Introduction

Image of Leandro Navarro
Leandro Navarro
Chair

According to Wikipedia, a soul is an immaterial entity that living beings possess, the "essence" or "vital energy" that guides them and gives them purpose. I feel that the new APC strategic plan adopted in 2023 is like a collective soul that guides us to act, even from a distance, as a living organism, as a complex organisation that reflects and becomes even stronger with each plan, this time for the period 2024-2027.

During the second half of 2023 we followed a participatory construction process that concluded in December with the vote and approval of the plan, when both the members of the Council and the Board of directors decided to adopt it.

At the meeting in May 2024 we celebrated and talked about how to put it into action. This strategy inspires and guides us in what we do because it is part of who we are, what we believe, our context, where we are going, what and how to do and what results we want to achieve.

I encourage you to reread in detail the the strategic plan document built in 2023, word by word, carefully and with commitment, giving substance to that collective soul that is also combined with the personal and organisational strategies of the association's members.

Although some people and organisations have been in APC for quite some time, all the aspects and all the moments that appear in the strategic plan invite us to know, understand, think, act and contribute to achieving results as part of that collective soul that, ultimately, seeks to use digital technology to empower and connect people instead of excluding them.

Image of Chat Garcia Ramilo
Chat Garcia Ramilo
Director

2023 was the final year of the last APC strategic cycle, which started in 2020 with the double challenge of commemorating the network's 30th anniversary while transiting a pandemic that called us to deepen the inclusivity, the connectedness and the strengthening of movements that we are part of.

In the last four years we experienced a civil society struggling to be heard, due to the minimising of spaces and a silo-ised agenda. We also faced fragmented policy-making processes, a significant increase in rights violations across the globe and a failure of global governance which deepened inequalities; a growing alienation, and environmental cost, tied to the struggle to regulate the entrenched interests of big tech; and the emergence of a new digital divide. 2023 was not the exception, and the APC community knew it would be a challenging year.

We started 2023 with three priorities that put the APC network at the heart of their implementation and success.

The first was APC's engagement with the Global Digital Compact (GDC) process led by the UN. As policy change actors, our diverse and grounded community significantly contributed to the policy process leading to the Summit of the Future through thematic submissions, interventions in deep-dive sessions and engagement in multistakeholder consultations, calling for the GDC to place human rights, a gender equality agenda and an intersectional feminist perspective at its core.

The second priority was our strategic planning for the upcoming period 2024-2027. By the end of the year, our membership decided on APC's strategic priorities for the next four years, intentionally putting the network at the centre of our approach and leveraging our strength as a bridge builder, connector and convener.

The third priority was preparing for APC’s first in-person convening of members, associates, staff and close partners in seven years. Before the pandemic, in-person member meetings took place every three years. APC's new strategy provides the ideal framework for us to collectively bring to life our re-imagined mission: to strengthen collective organising towards building a transformative movement to ensure that the internet and digital technologies enable social, gender and environmental justice for all people in the next four years.

We ended 2023 with a collective expectation and a sense of excitement in renewing friendships and solidarity when our community comes together in 2024.

About APC

Strategies

We believe that our mission is achieved through five interlinked strategies: research, advocacy, building networks and capacity, communications and outreach. To be instrumental to the APC community, research-based evidence must be communicated effectively in order to support advocacy, which then achieves change as its ultimate goal.

Vision

Our vision is for people to use and shape the internet and digital technologies to create a just and sustainable world, leading to greater care for ourselves, each other and the earth.

Mission

Our mission is to create a just and sustainable world by harnessing the collective power of activists, organisations, excluded groups, communities and social movements, to challenge existing power structures and ensure that the internet is developed and governed as a global public good.

APC’s Strategic Plan 2024-2027

Our new strategic plan is the result of a consultative process with staff, the Board of directors, members and partners, and builds on the lessons and findings of APC’s mid-term evaluation in 2022, as well as the evaluation of our local access initiative over a five-year period.

We believe that new efforts at organising are necessary to bring actors advocating for digital inclusion and digital and internet rights together, and to connect these with other social movements' agendas.

Our Mission

Is to strengthen collective organising towards building a transformative movement to ensure that the internet and digital technologies enable social, gender and environmental justice for all people.

Our Vision

Is for all people, particularly the marginalised, to use and shape the internet and digital technologies to create a just and sustainable world.

Network- and movement-building strategies

  • Building knowledge and counter-narratives.
  • Convening and connecting actors to strengthen common agendas.
  • Capacity building and institutional strengthening.
  • Policy advocacy and mobilisation within the network.
  • Grantmaking/subgranting.
  • Strategic communications.

Long term outcomes by 2027

Immediate outcomes:
  • Strengthened community-centred connectivity agendas through awareness raising and providing effective support to communities that need viable connectivity.
  • Members and partners have strengthened connections and common agendas for advancing digital rights, a feminist internet and environmentally just digital policies and practices.

Immediate outcomes:
  • Greater capacity to counter dis/misinformation. Collective creation, strengthening and sharing of knowledge to influence policy discourse.
  • Co-creation of alternatives and counter-narratives which centre digital inclusion and digital and internet rights and their intersections with environmental justice issues.
  • Intersectional feminist voices from the global South contribute to centring feminist perspectives in discourses on technology

Immediate outcomes:
  • Increased awareness of community-centred connectivity and policy and regulation that enables community-centred connectivity in the global South.
  • Increased integration of human rights and environmentally just digital policies and practices through engagement and influence in national, regional and global processes.
  • Inclusion of perspectives of marginalised communities in regional and global processes on policies, norms and standards.
  • Increased integration into digital policies, norms and standards of rights-based perspectives and agendas of women and people of diverse sexualities and genders.

Immediate outcomes:
  • Shared understanding of the online and offline threats faced and development of holistic safety and care collective strategies.
  • Greater capacity to create and strengthen our digital infrastructure.
  • Collective mobilisation in solidarity and support to defenders at risk.
  • Greater capacity of feminist activists and gender non-conforming and queer communities to engage with the internet and digital technologies with care, agency, curiosity, playfulness and safety.

Immediate outcomes:
  • Members and staff have greater knowledge of and stronger connections with each other.
  • Members and staff have greater capacity to work together strategically and operationally based on a shared vision and purpose.
  • Knowledge management, planning, and MEL systems support collective learning and work prioritisation for deeper impact.
  • Greater shared understanding of care and collectively built organisational policies and practices that support our collective well-being, resilience and sustainability.
  • Diverse and sustainable funding base.

APC's niche

Strengthening collective organising towards building a powerful movement to advance digital inclusion and digital and internet rights.

Link to the strategic plan Download the strategic plan
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Impact

The year 2023 was the last of APC’s previous strategic cycle, which began during a global pandemic that raised intersectional issues of digital security, privacy, surveillance, digitalisation, freedom of expression and further marginalisation of already vulnerable communities, challenging us to navigate new permutations of familiar conundrums.

Our 2020-2023 strategic plan unfolded amid heightened global distress and a pervasive sense of uncertainty and rapid change, marked by the intensification of violence and an escalation of conflicts such as in Palestine, Israel, Sudan, Ethiopia and Myanmar, and a protracted war in Ukraine. It is a context characterised by the rapid digitalisation and datafication of societies, scarred by the resurgence of right-wing nationalism and fundamentalism in many countries, alongside the legitimisation of misogyny and anti-rights discourses, the increasing precarity of Black, brown and diverse bodies, and with fragile economies in the global South attempting to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Throughout these four years we adapted and responded to unforeseen challenges by coming closer than ever to our members and partners, collectively gaining many valuable learnings that strengthened the fabric of civil society and actors working on digital rights and inclusion.

For more, please see our previous annual reports for 2020, 2021 and 2022.

Along with partners and members, we brought discussions around technology-facilitated gender-based violence to the 67th session of the Commission on the Status of Women which took place in March 2023 under the priority theme "Innovation and technological change, and education in the digital age for achieving gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls".
APC’s #EcoThursday, a series of social media conversations on technology, the environment and climate justice brought together activists, academics and journalists to discuss strategic issues such as anti-extractivism in ICTs and local impacts of the oil industry. We organised these events with our members Acción Ecológica, CITAD, Digital Empowerment Foundation, Instituto Nupef, Intervozes, MAJI, Nodo TAU, PROTEGE QV, Sulá Batsú and TEDIC, and the participation of 14 other members.
“In 2023, we actively participated from Colnodo and the Sustainable Development Network in APC's led #EcoThursday. Together with organisations such as the Media Awareness and Justice Initiative (MAJI) and the Open Culture Foundation of Taiwan, we shared the progress of the Environmental Alerts Project in Colombia and explained the use of sensors to monitor noise, particles and water quality. This joint effort promoted citizen science and the collection of environmental data to make informed decisions.” – Ángel David Santiago Molina, communications coordinator at Colnodo, Colombia.
We see the UN's Global Digital Compact (GDC) as an opportunity to reinterpret the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) vision, to advance multistakeholderism as a basis for democratic digital governance, and to advocate for global responses to critical issues that are relevant to APC. As a result of the evolution of the GDC process, in 2023 we gained a better understanding of the larger processes in which the GDC is embedded, and unpacked its connections to the Internet Governance Forum 2025, WSIS+20 review and related processes, which also deepened our understanding of the weight that these other processes will have in framing the digital technologies’ policies and governance in the upcoming decades.
The APC network engaged with the UN's Global Digital Compact contributing to various thematic deep dive sessions, and was instrumental in convening informal consultations with stakeholders and member states in Africa, Asia and Latin America, as well as providing a set of recommendations on social, gender and environmental justice, and stressing the importance of spaces for the active and meaningful participation of civil society, which is key to ensuring that human rights are central to a long-term vision of a digital future.
The APC network mobilised significantly at the Internet Governance Forum 2023 in Kyoto, Japan, where we engaged in sessions on digital inclusion and meaningful connectivity, gender equality and gender-responsive cybersecurity policy, digital cooperation, artificial intelligence, and environmental justice, among others. The network had a role in denouncing restrictive and discriminatory travel policies and practices by Japanese embassies that prevented in-person engagement of many participants, mostly from Africa.
APC's executive director Chat Garcia Ramilo spoke at the High-Level Panel on WSIS+20 at the Internet Governance Forum 2023, where she highlighted how the multistakeholder principles of participation defined by WSIS and practised through the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) have contributed to the acknowledgement that only through collaboration can we implement our plans effectively.
APC believes it is crucial to engage with the human rights and internet governance communities wherever the Internet Governance Forum is held, listening to their concerns and using this global space to connect with local issues. On the occasion of IGF 2023, we facilitated the inclusion of voices of activists from East Asia through our Local Sound Bites, whose insights highlighted the urgent need for increased public awareness, inclusive governance, resistance to surveillance, and the importance of international collaboration despite geopolitical barriers.
The APC-led campaign “The IGF We Want”, launched prior to the IGF 2023 in Japan, brought multiple stakeholders’ attention to the value this governance space has fostered since its inception and the importance of its renewal, which is a critical aspect of the WSIS+20 review process and IGF+20 consultation in 2025.
The African School on Internet Governance (AfriSIG) 2023 assembled stakeholders and parliamentarians from 20 countries to help implement the African Union's Data Policy Framework.
Image credits: Paradigm Initiative.
APC joined the advocacy campaign for Swedish software developer and programmer Ola Bini who was arrested by the Ecuadorian government in April 2019. Bini was declared innocent on 31 January 2023, in a decision that set a significant precedent in the defence of the rights to digital privacy and security.
We brought to the forefront issues about the future of circular economies through the series “Our Circular Future”, which featured reflections from APC members Centre for Information Technology and Development in Nigeria, Digital Empowerment Foundation from India, Nodo TAU from Argentina, Pangea from Barcelona and Colnodo from Colombia.
We brought a human rights, intersectional and gender perspective to RightsCon 2023 in Costa Rica, by highlighting gender, sexuality, climate and environmental justice, also presenting a much-needed gender-responsive perspective on cybersecurity. We provided space for activists from the region to raise their voices on environmental struggles and advances being made through the Local Sound Bites Central America 2023.
We created a three-part framework for developing gender-responsive cybersecurity policy that proved useful for policy makers and civil society actors, among others, who are building resilient, meaningful and relevant cybersecurity policy frameworks in their countries.
We advocated for the need for an intersectional and human-centric approach to cybersecurity during international cyber discussions that had significant impact on regional and national policies and frameworks.
In Ecuador Acción Ecológica received an APC subgrant to coordinate with other Ecuadorian organisations and raise awareness to fight anti-rights violence by government and business sectors through technological means. The actions made visible the social and environmental consequences of extractivism and of post-extractivist proposals promoted by civil society.
With our member Sursiendo and partners, we developed a draft Feminist Principle on the Internet on the environment which provides a framework for women's movements to explore issues related to technology, digital rights and the environment, and maps a way forward to engage in policy spaces, do donor advocacy, raise public awareness and build momentum for collective action to shift the devastating impacts of the technology industry on the Earth.
We condemned violence against Palestinians and advocated in solidarity with Palestinian members, calling out tech companies to respect Palestinian digital rights in times of crisis. We also urged 119 governments to respect human rights and law at the UNGA emergency session on Gaza.
7amleh-The Arab Center for Social Media Advancement expanded their existing research on threats that Palestinian youth face in the digital space. This is in a context where 87% of Palestinian children and youth rarely or never participate in political discussions online due to fear of prosecution by authorities who monitor their social media content.
“The APC network has provided MAJI with a huge platform of collaborative opportunities to deploy initiatives that we only had on concept boards. Through the APC network, MAJI has deployed remote environmental sensing devices, installed community networks providing affordable internet for last-mile communities and developed an online environmental data platform for stakeholder use, analysis and engagement. We have carried out capacity-building trainings and research, thereby reaching more people and relevant stakeholders.” – Okoro Onyekachi Emmanuel, executive director at Media Awareness and Justice Initiative (MAJI), Nigeria.
Backed by an APC subgrant, AlterMundi made progress in “planting” Mango, a community currency and exchange system (“mango” is a slang term for money in Argentina) by identifying the circuits of the people's economy and how it relates to the country's formal economy. This is in a country where around five million people are part of the organised informal economy and also represent the population with most unattended basic needs.
We brought a gender justice lens to the United Nations' Global Digital Compact (GDC) by working with members and partners on the drafting of 10 feminist principles for including gender in the GDC, which align the voices of people and organisations working on the gender and digital agenda so that we can inform governments about our expectations on what should be in the final agreement.
Image credits: @NeemaIyer on X.
In a year that counted 283 internet shutdowns in 39 countries, APC launched a game that sheds light on the various methods of internet shutdowns, their relation to internet infrastructure and impact on human rights, and offers strategies and tools to circumvent them.
The UN Special Rapporteur’s report on gendered disinformation was informed by ongoing engagement with APC, as we continued drawing attention to this issue by bringing together four international freedom of expression rapporteurs. The rapporteurs discussed the recommendations of the 2022 Joint Declaration on Freedom of Expression and Gender Justice alongside the Agreed Conclusions of the 67th session of the Commission on the Status of Women.
With the support of an APC subgrant, TEDIC implemented strategic partnerships with other Paraguayan organisations to promote discussions and trainings on what it means to be safe online and offline, with particular attention to the needs and realities of LGBTQIA+ activists and other people in the community.
Image credits: TEDIC.
“In 2023, being part of the APC network enabled us to collaborate with three Paraguayan organizations, significantly strengthening digital rights and security for the LGTBIQ+ community and a rural women's community in San Pedro, which allowed us to reach a large and diverse group often left behind. Regionally, we worked with Terraformación from Chile to create a crucial document outlining digital transition priorities for Paraguay from a climate justice perspective.” – Araceli Ramírez, head of communications at TEDIC, Paraguay
As part of the Our Voices, Our Futures consortium and in support of structurally silenced women, we facilitated the attendance of three country partner representatives from Bangladesh, India and Kenya at IGF 2023 in Japan.
Image credits: GenderIT.
The Feminist Internet Research Network (FIRN) expanded its scope to the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region with a new cycle of research projects, and published new feminist research examining digital violence against LGBTQIA+ communities in Turkey, digital exclusion of women in Sudan and women’s online freedom of expression and assembly in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Our perspective of digital inclusion evolved and expanded from supporting community networks to supporting community-centred connectivity and local services, also focusing on the need for connectivity to be “meaningful” in ways that go beyond a technical definition and entail a bottom-up and contextual approach to the concept.
The 12 episodes of the podcast Routing for Communities inspired 3,200 listeners who heard the stories of 24 interviewees from 15 countries talking about how they connected their communities digitally and defended the fundamental rights and well-being of their people. The stories came from remote, rural and urban areas in different places of the globe, such as Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Indonesia, Kenya, Mexico, Nigeria, South Africa and Thailand.
Image credits: Gustavo Nascimento.
The National Schools of Community Networks trained 105 people from 35 communities in Brazil, Indonesia, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa to became community networks facilitators. In 2023, the Local Networks initiative led by APC and Rhizomatica awarded 23 microgrants to former Schools participants to implement actions locally where they could apply their new knowledge in ways that benefit their communities.
Image credits: Daniella Bello, Débora Prado and courtesy of Zenzeleni NPC, CITAD, TandaNet and Common Room.
Alongside other organisations, we provided civil society input to the zero draft for the Pact for the Future, an action-oriented outcome document that will be negotiated and endorsed by UN member countries in the lead-up to and during the Summit of the Future in September 2024.
We continued advancing policy priorities and discourse at key global policy spaces and processes, such as the Commission on the Status of Women, UN General Assembly, the UN Human Rights B-Tech Project, the Ad Hoc Committee to Elaborate a Comprehensive International Convention on Countering the Use of ICTs for Criminal Purposes, UNESCO, the Universal Periodic Review, and the Human Rights Council.
As part of the Hold The Line Coalition, we advocated for the successful acquittal of Maria Ressa and her news outlet Rappler, and called for all remaining cases to be dropped.
We organised an inter-movements gathering around infrastructures of care and the environment in Costa Rica, which brought together feminists in the community networks ecosystem and digital rights, environmental sustainability, care, safety and security activists among APC members and partners, which resulted in learnings in terms of methodologies, construction of sharing spaces, feminist approaches, collaborative work and generation of knowledge products that inspired other APC members to want to host gatherings in their regions, and led to the collaborative production of the GenderIT.org edition, "Imagining infrastructures of care and planetary solidarity".
Image credits: Natalia Vargas for GenderIT.
We also revisited the excitement of a global feminist internet convening in 2022 with a two-part audio series reflecting on building resilient movements and a feminist internet in their diverse contexts, a project that bloomed at the Making a Feminist Internet global convening in 2022.
For the first time since 2018, in August 2023 we held the “FTX 2023: Ctrl+Alt+Del”, a global convening on feminist technologies and infrastructure in Sri Lanka. It was based on the Feminist Tech eXchange (FTX) model, which was part of the country-level FTX convenings organised under the Our Voices Our Futures project, and provided both theoretical and hands-on practical learning on digital safety.
Working with partners, we continued our journey on feminist digital storytelling for transformation by making new tools available: one module on sexuality and internet governance, and another one on storytelling beyond the digital, as well as a methodology on infrastructures of affection developed with the Transfeminist Network of Digital Care work, called Gincana.
Image credits: Sonaksha Iyengar
The Safety for Voices initiative, implemented by APC, Urgent Action Fund Asia and Pacific, Urgent Action Fund Africa and IM-Defensoras, reached its first year sustaining 3,000 women human rights defenders through feminist holistic security in 43 countries by developing knowledge on trends and impacts of online violations, providing cross-movement support, policy advocacy work at the UN and regional levels, subgranting for resilience building and safeguarding those at acute risk through rapid response grants.
We actively co-created and provided free access to open source infrastructure in support of movement-building by holding another edition of CommsLab for high-risk activists in collaboration with Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice.
Arid Lands Information Network (ALIN) used APC subgrant support to build the first phase of community infrastructure to bring internet access to the Sipili market in Laikipia county in Kenya, an underserved area with approximately 400 registered businesses of which fewer than 1% have internet connectivity. This initiative has the potential to serve a population of approximately 27,000 people.
CITAD implemented measures through an APC subgrant to bridge the gap between women and policy-making processes in Nigeria, increasing the number of young female digital policy leaders working towards gender-sensitive policies.
Using an APC subgrant, Código Sur inspired a broad audience in Honduras and beyond to reflect on different aspects of our privacy and our digital rights through the development of a queer comic that contributes to building a narrative against abusive technology companies engaged in data mining, as well as high levels of spying and violations of people's privacy.
Colnodo used APC subgrant support to expand their platform for the management of geographic information system (GIS) projects and extend the Environmental Alert System of the Sustainable Development Network with information from sensors assembled in different locations. In this way, they offered communities and organisations in Colombia access to unprecedented environmental data.
The Digital Empowerment Foundation convened individuals and stakeholders to discuss various aspects of digital rights in two events supported by an APC subgrant: the 7th Community Network Xchange and the 5th Digital Citizen Summit 2023, where participants built their knowledge on emerging issues of digitisation and the continuing digital divide, respectively.
“The APC network has been instrumental in enabling us to learn, do, and achieve in 2023. The gendered disinformation conference co-organized by APC opened up valuable conversations and collaborative opportunities. The Community Network Xchange relied on APC's support, and the continued joint work on environment and circular economy initiatives amplified our regional impact. We are thankful for the connections, knowledge-sharing, and collective efforts facilitated by the APC network this past year.” – Osama Manzar, founder and director at Digital Empowerment Foundation, India.
APC engaged in the 2023 Digital Rights Asia-Pacific Assembly (DRAPAC23) organised by EngageMedia, where 544 participants from 35 countries built a shared vision of a rights-respecting digital future in the region, which resulted in the issuing of a statement of solidarity calling for greater protection of rights in the Asia-Pacific. With the support of an APC subgrant, EngageMedia produced the special series, titled “Pretty Good Podcast Live at DRAPAC23”, which raised awareness of critical threats to digital rights confronting advocates and human rights defenders in the region.
Image credits: EngageMedia on X.
Jokkolabs Banjul researched and implemented a campaign to combat online gender-based violence against female activists in The Gambia by engaging with an APC subgrant. This work informed the Ministry of Gender and Women Affairs and other key stakeholders with updated data and insights, and guided activists on the ground to better understand the impact of technology-facilitated gender-based violence (TFGBV).
With an APC subgrant, LaLibre.net laid the foundations for a digital rights defenders network in Ecuador, bringing individuals and organisations together for a two-day meeting where they improved collaboration, countering the reality of the disconnect and isolation that these groups usually work in.
The Media Awareness and Justice Initiative (MAJI) contributed to a national campaign in Nigeria through an APC subgrant to advocate for the Digital Rights and Freedom Bill. MAJI raised awareness on the need for digital inclusion and digital security, researched the deployment of sustainable and locally owned community networks and ran a training session for communities looking to deploy last-mile technologies.
Nodo TAU carried out an awareness-raising campaign in Rosario, Argentina, on the impact of waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE). With the support of an APC subgrant, the campaign pushed stakeholders to assume their responsibilities for the correct disposal of e-waste. The campaign also promoted the possibilities offered by the WEEE Management Plant run by Nodo TAU (which was awarded in 2023 with a FRIDA fund under the category “Open and free internet”).
Image credits: Nodo TAU.
“2023 offered us several opportunities to share, think and learn together that we appreciated, enjoyed and promoted. One of them was the consolidation of the Environmental Sustainability group and the development of the Participatory Grants for Environmental Sustainability. All the discussions were framed by a variety of dynamics and proposals that made this work possible and strengthened our collaboration. We had the opportunity to work with Pangea under one of those grants, which allowed us to address and improve crucial aspects of our work, mutually inspired by both our experiences. Being part of the APC network allowed all those learnings.” – Florencia Roveri, coordinator at Nodo TAU, Argentina
Intervozes used an APC subgrant support to take great strides in its advocacy promoting the right to communication and access to the internet, information and technologies among rural and traditional communities in Brazil. Intervozes advanced their goals through the “Free Territories, Free Technologies” project by running a caravan for internet access and socio-environmental justice in two pilot communities in the country’s northeast region.
Pangea, an APC member in Barcelona, celebrated its 30th anniversary in 2023. Throughout the year Pangea continued to shorten the distance between transformative organisations and ethical technologies through the development, publication and dissemination of educational and practical materials that increase users’ knowledge. These materials increase users’ capacity to critically choose ethical and sustainable technologies.
In Costa Rica, Sulá Batsú received support of an APC subgrant to carry out a participatory action-research project that explored the conditions to start the first platform cooperative led by young rural women, dedicated to the reuse of electronic equipment and value-added services. The project contributed to the advancement of a digital economy based on solidarity, care, reduction of accumulation and commitment to the community.
WOUGNET contributed to the advancement of women’s rights online by identifying the exact points of policy intervention from a gender-inclusive perspective of the Data Protection and Privacy Act of 2019 and the draft National Data Strategy, using the African Union Data Protection Framework 2022. Their contribution enabled the Government of Uganda to develop a unified and unambiguous legal approach that offers protection and obligations for equitable and safe access to data for innovation and competition.
In Venezuela, EsLaRed carried out a campaign with the support of an APC subgrant that sensitised diverse sectors on the importance of implementing adequate mechanisms to manage waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) in an integral and coordinated way, and provided guidance on the integral management of WEEE in a way that is also potentially replicable.
Through an APC subgrant, PROTEGE QV moved forward the recommendations from their previous APC subgranted research, “Evaluating the ability of the legal and institutional framework in Cameroon to promote effective digital waste management”, by organising an open conversation with key policy makers where they also discussed the way forward to strengthen the legal, regulatory and institutional framework.
In Nigeria, Fantsuam Foundation built the digital literacy capacities of 50 members of the Village Savings and Loan Associations they work with, as well as supported the digitisation of their records, improving in this way their services and their accountability.
In the rural Eastern Cape in South Africa, Zenzeleni Community Networks empowered rural households by offering them essential information, tools and resources to adapt to changing environmental conditions. Backed by an APC subgrant, Zenzeleni developed an online platform for knowledge exchange where community members contribute data on water sources, traditional medicinal plants, and sustainable agricultural, food gardening and fishing practices.
Jinbonet built the capacities of Korean activists to deal with the risks of artificial intelligence (AI), and the challenges posed by its regulation, by introducing them to proposals and debates in other countries, such as the European Union's AI Act.
As in previous years and engaging an APC subgrant, Rudi International convened various stakeholders to discuss the major trends in the growing digital rights movement in the DRC and the region at the fourth edition of HakiConf 2023 which was held in Goma, Congo, in November, ahead of the general elections in December.
Image credits: Rudi International.
Unwanted Witness promoted respectful use of digital technologies through an APC subgrant by researching the role and responsibility of data collectors and processors in the technology sector in Uganda, Kenya, Mauritius and Zimbabwe. Unwanted Witness then presented the findings to designated African data protection regulators to deepen their understanding of the human rights obligations of data collectors/processors and to promote transparency.
In 2023, VOICE ensured the online safety of journalists, women and human rights defenders in Bangladesh by countering privacy attacks through the development of a nationwide situation analysis. This analysis, supported by APC, provided data for evidence-based campaigning and advocacy and provided recommendations on digital security online resources to help safeguard personal data.
Backed by an APC subgrant, PROTEGE QV moved forward the recommendations of their research, “Evaluating the ability of the legal and institutional framework in Cameroon to promote effective digital waste management”, by organising an open conversation with key policy makers where they also discussed the way forward to strengthen the legal, regulatory and institutional framework.
Servelots used an APC subgrant support to focus on knowledge centre support and re-imagining resources through stories of local communities about their contributions to climate resilience.
In 2023, APC directly supported members of its network to attend, engage and influence dozens of sessions and events such as the global, regional and local Internet Governance Forums, RightsCon, the Stockholm Internet Forum, the Global Gathering and the Digital Rights Asia-Pacific Assembly, among others, with over USD 33,000 disbursed through our Member Engagement and Travel Fund.
In 2023, we strengthened our connections to the open source community by joining the Next Generation Internet Zero consortium (led by NLnet Foundation) along with 11 other partners) that provides grants to free software, hardware and data projects, in an effort to fund technology commons and to continue to enable activists have the tools they need to advance human rights, to build movements and to stay safe.
As part of the implementation of the Southeast Asia Digital Rights Collaborative initiative, we strengthened the capacities on ICT laws, policies, and advocacy and awarded 15 grants for research, capacity-building, campaigning and advocacy to individuals and organisations from eight countries who were new to the digital rights field, and who continued to build on the work undertaken through the programme even after its conclusion, leading to a stronger interconnected network and movement of digital rights actors in the region.
We advocated for community connectivity in Brazil, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa and Indonesia by sharing evidence on the benefits, achievements and needs of community networks. This evidence allows regulators and potential financiers to make efficient, informed decisions to address digital exclusion.
We documented the growing recognition in licensing frameworks for community networks at the international, regional and national levels and tracked the evolution of regulatory frameworks in Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Argentina, Mexico, Brazil and Colombia.
The APC network contributed to the largest published quantitative dataset on technology-facilitated gender-based violence focused on the global South, including data from 18,149 people of all genders in 18 countries. This dataset was released in 2023 by the Centre for International Governance Innovation.

Member grants

APC's subgranting programme with support from the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida)

2023 was the seventh year of APC’s subgranting programme, implemented with support from the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), other partners and member dues. This was the last year of the 2020-2024 subgrants cycle.

These subgrants are aimed at enabling our member organisations to contribute towards achieving APC’s vision.

Two types of grants were made available: Research and Campaign Grants and Environmental Sustainability Grants. Only one impact grant was implemented for the amount of USD 30,000.

The Research and Campaign Grants support local activities that contribute to members’ advocacy work and institutional strengthening and are also meant to enable members to participate in APC-wide campaigns.

The Environmental Sustainability Grants support environmental justice and sustainability activities aligned with APC’s Strategic Plan.

During 2023, a total of USD 374,053 in financial support was shared with APC members to implement 41 projects. Of these, 30 were implemented with the support of Research and Campaign Grants that totalled USD 288,141 while the remaining 11 projects were funded by Environmental Sustainability Grants that totalled USD 55,912.

You can find short descriptions of projects funded with Research and Campaign Grants here and of projects that received Environmental Sustainability Grants here..

Publications

Access our 2023 publications

Our members

In December 2023, APC had 62 organisational members and 41 individual associates active in 56 different countries, with the majority based in the global South.

APC member organisations

Africa Asia-Pacific North America (not including Mexico) Middle East and North Africa Europe Latin America and the Caribbean

Individual associates

  • Argentina

    • Damian Loreti

  • Australia

    • Andrew Garton
    • Sylvia Cadena
    • Mitra Ardron

  • Brazil

    • Vera Vieira

  • Canada

    • Stéphane Couture
    • Mallory Knodel

  • Colombia

    • Mario Morales Rincón
    • Ariel Barbosa

  • Congo, Democratic Republic of

    • Patience Luyeye

  • Czech Republic

    • Honza Malík

  • Ethiopia

    • Melaku Girma

  • Guinea

    • Serge Ziehi

  • India

    • Japleen Pasricha
    • Gayatri Khandhadai

  • Italy

    • Leonardo Maccari

  • Jordan

    • Inam Ali

  • Kenya

    • Muriuki Mureithi

  • Malaysia

    • Gayathry Venkiteswaran
    • Jac sm Kee

  • Mexico

    • Olinca Marino

  • Netherlands

    • Rolf Kleef

  • New Zealand

    • Joy Liddicoat

  • Paraguay

    • Arturo Bregaglio

  • Peru

    • Eiko Kawamura

  • South Africa

    • Anriette Esterhuysen
    • Towela Nyirenda-Jere

  • South Africa/Germany

    • Alex Comninos

  • Spain

    • Sol Luca de Tena

  • Sweden

    • Helen Belcastro

  • Tunisia

    • Rafik Dammak / رفيق دمق

  • Uganda

    • Helen Nyinakiiza
    • Brian Byaruhanga

  • United States

    • Avri Doria
    • Jane Coffin
    • Mai Ishikawa Sutton
    • Mark Graham

  • Uruguay

    • Pablo Accuosto

  • Zimbabwe

    • Koliwe Majama
    • Natasha Msonza
    • Patience Mandishona

Governance

Board of directors

  • Leandro Navarro, Associació Pangea - Coordinadora Comunicació per a la Cooperació, Spain (chair)
  • Bishakha Datta / বিশাখা দত্ত, Point of View / পয়েন্ট অফ ভিউ, India (vice-chair)
  • Sylvie Siyam, PROTEGE QV, Cameroon
  • Julián Casabuenas G., Colnodo, Colombia (secretary)
  • Pavel Antonov, BlueLink.net, Bulgaria
  • Oona Castro, Nupef, Brazil
  • Chat Garcia Ramilo, APC, Philippines (executive director)

Council representatives

Staff team in 2023

  • Executive director: Chat Garcia Ramilo, Philippines
  • Operations director: Karen Banks, Australia
  • Global governance lead: Valeria Betancourt, Ecuador
  • Programmes manager: Jan Moolman, South Africa (until October 2023)
  • Co-manager: Kathleen Diga, South Africa
  • Co-manager: Carlos Rey-Moreno, Australia
  • Gender and women’s engagement coordinator: Cynthia El Khoury, Canada
  • Communications associate: Débora Prado, Brazil *
  • Senior finance officer: Fatima Bhyat, South Africa **
  • APC Labs-Community Networks coordinator: Michael Jensen, Portugal
  • Programme administrator: Ndunge Kiundi, Kenya
  • Foundational technology development coordinator: Nicolás Andrés Pace, Argentina (until December 2023)

*Located in both the Local Access Programme and the Communications team.
** Located in both the Local Access Programme and the Finance team.

  • Manager: Paula Martins, Canada
  • Global policy advocacy coordinator: Verónica Ferrari, Argentina
  • Asia digital rights lead: Pavitra Ramanujam, India
  • Administrative associate: Cho, Thailand
  • Finance officer: Gladys, Philippines
  • Africa regional strategy lead: Peace Oliver Amuge, Uganda
  • Environmental justice co-lead: Development and coordination: shawna finnegan, Canada
  • Co-manager: Katerina Fialova, Czech Republic
  • Co-manager: namita aavriti, India
  • Capacity building strategy Lead: Jennifer Radloff, South Africa
  • Feminist Internet Research Network (FIRN) project coordinator: Tigist Hussen, South Africa
  • GenderIT editor: Hija Kamran, Canada
  • Feminist Tech eXchange (FTX) coordinator: Narrira Lemos de Souza, Brazil (from August 2023)
  • Our Voices, Our Futures project lead coordinator: Sheena G. Magenya, South Africa
  • Our Voices, Our Futures project coordinator: Smita Vanniyar, India
  • Our Voices, Our Futures administrator: Catherine Lwangu, Kenya (from April 2023)
  • Latin American capacity building and networking coordinator: Erika Smith, Mexico
  • Women's rights policy advocacy coordinator: Karla Velasco Ramos, Mexico
  • WRP administration coordinator: Mehar Un Neesa, Pakistan
  • Consortium manager: Sadaf Khan, Pakistan
  • Finance and administration coordinator: Muhamed Ali, Pakistan
  • Subgranting coordinator: Carla Vitória Barbosa, Brazil
  • Communications manager: Flavia Fascendini, Argentina
  • Media outreach lead: Leila Nachawati Rego, Spain
  • Language coordinator: Lori Nordstrom, Uruguay
  • Publications and multimedia coordinator: Cathy Chen, Canada/Taiwan
  • Content production and curation lead/GISWatch coordinator: Maja Romano, Canada
  • Lead editor: Gaurav Jain, India
  • Communications associate: Débora Prado, Brazil *

* Located in both the Local Access Programme and the Communications team.

  • Network and membership building coordinator: Karel Novotný, Portugal
  • Grants coordinator: Vassilis Chryssos, Greece
  • Resource mobilisation coordinator: Natalia Tariq, Pakistan
  • Executive administrator: Liy Yusof, Southeast Asia
  • Finance manager (interim): Karen Banks, Australia (from May 2023)
  • Finance manager: Maya Sooka, South Africa (until May 2023)
  • Senior finance officer: Fatima Bhyat, South Africa *
  • Finance coordinator: Christine Nyambo, Zimbabwe
  • Senior finance administrator: Nino Chubinidze, Georgia

* Located in both the Local Access Programme and the Finance team.

  • Operations lead: hvale vale, Bosnia and Herzegovina
  • CTE (Closer than Ever) online spaces organiser: Shivani Lal, India
  • Convenings coordinator: Pamela Ariza, Chile
  • People and culture manager: Delphine Ménard, Germany
  • HR and administrative officer: Eunice Mwesigwa, South Africa
  • Technical team coordinator: Roxana Bassi, Argentina
  • Technical systems developer: Adolfo Dunayevich Garber, Mexico
  • Senior technical officer: Maja Kraljic, Slovenia
  • Technical system administrator (sysadmin) (until September 2023): kosa, Mexico
  • Technical system administrator (sysadmin) (from October 2023): mirto, Czechia
  • Tech support and developer: Avinash Kuduvalli, India
  • Tech support and online event specialist: igu, France
  • Website developer: Liz Probert, United Kingdom (from July 2023)
  • Senior advisor on global and regional internet governance: Anriette Esterhuysen, South Africa (from March 2023)
  • Strategic plan writer and GISWatch editor: Alan Finlay, Argentina/South Africa (from May 2023)

Finances

Financial supporters

  • Astraea Foundation
    • CommsLabs Program for Eastern Europe and Central Asia (USAID sub-award)
  • Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs
    • Sustaining Defenders through Feminist Holistic Security (SDFHS)
  • Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, through the Directorate of Development Cooperation (DGIS) FLOW II Fund via Creating Resources for Empowerment in Action (CREA)
    • Our Voices, Our Futures
  • Ford Foundation
    • General support and core and project support for institutional strengthening
  • Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO)
    • Supporting Community-Led Approaches to Addressing the Digital Divide
    • Gender Matters in Cybersecurity
  • Foundation for a Just Society (FJS)
    • Restricted communications support to APC’s Women’s Rights Programme project GenderIT
  • German Corporation for International Cooperation (GIZ)
    • Community Development Cameroon
  • Global Fund for Women (GFW)
    • General support grant
  • International Development Research Centre (IDRC)
    • Making a Feminist Internet Research Network
    • Resistance and Resilience: Collaborative responses to online attacks on environmental defenders
  • Luminate
    • Southeast Asia Digital Rights Collaborative (DRC)
  • Oak Foundation
    • Unrestricted support to the APC Women's Rights Programme
  • Open Society Institute
    • Support for community networks
  • Stiftung Auxilium Foundation managed by Porticus Foundation
    • Reclaim Your Rights: Strengthening the digital rights movement in Asia
  • Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida)
    • Core support for the APC Strategic Action Plan 2020-2023
  • Swiss Philanthropy Foundation
    • Creating infrastructure of care in the digital space
  • United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR )
    • Impact of misinformation, disinformation and hate speech is mitigated
  • Wellspring Philanthropic Fund (WPF)
    • Women’s Rights; Online Gender-Based Violence Research; Social and Environmental Justice
  • ARTICLE 19
    • Bridging policy and technology to encode human rights in internet infrastructure
  • African Union Commission
    • Support for the African Internet Governance Forum
  • Asia Pacific Network Information Centre Foundation (APNIC)
    • Support for community networks
  • Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO)
    • Support for the African Internet Governance Forum
  • German Corporation for International Cooperation (GIZ)
    • Support for the African School on Internet Governance
  • Global Partners Digital
    • Advancing Digital Inclusion and Shaping Inclusive and Rights-Respecting Norms
  • Huawei Technology
    • Support for the African Internet Governance Forum
  • ICANN
    • Support for the African Internet Governance Forum and African School on Internet Governance
  • Internet Society (ISOC)
    • Support for the African School on Internet Governance and Community Networks
  • Meta
    • Support for the African Internet Governance Forum
  • Mozilla Foundation
    • Support for the African School on Internet Governance
  • Public Internet Registry
    • Support for the African School on Internet Governance
  • United Nations New York Office
    • Support for the African Internet Governance Forum

APC financial statements for 2023

Income statement for the year ended 31 December 2023

Balance sheet at 31 December 2023

2023 (USD) 2022 (USD)
ASSETS 6,033,392 5,762,839
Non-current assets 159 317
Equipment 159 317
Current assets 6,033,232 5,762,523
Accounts receivable 45,036 81,589
Accrued income 397,902 283,157
Cash and cash equivalents 5,590,295 5,397,777
TOTAL ASSETS 6,033,392 5,762,839
 
RESERVES AND LIABILITIES 6,033,392 5,762,839
Reserves and sustainability funds 845,631 807,160
Sustainability fund 760,678 746,551
Programme funds 37,744 -
General fund 47,209 60,610
Current liabilities 5,187,760 4,955,679
Accounts payable 258,183 328,329
Deferred income from grants 4,762,062 4,566,925
Grant refundable 99,908 -
Provision for leave pay 67,608 60,426
TOTAL RESERVES AND LIABILITIES 6,033,392 5,762,839

Income statement for the year ended 31 December 2023

2023 (USD) 2022 (USD)
INCOME 8,287,698 7,199,549
Grants 7,135,507 6,472,407
Other income 392,134 263,234
Commissioned services 139,880 140,813
Membership fees 29,750 28,675
Contributions and event income 197,126 73,501
Refunds 24,133 18,286
Sales and sundry 1,245 1,959
Passthrough grants 760,056 463,907
 
EXPENDITURE 8,249,226 7,168,893
Governance, Programme Development, Monitoring and Evaluation and Administration 1,744,871 1,504,727
Environmental Sustainability, Communications, Technical and Network Development Units 1,530,159 1,555,305
Communications and Information Policy Programme 1,922,532 2,537,334
Global Advocacy and Policy Strategy 411,168 222,878
Safety for Voices Initiative 1,482,602
Women’s Rights Programme 1,157,894 1,348,649
 
SURPLUS / (DEFICIT) FOR THE YEAR 38,471 30,655

Note: Detailed information is available in the audited financial statements for 2023.