A timely new report by Guy Berger and Liz Orembo, shines a light on a critical but often overlooked factor in African elections: the role of data. Drawing on stakeholder interviews and case studies from Kenya, South Africa, Ghana, and Zimbabwe, the research reveals that while data availability and integrity are fundamental to credible elections, awareness and engagement with data issues among electoral stakeholders remain alarmingly low.
The report finds that despite growing recognition of the importance of data for elections, there is still a limited understanding among key stakeholders of how crucial data access, availability, and governance are for democratic integrity. Electoral management bodies (EMBs), political parties, civil society, the media, and platforms alike often operate in silos, with little coordination or shared understanding of data responsibilities. EMBs, in particular, face challenges balancing transparency with privacy concerns, and many lack the internal capacity or clear policies to manage election-related data effectively. Meanwhile, civil society organisations, researchers, and journalists struggle to access critical data, often due to high costs or restrictive practices, and social media platforms have not meaningfully opened up election-related data for independent monitoring.
Political influence further complicates the landscape, with data sometimes weaponised to favour incumbents or suppress dissent, particularly in environments where trust in public institutions is low. The report also highlights serious capacity gaps across stakeholder groups when it comes to managing, analysing, and sharing data, and points to the lack of comprehensive mechanisms to ensure accountability for how data is handled during election periods. Despite these challenges, initiatives like the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights’ recent resolution on data access present new opportunities for reform—if stakeholders commit to collaboration, capacity-building, and policy innovation.
