Crowd-sourcing is popular but audiences in Africa are under-served.  Radio stations inform, but often don’t ask. This SMS-based project will create informed engagement between civil society, media and governments. 

Mobile communication in Africa is more reliable and easier to access than internet or radio. According to GSM there are nearly 649 million subscribers in Africa and almost 86 million will be added by the end of 2012.  

The project is designed on the premise that data collected from under-reported audiences in Africa via text messages and mobile applications can provide investigative journalists with information of priority public interest. 

The resulting investigative stories, backed up with credible data, can be shared with communities and the media in order to hold African leaders accountable for social injustices.

The primary audience will be communities in African countries who are under-served with news from traditional media such as newspapers, radio, television and Internet access, but who still have access to mobile phones from which they can text free messages to a dedicated number.

This methodology seeks to ensure that future regional and continental stories would interrogate African authorities in a more methodical, fact-based manner. 

The Forum for African Investigative Reporters (FAIR) is a network of more than 80 investigative journalists working in 38 African countries. 

FAIR members are constantly ‘digging up’ information about social injustices in their regions. Assisted by crowd-sourcing tools and data, these journalists can produce accurate databases which correspond with investigative stories. 

Crowd-sourcing tools have been developed by FAIR members independently, and the FAIR office is developing a format that will be applicable throughout Africa via mobile phones, and for integration with the FAIR website:  www.fairreporters.org 

FAIR has built up a network of professional investigative journalists and editors in Africa, most of who operate online as well as traditional media. Many have experience with crowd-sourcing, though are mostly not yet reaching national, let alone regional or continental audiences. 

FAIR’s ‘one SMS-number per country’ facility, aided by local radio and other CSO’s outreach, will get SMS’s from cross-national audiences reach investigative journalists. 

FAIR has recently revamped its website to enable interaction with mobile applications and social media tools. The FAIR website will host the continental mobile platform for the generated content.