I recently travelled to Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, to attend the Digital Rights & Inclusion Forum (DRIF), hosted by Paradigm Initiative. I was part of an international delegation of Oxfam and partner organisations involved in the ReCIPE (Recentering Civic Internet through Partner Engagement) project. Over three days, we joined other civil society colleagues, policymakers, technologists, researchers, and funders from across Africa and beyond to reflect on a shared question: 

“How do we build digital systems that serve people fairly, safely, and with dignity—especially in contexts characterized by inequality, shrinking civic space, and rapid technological change?” 

What emerged from the conversations was that digital inclusion can no longer be reduced to access alone. Across sessions, speakers and participants highlighted that meaningful inclusion requires safety, accountability, participation, and resilience. Here are my five clear takeaways from DRIF 2026. 

Across multiple sessions, Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) emerged as both an opportunity and a risk. From digital identity systems to tax platforms and e‑government portals, governments in francophone West Africa are rapidly digitizing public services. These systems can improve access and efficiency, but only if they are designed with inclusion in mind. 

Participants shared how weak data protection frameworks, inaccessible systems, and automated decision‑making can lead to exclusion, especially for undocumented people and marginalised communities. The discussion highlighted the danger of an “accountability void”, where algorithms deny services without clear explanations or avenues for redress.  

Sessions also highlighted another issue: the lack of digital sovereignty when DPI is built and/or hosted by foreign companies, with the risk of the authority over personal data of citizens falling out of the jurisdiction and control of African nations.   

The takeaway was that digital public systems need to embed transparency, human oversight, and legal safeguards from the start. Furthermore, efforts must be made to support the development of local technological capacities. 

Rather than focusing only on harmful content, one session made a compelling case for addressing the design features and business models that shape online harm. Issues such as Technology‑Facilitated Gender‑Based Violence (TF GBV), disinformation, addiction, and polarisation are often linked to platform incentives, default settings, and design choices. 

Participants noted the importance of focusing on regulation and preventative action to intervene upstream, targeting the structural drivers of digital harm rather than reacting after harm occurs. The conversation acknowledged the political and capacity constraints faced by regulators in Africa, while also identifying opportunities for rights‑respecting, multi‑stakeholder approaches that put people first. 

Several sessions returned to the same practical insight: many digital solutions assume stable internet access, smartphones, and high levels of digital literacy. For millions of people, particularly women facing gender‑based violence in rural or low‑connectivity areas, these assumptions do not hold. 

Examples shared at DRIF demonstrated how low‑connectivity tools such as basic mobile interfaces, interactive voice response, and menu-based phone services can expand access to critical information and support. These approaches centre privacy, safety, and dignity—highlighting that substantive innovation happens through better alignment with people's realities.

A powerful thread running through day two was the pressure facing civil society organizations across Africa. Surveillance, internet shutdowns, restrictive cybercrime laws, and declining funding are converging to undermine both safety and impact. 

The session that we facilitated centred expert speakers from Kenya, Senegal, Somalia and Uganda. We discussed how resilience can be built when the civic space is shrinking while funding opportunities are decreasing as well. We also discussed how these pressures lead to self‑censorship, burnout, and weakened movements. 

At the same time, the discussion remained solutions‑oriented: Strengthening organisational security, investing in staff wellbeing, diversifying funding, and clarifying the responsibilities of governments, funders, and platforms were all identified as critical steps toward sustaining civic action in hostile environments.  

An additional strategy for resilience that was mentioned was the cross-border collaboration between civil society organisations; in practice, this can occur whenever one country increases the pressure on civil society, with colleagues from other countries stepping up communication to alert international opinion and solidarity. 

By the third day, the concept of resilience came into sharp focus. Connectivity alone, speakers argued, is no longer the benchmark of progress. Women and marginalised groups may be online, yet they remain exposed to harm, exclusion, and systems they have little power to shape. 

Sessions on gender‑inclusive digital futures and internet resilience reframed inclusion as the ability to navigate, influence, and withstand digital systems safely and with agency. This rights‑based understanding of connectivity—rooted in lived experience and local knowledge—closely aligned with DRIF’s wider theme of building inclusive and resilient digital futures. 

A shared responsibility.

DRIF in Abidjan showed that the future of digital rights in Africa cannot be delivered by one actor alone. Governments, civil society, technologists, funders, regulators, and communities all have a role to play. Inclusive digital futures require collaboration, accountability, and sustained investment, especially in contexts where the stakes are highest. 

As we departed from Abidjan, the message we took away was not one of inevitability, but of choice. The digital systems being built today will shape access to services, civic participation, and rights for years to come. DRIF reminded us that with the right choices, grounded in people’s realities, those systems can expand opportunity rather than deepen inequality. The final call to action was that we should all act to make these takeaways heard by our governments for the reflection to bear its fruits. We must come back to DRIF in 2027 with proof that concrete actions were taken because of this year’s forum.