> our main focus has been identifying ways to work with the Africa Union to plug them into
> ongoing and future priorities and initiatives in the region, with this project being the first step towards that.

Perhaps an easy 'zeroth step' would be naming at least one community lead/contact for any planned project, along with a description of the project, somewhere on one of our wikis.  [A partnerships page on meta?]

> we don't think it's also feasible to consult each and every opportunity at hand, creating even extra work for volunteers.

Confusion and uncertainty create more work than transparency. :) 
Just share what is known in a public document, and make sure anything that reaches the stage of a publicly announcable effort has active community leadership.  Having to reconstruct this (here an exclusive reliance on staff seems to mean at least a 5-week delay in even understanding what the project might entail! unless one follows up with ANF to find out what they hope to realize w/ their wikimedian in residence -- duplicating effort)

> although we would have preferred not to be grouped together in a single announcement,
> we can't control the way a third party decides to share their information.

Perhaps we can.  Just today I had to sign boilerplate language from a large org that says "you may list our name/logo on your site to indicate collaboration or partnership only if part of at least 5 other logos, and our logo may not be larger/more emphasized than the others".

I recommend requiring any partners to agree that our brands and names will never be used in the same sentence as "Meta" as it refers to Facebook's parent org, in public announcements or on web pages, for obvious reasons of confusion and divergence of principles and goals.

SJ
#WTW /1

On Tue, Dec 21, 2021 at 1:25 PM Jorge Vargas <jvargas@wikimedia.org> wrote:
Dear Florence,

As promised, wanted to make sure we circled back before the holiday break after getting more information. Per my last communication, I want to reiterate we are indeed working on a project that is framed under a larger collaboration being discussed with the Africa Union. This collaboration was not initiated or directed specifically with Africa No Filter, which was only involved by the African Union as part of the process. Along the way, Africa No Filter has shown more interest in playing a more active role in the project, which we're still currently discussing if and how they partake. So far, our main focus has been identifying ways to work with the Africa Union to plug them into ongoing and future priorities and initiatives in the region, with this project being the first step towards that.

Due to some WMF staff absences and a few logistical mishaps, we were not in a good position to fully coordinate on Africa No Filter’s announcement, which went live without final confirmation from them. That was not our intention, and we regret if this caught you or anyone else off guard. The goal remains to finalize a Diff post that will share the details of the project and was meant to be posted prior to any other announcements. In the interest of allowing everyone their holiday rest (and because this project is not really yet in motion), we will be communicating more about it in January 2022 in a Diff post and other channels. We also want to reiterate that this partnership has absolutely nothing to do with Meta or the Hewlett Foundation, and although we would have preferred not to be grouped together in a single announcement, we can't control the way a third party decides to share their information.

Our work with the Africa Union has started in 2021 as part of the work the Foundation has done to listen to local initiatives, identify ways to engage, and support existing priorities in the region. Recognizing we can always do better, our teams are plugged into the field as much as possible, hearing needs and identifying synergies to what the movement is prioritizing locally. We strongly believe this project is aligned and follows the line of other projects we've been supporting in the region. This or any other project is also not coming from staff or stakeholders outside of Africa, and it's our critical intention that relevant work for the region and our movement there is led and supported regionally. We can also assure you that the project will continue to have plenty of room for feedback and discussion, as it's meant to be implemented within the movement priorities in 2022. We expect to have those interested partake and get involved!

Your email does flag something relevant that we take to heart, which is how we can find ways to make sure relevant stakeholders locally can have better participation and due diligence earlier in these processes. Our intention will never be to create competing priorities, yet we don't think it's also feasible to consult each and every opportunity at hand, creating even extra work for volunteers. We believe there's a delicate balance, and the Foundation continues to do its best to find the best ways to reach. We take this opportunity as a learning on how more expansive and trust-building forums can be created while balancing volunteer requests, as we continue to regionalize and localize our work as much as possible as mandated by Movement Strategy.

We look forward to sharing more about this project in January 2022, and to more opportunities for dialogue in the new year. I wish you a restful and lovely break, in hopes the new year brings us more spaces to share and build together.

Warmly,
Jorge

On Thu, Dec 9, 2021 at 12:58 AM Gnangarra <gnangarra@gmail.com> wrote:
HI Jorge

I find it disturbing that you dont have a detailed answer even now, and that the WMF would agree to partnerships which dont respect the community its the community who has built and maintain the credibility of the projects. 

While its nice to see high level efforts from the WMF extreme care should be being taken in who we partner with and how they present the relationship.  I find it troubling that a partner can make an announcement and include a third party, especially when that third party has a long history for data collection, private data resale, supporting fake news, and violating copyright.  

Knowing this how robust are the data privacy exchanges what security is in place between the WMF and ANf & AU given that they are working with such a concerning third party and see the two as intertwined the "jumping of the gun" and link that third both very little respect for us

Regards
Gnangarra

On Thu, 9 Dec 2021 at 03:39, Yael Weissburg <rweissburg@wikimedia.org> wrote:
Thank you, Jorge, for this thoughtful and clear response. 

Florence, Xavier, and others: I know there's often good reason to message Wikimedia-l, and also to let you know that you can always reach the WMF Partnerships team at partnerships@wikimedia.org and on our Meta page if you want to engage with us directly!

Best,

Yael

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Wikimedia Foundation
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On Wed, Dec 8, 2021 at 11:28 AM Jorge Vargas <jvargas@wikimedia.org> wrote:
Hi Florence,

Thanks for your email. We wanted to acknowledge receipt and say that we're working on a more detailed answer about the partnership with Africa No Filter (ANF) and the Africa Union (AU), and to some of the higher-level points you've raised around our general approach to this work.

We're gathering all the right information to make sure we can offer a comprehensive answer, but in short, to your first question, the collaboration between WMF and ANF described in the announcement, is led by the Foundation's Partnerships and Community Programs teams and will be implemented in collaboration with Wikimedia communities. This collaboration sits under a larger ongoing relationship with the African Union, who were actually the ones who first connected us to ANF. We broadly introduced the project during this specific session [1] at WikiIndaba, and have a comprehensive Diff post coming up soon with more information about this project's goals and how it connects with existing movement priorities, which we are happy to forward to this thread when it’s live. Unfortunately, ANF went slightly earlier on what was going to be a joint announcement, and we're talking with them on how this came about.

To be clear, we are not partnering on this project with Meta; we are partnering solely with ANF and the Africa Union, within their 2063 Agenda strategy [2] for the region. We have no involvement in the separate partnership that ANF announced with Meta in the same announcement.

We read your email as elevating some larger concerns we want to make sure are heard, for us all to have a good faith and important dialogue on how we inform, collaborate, and work with the Movement in partnership-related activity. Our intention is never to create overlapping/conflictive work with the ones in the Movement, but rather add value and collaborate, as we believe we are doing in this case.

We will be providing an answer soon with more details.

Regards,

Jorge Vargas
Director of Regional Partnerships

[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiIndaba_conference_2021/Program/The_future_of_knowledge_creation_in_Africa_through_partnerships
[2] https://au.int/en/agenda2063/overview

On Wed, Dec 8, 2021 at 11:36 AM F. Xavier Dengra i Grau via Wikimedia-l <wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:
Hi all,

Thank you for raising up this topic in the list, Florence. I fully agree with you in all your points and find it of great concern, especially regarding accountability of the WMF towards the community. But also because its increasing agreements and decisions that are not thoroughly reviewed or shared before a long way (i.e. money, hiring and staffing time expenditure) has already been done.

This matter can be linked a lot with the long debate that Galder (user Theklan) had here about a month and a half ago on the disappointing WMF tech support, while we see big efforts on content that disrupt the decentralized role of communities and that, in this precise case, they seem to be even very unequally communicated.

I am looking forward to read more on this in case someone is aware of what's going on. It does not look any good so far, especially for the silence on "our" side (as what WMF does has an impact in the discursive trustworthiness of all volunteers) and because in that newsletter it is being mentioned as a project side to side with Facebook.

Best,

Xavier Dengra

‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
El dimecres, 8 de desembre 2021 a les 4:51 PM, Florence Devouard <fdevouard@gmail.com> va escriure:

Hello


Got that in my mailbox today.
I had known that for a few days because it had been displayed on ANF website and been the object of an ANF previous email a few days ago about a partnership between Wikimedia Foundation / ANF / African Union to fix the gap related to African representation. So it is not really a surprise to ME, but...

On one hand, it is a good news to see the big organisations get involved.

On the other hand... there are a few points bugging me and I wanted to share just that.


ANF has been announcing those partnerships for several days on their networks.
But from WMF... I see a complete silence. No announcement in the lists, nor in the grant space, nor on diff, nor to the affiliates impacted by this announcement;
Nothing. No mention of an Africa Knowledge Initiative on meta either. Nothing at all.


The total silence from WMF raises questions and concerns in my mind. Such as :

1) Is that partnership real and known from the Wikimedia Foundation ?

2) If it is, why is Wikimedia Foundation not informing the community about what seems to be a significant partnership ?
Is it that in truth no one at WMF cares about this partnership ? Or is it by fear of community reaction ? Or is it a wish to not have local groups involved at all ?

3) What's the role of the Wikimedia Foundation in that partnership ?
Is it just allowing ANF to use the Wikipedia brand ? Is Wikimedia Foundation providing a grant to ANF ? Is Wikimedia Foundation providing staff time to ANF ? Is Wikimedia Foundation offering volunteer time from the communities or facilitating recruitement of cheap labour ? Is Wikimedia Foundation planning to provide networking support in connecting ANF to the communities and usergroups ?

What is WMF role in this ?

4) When Usergroup Affiliates are approved, a thorough review of their request is made to avoid any situation of overlapping activities with the other usergroups. And once approved, there is a concern that they have to coordinate and inform about overlapping activities.
Clearly, the WMF is here officially supporting a collection of initiatives that will overlap with already existing activities and could impact existing usergroups. However, WMF did not inquire of existing groups opinion on such a partnership, nor did it actually sought to simply inform them. Did WMF tried to involve the impacted parties ?

In short, in a spirit of collaboration and shared mission... would not that be expected that impacted communities be informed/polled/or even involved ?

5) In the past few months, I have seen WMF staff increasingly get directly involved into Content Projects. It seems that WMF staff who once where busy developing tools to support the communities, are now rather spending time creating, leading or facilitating content projects. I suppose there are benefits to doing that. And do not misunderstand me, I appreciate every staff member involved in such effort and recognise their skills.
But when WMF staff move from support function to Content Projects leadership, it also can have detrimental consequences in our ecosystem, such as inequity in resources access between projects organized by WMF and projects organized by community members (*). It can have detrimental consequences in decreasing the opportunities for community members to take on leadership roles. It can have detrimental consequences in making WMF appear like a content producer.

My question would be... is this shift in WMF staff activities ... simply due to the lack of leadership at WMF level for the past months... or is it an deliberate move ?


Sorry, long rant today... but seeing the meta-name thiefs associated with our brand was the last drop ...


Florence

PS: I have examples...


-------- Message transféré --------
Sujet :
Meta, WikiMedia, and the Hewlett Foundation partner with Africa No Filter
Date :
Wed, 08 Dec 2021 23:00:15 +1100
De :
Africa No Filter <info@africanofilter.org>
Répondre à :
info@africanofilter.org
Pour :
Florence Devouard <Fdevouard@anthere.org>


Meta, WikiMedia, and the Hewlett Foundation are the latest partners to join Africa No Filter in shifting narratives about Africa. ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌



Hewlett Foundation, Meta, and the Wikimedia Foundation are the latest partners to join Africa No Filter in shifting narratives about Africa

8 December, Accra: Narrative change organisation, Africa No Filter, today announced new partnerships with Hewlett Foundation, Meta (formerly Facebook), and the Wikimedia Foundation for its campaign to shift the stereotypical narratives about and within Africa.

The new funding pool of USD1.2 million will be invested in research, building community, and storytelling initiatives that present new perspectives on the continent, including projects that reimagine African creativity through immersive reality and expand how Africa is represented on Wikimedia projects. This is part of Africa No Filter’s goal to grow the community of partners and funders who want to see current narratives shift towards a more contemporary and nuanced view of the continent.

The Hewlett Foundation is the ninth funder to support the Africa No Filter donor collaborative, joining Ford Foundation, Bloomberg, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Luminate, Open Society Foundations, Comic Relief, the Hilton Foundation, and the British Council in partnering with Africa No Filter to shift and disrupt stereotypical narratives about Africa.

Hewlett’s funds will primarily support ANF’s ongoing grantmaking in the arts, culture, and media space. A portion of the funds will go towards a storytelling campaign aimed at shifting narratives around sexual health and reproduction rights in Hewlett’s key countries.

In line with Meta’s focus on the immersive technologies, which they are calling the metaverse, the partnership will push the boundaries of storytelling by supporting content producers to create virtual and augmented reality films that tell African stories. It will also ensure that African creators are represented as the next generation of the internet emerges.

Greater representation of African people, experiences and contexts are at the core of the collaboration between Africa No Filter and the Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit that operates Wikipedia. More content about Africa will be added to Wikimedia projects, including Wikipedia, to close knowledge equity gaps on one of the world’s most visited sites.

According to the “Extent of Geolocated Entities in Articles” tab of the Geography Gap Project, only 5.5% of all geotagged articles in all Wikipedia language editions are related to Africa. On English Wikipedia specifically, 4% of geotagged articles relate to Africa. Africa No Filter seeks to increase the number of African contributors to Wikimedia projects and to grow the corpus of African knowledge in multiple African languages.

Through the partnership with Wikimedia Foundation and the African Union, Africa No Filter has launched the Africa Knowledge Initiative. This collaboration will bring together creatives, activists and mission-aligned organizations, along with the African Wikimedia communities to produce verifiable, locally relevant, and easily accessible content to increase the representation of African knowledge on the internet. The Africa Knowledge Initiative will grow the corpus of African knowledge and the number of African knowledge producers. It will also translate the knowledge into multiple African languages.

The Meta and Wikimedia Foundation projects will offer funding, mentorship, and capacity building. They will be launched through grant callouts on Africa No Filter’s usual platforms.

Moky Makura, Executive Director at Africa No Filter, says: "We are incredibly honoured that Africa No Filter has been identified as a trusted partner and custodian of these projects. Each partnership supports the creation of content that is more representative of what is happening across the continent, which fuels our mission. New partnerships and funding allow us to increase our reach and impact and ultimately bring awareness of the importance of which story Africans are telling. It means we can do more – it’s an exciting time for Africa No Filter. "

Media enquiries: Lerato@africanofilter.org 

 About Africa No Filter  

Africa No Filter is a donor collaborative shifting stereotypical and harmful narratives within and about Africa through research, grant-making, community building and advocacy by supporting storytellers, investing in media platforms, and driving disruption campaigns. It is funded by Ford Foundation, Bloomberg, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Luminate, Open Society Foundations, Comic Relief, the Hilton Foundation, the British Council and Hewlett Foundation. 

About the Wikimedia Foundation

The Wikimedia Foundation is the nonprofit organization that operates Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia free knowledge projects. Our vision is a world in which every single human can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. We believe that everyone has the potential to contribute something to our shared knowledge and that everyone should be able to access that knowledge freely. We host Wikipedia and the Wikimedia projects, build software experiences for reading, contributing, and sharing Wikimedia content, support the volunteer communities and partners who make Wikimedia possible, and advocate for policies that enable Wikimedia and free knowledge to thrive.

About Meta

Meta builds technologies that help people connect, find communities, and grow businesses. When Facebook launched in 2004, it changed the way people connect. Apps like Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp further empowered billions around the world. Now, Meta is moving beyond 2D screens toward immersive experiences like augmented and virtual reality to help build the next evolution in social technology.

About Hewlett Foundation

The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation advances ideas and supports institutions to promote a better world. For more than 50 years, the Foundation has e supported efforts to advance education for all, preserve the environment, support vibrant performing arts, strengthen Bay Area communities, make the philanthropy sector more effective, and foster gender equity and responsive governance around the world.


Remember to like our Facebook and LinkedIn pages, and to follow us on Twitter and Instagram at @Africanofilter.




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