Tawanda Majoni is the founder and director of Information for Development Trust, a Zimbabwean non-profit organization promoting public sector accountability through investigative journalism, research, and advocacy. He has more than 20 years of experience as a senior journalist and as Public Relations and Marketing Director in the private sector. Tawanda is a regular newspaper columnist focusing on corruption and bad governance.

He authored the study, Nascent Investigative Journalism Hubs in Southern Africa: Achievements, Challenges and Opportunities. As an experienced media mentor and trainer, Tawanda also has guided senior investigative journalists in Southern Africa.

IVLP Impact Award Project: Empowering Zimbabwean Community-Based Organizations to Counter Disinformation and Misinformation

The project builds the capacity and resilience of vulnerable Zimbabwean grassroots communities to effectively counter the disruptions and negative effects of online and offline disinformation and misinformation. The capacity of Community Based Organizations (CBOs) to identify, understand, and work with their respective constituencies and the mainstream media will be enhanced to combat disinformation and misinformation.

At least four leaders from six selected CBOs representing and working in communities seriously affected by disinformation and misinformation will be trained on ways to identify and counter it. The project will encourage local communities to adopt online and offline strategies to counter disinformation and misinformation relating to resource governance, service delivery, human rights and social and political deception. It will also build symbiotic and beneficial synergies between grassroots communities and the mainstream media to expose instances and trends of disinformation and misinformation.

So far, the project conducted two successful two-day workshops on disinformation and misinformation, engaging 24 representatives from six community-based organizations (CBOs). Experts provided practical training on fact-checking and strategies to combat misinformation, including the use of AI. The CBOs developed offline and online strategies to identify and combat disinformation such as creating WhatsApp groups with an average of 300 members each. These groups have reached nearly 1,800 indirect beneficiaries, allowing community members to discuss and expose misinformation. The CBOs also organized in-person community meetings to further address disinformation and misinformation. 

Two CBOs held further debates with Tawanda to actively engage their communities in identifying and debunking disinformation. Additionally, the Mutasa Youth Initiative organized a community meeting attended by 33 members, predominantly women, where participants identified misinformation related to government claims. Tawanda states that “There is demonstrated evidence, shown through post-training video evaluation, that the trainees gained useful knowledge and skills relating to identifying and exposing disinformation and Misinformation." 

 

IVLP Exchange Experience 

Tawanda participated in the IVLP Project Community Strategies for Identifying and Combatting Disinformation, organized by the U.S. Department of State and FHI 360, in partnership with the World Affairs Council of Philadelphia and World Partnerships, Inc.

Tawanda participated in sessions focused on threats posed by disinformation, digital citizenship, media literacy, disinformation through Artificial Intelligence, military-based propaganda in West Africa, new technologies and disinformation, using the media to combat disinformation, and information vulnerabilities faced by immigrants, among others.

“A super-informative session conducted by Mark Carr, the Strategic Communications Director in the Bureau of African Affairs, inspired me to think deeply on what I could do to empower local grassroots community organizations to identify and expose the threat of misleading information.”- Tawanda Majoni

U.S. Communities Visited

Washington, DC; Tampa, FL; Philadelphia, PA

Country: Zimbabwe

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