For the past three decades, Beijing has started the year by sending its foreign minister to Africa, signalling Chinese commitment to the region. But China faces rising competition; increasingly, other anti-democratic powers are eyeing economic, political and military partnerships in Africa.
With United States (US) hegemony in decline, a splintering international order has created new openings in Africa for Iran, Russia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which have invested heavily in trade and development initiatives. Newer entrants include Hungary, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Democratic India, under Hindu populist strongman Narendra Modi, has also fixed its gaze on Africa.
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This development presents latent risks, including that foreign enablers could reinforce the illiberal tendencies of some African governments. External actors’ use of digital propaganda and manipulated information to serve their agenda is already eroding public confidence in democracy and liberalism. And some African groups are now copying such tactics.
Overzealous Western actors have done similar damage – though to a lesser degree. Meta took down a disinformation scheme linked to the French military and created to jostle rival Russian networks in the Central African Republic (CAR) before that country’s 2020 election. Before that, Britain’s Cambridge Analytica interfered in Kenya and Nigeria’s elections on behalf of private clients before being forced to shut down in 2018.
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Disinformation is not new to Africa. State-owned broadcasters often dominate the airwaves, demonising the political opposition and disguising ruling party interests as nation-building priorities. What is new is how the viral spread of falsehoods has become industrialised by external actors. Domestic and international players, governments, private firms and digital intermediaries are involved.
No matter who pulls the strings, the goal is to bend public perceptions, influence electoral outcomes, and shape government policy. The many effects include awarding energy and mining rights or construction contracts without due process to state-owned enterprises or private firms abroad. Vague military cooperation deals and opaque arms sales agreements get inked. Or access to ports and fertile agricultural land is streamlined.
Russia pioneered this social engineering strategy. Over the past five years, Facebook’s parent company, Meta, has dismantled several networks promoting Russian talking points, celebrating allied ruling parties and seeding ultranationalism in at least eight African countries.
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The impact is huge, reaching millions of users across target populations. Social media in Africa functions as a newer form of pavement radio. Community members often congregate around a single device to consume content – although that registers as only one user in social media metrics.
Producing and coordinating digital propaganda is a key component in what experts call a ‘regime survival package’ now being offered by Moscow to Africa’s brittle autocracies, such as in Burkina Faso, CAR, Mali and Sudan. Other elements include mercenary support, election campaign financing, political cover in international forums, and help with resource profiteering.
Russia has avoided detection by operating a sophisticated franchising strategy. Rather than the Kremlin running its own troll farms, guidelines and payment are funnelled to local residents and influencers for creating manipulated content on Facebook, X, WhatsApp and Telegram. Misleading posts appear genuine – making them harder for platforms, authorities and other users to detect.
A few months after Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, civil society investigative consortium Code for Africa identified at least 175 Facebook pages across 21 African countries responsible for a continent-wide spike in pro-Russia content. Posts using fake information sought to persuade African audiences that this was a proxy war provoked by the West. Users were invited to private WhatsApp and Telegram chat groups to evade content moderation.
Beijing has meanwhile used its vast state-run communications apparatus to amplify the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) revisionist narratives. Media networks such as CGTN, China Daily and Xinhua have established dozens of bureaus throughout Africa. Their relentless coverage includes rhetoric from the CCP’s United Front Work Department, a state agency that mobilises influence operations at home and abroad.
Elsewhere, Turkey offers self-serving training opportunities to African reporters and media organisations. The Federation of African Journalists accused the UAE of trying to hoodwink its members into generating negative stories about the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar, the UAE’s rival in the Gulf. Egypt, Morocco, Nigeria and Senegal have been subject to Iranian propaganda networks.
These disinformation campaigns and echo chambers are fuelling misinformation within Africa’s electorates. By mixing false and sensationalised content with legitimate critiques of Western policy failures, foreign illiberal regimes cast doubt on democracy. All of this has been instructive to anti-democratic actors in Africa.
Analysis by the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab researchers showed how Facebook campaigns were vital in rallying public support for military coups in Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso. In Sudan, the Rapid Support Forces used X to portray themselves as the people’s champions, despite evidence of their war crimes and massacring of civilians. The Sudanese Armed Forces relies on state media and traditional pro-government outlets to whitewash its own abuses.
Looking ahead, the continent’s online spaces will become more contested. Africa’s rising geopolitical importance coincides with a projected explosion in new internet users.
A lack of content moderators fluent in local languages makes it virtually impossible to police disinformation, even if tech firms wanted to. But signs are they don’t. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced in early January that Facebook would be the latest platform to cut ties with third-party fact-checking groups.
Zuckerberg’s decision appears driven by a desire to align his company with the nativist agenda of the second Trump administration. Freely available content generator tools powered by artificial intelligence further complicate measures to combat weaponised lies.
It’s true that democracy alone hasn’t delivered efficient governance and that corrupt elites increasingly manipulate democracies. This perception is gaining the most traction among disaffected youth. Yet in 2024, Afrobarometer reported that most Africans still prefer democracy, and many reject one-party states, military rule and dictatorships.
Africans’ desire for self-determination is enduring, and democracy is best suited to manifest it because it promises regular turnover and accountability. Safeguarding the integrity of elections from illiberal interference is thus paramount.
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An Institute of Security Studies report examining online discourse during South Africa’s 2024 election recommends policymakers and the private sector ramp up digital literacy training for citizens, modelled after existing programmes in Ghana and Kenya.
Researchers should map how regional digital influencers collaborate. International donors can support digital literacy training for domestic journalists while sponsoring research into foreign interference in Africa.
Moreover, global charities, private foundations and non-governmental organisations can help by funding credible independent news outlets. And digital rights groups in the West must help African civil society to debunk fake stories.
Kyle Hiebert, independent political risk analyst
(This article was first published by ISS Today, a Premium Times syndication partner. We have their permission to republish).
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