#GhanaDecides2024: Collaborating to fight electoral disinformation campaigns

Kwaku Krobea Asante

Media Foundation for West Africa

November 23, 2025

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

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About My Organisation

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About me

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West Africa Context to Ghana’s 2024 General Elections

• Regional instability and ongoing democratic recession in West Africa: Coups in Mali (2020, 2021), Guinea (2021), Burkina Faso (2022), and Niger (2023)

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• Rise in autocratic governance and failure of existing democracies to yield dividends for citizens

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• West Africa is target for disinformation and propaganda campaigns (FIMI): The region recorded almost 40% of all the campaigns that targeted Africa in 2023

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• Ghana remained one of the few examples of a seemingly working democracy ahead of the 2024 elections

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Local Context to December 7 2024 General Elections

• A sitting Vice President aims for the ultimate, a former President seeks a return

• Both candidates hail from the northern part of the country where there’s an ongoing bloody ethnic-chieftaincy conflict

• Previous elections recorded incidence of violence leading to 8 deaths

• Deep mistrust in the elections management body, partly relating to information management

• The previous presidential election was decided by the Supreme Court because the leading opposition party did not trust the process amidst widespread disinformation

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Ghana Fact-checking Coalition

• Members of the International fact-checking network in Ghana (Fact-Check Ghana, Ghana Fact and Dubawa) formed the Ghana Fact-checking Coalition

• Other civil society organisations working on information integrity and resilience joined

• Created two Media Situation Rooms-one each in the Northern and Southern parts of Ghana (Accra, the capital)--that run from December 4-11, 2024

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Ghana Fact-checking Coalition

• Live monitoring of narratives around the elections to spot misinformation, disinformation and polarising

• Producing real-time fact-checking reports to counter the spotted false narratives about the elections

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• Spotting and bringing to the attention of relevant stakeholders (Electoral Commission & Security) to critical happenings about the elections

Methodology

Ghana Fact-checking Coalition

• Used Tech & AI-based tools and social media listening to monitor internet and social media: Full Fact AI, Brandwatch, chatbox, etc.

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Methodology

• Engaged and trained 25 fact-checkers based in the 16 regions of Ghana, providing field verification

• Worked with Editors from about 100 radio, TV and news websites to monitor their communities across the country

• Trained 30 media monitors dedicated to top and influential radio and TV stations

Findings of work

• Smear campaigns
• Coordinated networks engaging in disinformation astroturfing on X

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• Recycling of old photos and videos

Findings of work

• Gendered disinformation and weaponisation of LGBTQI narratives for disinformation
• Targeting the Vice Presidential Candidate of the leading opposition and Chairperson of the Elections Management Body

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• Deployment of AI-generated disinformation, especially text-to-audio outputs synthesized to sound like the leading candidates

Findings of work

• The disinformation themes focused:

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Impact of the Fact-checking Coalition

• Our work contributed significantly to protecting electoral information integrity, resulting in high public confidence in the outcome of the elections
• The Situation Room engaged with the Electoral Commission on the announcement of the final results of the presidential elections to ensure accuracy

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• The work of the Coalition received enormous public uptake and support due to its novelty and resourcefulness. As a result, some of our hashtags—#StopDisinformationGH and #GhanaFactCheckingCoalition trended instead the usual false narratives

• Our work contributed to reducing electoral violence and casualties

Thank you!