Code for Africa (CfA) African Academy for Open Source Investigation (AAOSI) Fellowships 2026 for investigative Journalists (Monthly Stipend)

Application Deadline:  06 March 2026

Applications are actually open for the 2026 Code for Africa (CfA) African Academy for Open Source Investigation (AAOSI) Fellowships. Code for Africa (CfA) is providing six African Academy for Open Source Investigation (AAOSI) Fellowships to mentor journalists in choose African nations.

The programme goals to foster stronger democratic accountability, strengthen digital resilience and safety of pro-democracy civil society actors, safeguard using digital applied sciences and on-line areas, and improve youth voices and youth civic engagement in a safe digital house. It will do that by equipping journalists from investigative media organisations and watchdog non-governmental organisations (NGOs) with open-source intelligence (OSINT) and social media intelligence (SOCMINT) forensic evaluation abilities to provide evidence-driven analyses.

The fellowship will additional improve data integrity within the goal nations by tackling data manipulation and interference (IMI), coordinated inauthentic behaviour (CIB), disinformation campaigns, hate speech, on-line harassment, propaganda, and the weaponisation of synthetic intelligence (AI) to pollute data ecosystems.

Regions

Applications are welcome from journalists within the following areas/nations:

1. The Sahel area: Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Niger, and Senegal.
2. West Africa: Benin, Cameroon, Guinea, and Togo.
3. East Africa: Ethiopia, Somalia, and South Sudan.

Eligibility Requirements

Candidates should:

1. Be primarily based in one of many goal African nations. 
2. Have a minimal of 1 12 months of expertise in journalism, with a powerful choice for investigative or knowledge journalism.
3. Provide proof of reviews produced and just lately printed.
4. Be connected or affiliated to a media home, digital information outlet, or a related organisation the place content material produced in the course of the undertaking shall be printed. This additionally applies to freelance journalists.
5. Commit to publishing/disseminating their work on an acceptable public platform. CfA will help with partnerships and syndications the place acceptable.
6. Commit to agreed-on weekly on-line coaching and mentorship classes.
7. Be keen to share their new abilities and information inside their organisation, by presenting their initiatives and methods to their friends.
8. Be fluent in both of the languages of tuition and mentorship (English or French).

The fellowship programme

Fellows shall be anticipated to apply their coaching to real-world challenges by actively countering disinformation, exposing dangerous narratives, and enhancing digital safety measures inside their respective contexts.

The second cohort of the programme will span 4 months in 2026, and can include:

1. Financial assist: The chosen journalists will obtain a month-to-month stipend to cowl associated actions and prices.
2. Technical assist: CfA will provide hands-on technical coaching, adopted by one-on-one undertaking mentorship and assist from CfA’s knowledge technologists, knowledge analysts, multimedia producers, and editors. 
3. Publishing assist: The journalists will publish content material generated underneath the undertaking on their respective media platforms and can obtain assist to publish internationally. 
4. Growing attain: CfA will provide amplification and development assist, together with scaling/syndication assist for the affiliated organisations.

For More Information:

Opportunities.codeforafrica.org/2026/02/03/call-for-applications-aaosi-fellowship-for-journalists-in-east-africa-west-africa-and-the-sahel-region-2/” goal=”_blank” rel=”noreferrer noopener”>Visit the Official Webpage of the Code for Africa (CfA) African Academy for Open Source Investigation (AAOSI) Fellowships