Скачать или смотреть GDC Africa Pre-Forum Webinar: Elections, Youth Participation, and Democratic Accountability

Elections are moments of heightened democratic vulnerability across Africa. They concentrate political competition, expose civic space to legal and security restrictions, and intensify digital repression through surveillance, internet shutdowns, and coordinated disinformation campaigns. For youth-led movements and civic actors, elections are not only opportunities for participation, but also periods of increased risk.

Across the continent, young people are often the first to experience and respond to these pressures. They lead voter education, election observation, community monitoring, and digital accountability efforts, while simultaneously navigating shrinking civic space, restrictive laws, and online harassment. In many contexts, electoral periods function as testing grounds for new forms of repression and manipulation that later become normalized beyond election cycles.

This webinar approaches elections not as a technical exercise, but as a critical lens to examine democratic resilience. It explores how African youth act as a first line of democratic defense during electoral moments, resisting civic space closure, countering digital repression, and demanding accountability. By grounding the discussion in lived experience and recent electoral cycles, the webinar will generate insights that feed directly into the 2026 GDC Africa Regional Forum.