To mark International Day Against Hate Speech on 18 June 2025, Africa Check, Zimfact, and Cartooning for Peace are publishing “Cartooning for Africa Facts”, an illustrated Fact-Checker’s Guide that brings together cartoonists and fact-checkers in a unique collaboration.
Previewed in Abidjan during the Cocobulles cartoon festival, whose 8th edition was dedicated to the fight against misinformation, this guide was written by Azil Momar Lô, journalist, fact-checker, and trainer at Africa Check’s office in Dakar, and by Cris Chinaka, a veteran journalist, editor-in-chief and founder of Zimfact. Its launch on 18 June highlights the harmful role of disinformation in spreading hate speech.
As Anne Bocandé, RSF’s editorial director, points out in the guide’s introduction, in Africa, as elsewhere, disinformation is gradually taking on the guise of journalism. Through video content, articles, or “investigations” with a professional appearance, propaganda campaigns exploit press techniques to better manipulate public opinion. This misleading appropriation of journalistic formats makes the line between information and manipulation increasingly blurred — and dangerous.”
Because the fight against disinformation and hate speech concerns us all, the first part of the guide is aimed at the general public, which has a fundamental role to play in countering the spread of false information and promoting a virtuous ecosystem in which each person contributes to the development of quality information, essential to stability and the promotion of democratic values. The second part is aimed towards fact-checkers, with specific developments and a list of resources available to information verification professionals.
The publication of this manual is part of Canal France International’s (CFI) ‘Désinfox Jeunesse’ programme, which develops Media and Information Literacy (MIL) initiatives as a tool to combat information manipulation and hate speech in four African countries. It also supports the collaboration, launched in March 2024, between Cartooning for Peace and the independent African fact-checking organisation Africa Check, which works to combat disinformation and hate speech.
Given the scale and devastation of disinformation on the African continent – violence, hate speech, political destabilization, democratic decline, health impact – amplified on an unprecedented scale by new information technologies, this guide, available in French and English as a free download, will be distributed as widely as possible so that everyone, citizens, information professionals and/or MIL actors can take concrete and sustainable action against fake news.
