How Paradigm Initiative Shaped Digital Rights Inclusion across Africa in 2025

Stories by Emma Okonji

Paradigm Initiative (PIN), a Pan-African organisation, has released its 2025 Annual Impact Report, highlighting a year of exceptional organisational delivery and sustained impact across its digital rights and digital inclusion initiatives in Africa and the rest of the Global South.

The report looked at the broader sector-wide developments across Africa and the rest of the Global South, and revealed a widening gap between rapid digital expansion and the protection of human rights, thereby undermining privacy, freedom of expression, and civic participation.

According to the report, 2025 saw a surge in vague cybercrime and cybersecurity laws, increasing risks of surveillance, censorship, and disproportionate enforcement. At the same time, internet shutdowns, online harassment, and platform restrictions in some African countries continued to disrupt civic space, particularly during elections and periods of political tension, the report said.  
Giving details of the report, Executive Director at PIN, Gbenga Sesan, said:
“Governments accelerated the rollout of digital infrastructure while, in too many cases, sidelining the rights frameworks that should govern it. New cybercrime laws were passed in the dead of night. Internet shutdowns were deployed as tools of political convenience. Journalists, human rights defenders, women, and young people continued to bear the heaviest costs of a digital environment that treats rights as a footnote.”

“Even though 2025 tested that conviction with the threats that accompanied it, digital expansion continued at pace. 2025 was also a year that reminded us of what is possible when people commit to doing much-needed work well,” Sesan further said.