across the continent.

Founder of Dataphyte Foundation, Joshua Olufemi,  made the call while speaking as a panellist during a webinar organised by the foundation on Tuesday, June 25.

 
The webinar with the theme: ”Role of Technology and Data-driven Decisions in African Elections” had over 130 participants drawn from civil society, government, researchers, media, academics and advocates committed to protecting Nigeria’s democracy.

 
Olufemi emphasized the critical role of data in ensuring transparent and accountable governance, adding that data enhances electoral integrity, citizen participation, voter rights, and inclusion.

 
Olufemi also reiterated the need for strategic dialogue and media literacy to combat misinformation and support informed decision-making.

 
“Our focus on gender issues and inclusivity is intentional. We believe that comprehensive and disaggregated data is essential for monitoring promises and policies effectively,” Olufemi said
 

Speaking on the foundation’s approaches to the issue, he said: “Dataphyte takes about three approaches to how we go about our social economic and political developments across the continent starting with Nigeria.

 
“The first is access to data, the other is policy insight and accountability reporting, and the third is training and technology resourcing.

 
“Those three things are what we can bring, wrapped around collaboration with platforms like Ushaidi, Connected Development, and others.”

 
He added: “More importantly, for us at Dataphyte, to drive an election conversation, either from the place of the campaign, manifestos, monitoring collection or even in follow-up, is a place of access to data.

 
“Today, we have almost 500 million people in 24 countries whose lives and livelihoods will be determined post-election. Out of that, over 200 million are of voting age. What level of information we can provide for these 217 million people who can go to the polls is one thing that is dear to our hearts.

 
“What are we able to say to them? What information do they need to know about the candidates? How are we able to provide dialogue or other forms of conversation to help them make the right decisions? How are you able to provide legitimacy out of the electoral process based on the information that is available to citizens?
 

“On the other end of it for us is what technology can we bring to bear as human agencies. That level of insight will help every decision-maker in the next elections. All of these conversations will lead to electoral integrity, citizen participation, voter rights and inclusion.”
 

Also speaking, Rhoda Omenya, Implementation and Development Manager at Ushahidi, a global not-for-profit technology company based in Kenya, detailed their efforts to incorporate artificial intelligence (AI) into their election monitoring tools.
 

“We are incorporating AI to improve the categorization and assignment of reports, automate geo-location extraction, and translate reports from local languages into English,” Omenya explained.

 
“These advancements will enhance our ability to act on citizen feedback quickly and accurately,” she added.

 
On his part, Mukhtar Modibbo Halilu, Secretary-General of Follow the Money, stated that technology is the way to go in improving elections in Africa.

 
His words: “We are not after people in government. We are after the processes that lead to the results. As our contribution to democracy, we are putting the information out there for people to know that elections can be trusted. The process is the problem.
 

“If our votes don’t count, why will politicians use their money to buy votes? Why would they want to rig the election?
 

“The largest number of people who cast their votes in Africa are young people. And almost half of the people do not trust the electioneering process. It is a problem. And that is why technology is the way to go. But, I tell you, we are going somewhere.”