As the boundary between traditional journalism and digital influence continues to dissolve, UNESCO and the Bloggers Association of Kenya (BAKE) have announced a strategic partnership to fortify the digital landscape.
Launched under UNESCO’s Social Media 4 Peace (SM4P) project, this collaboration aims to transform Kenya’s leading influencers, bloggers, and podcasters into Trusted Voices, advocates equipped to promote information integrity and spearhead digital peacebuilding efforts across the country.
In a landscape where millions of Kenyans rely on social media as their primary news source, content creators have evolved into de facto custodians of information. However, the unchecked rise of disinformation, hate speech, and harmful AI-generated content poses a persistent threat to national social cohesion.
To address these challenges, UNESCO is supporting BAKE in hosting an intensive two-day training workshop from March 25–26, 2026. The cohort consists of elite content creators recognized during the 2025 BAKE Awards.
“In a fragmented and often polarized digital ecosystem, Media and Information Literacy (MIL) is no longer a luxury; it is a survival skill for the future of our democracy,” said John Okande, Programme Coordinator at UNESCO. “By equipping Kenya’s digital influencers with journalistic ethics and platform governance tools, we are building a new generation of trusted voices who prioritize information integrity as much as they do their creative reach.”
The training is adapted from the global UNESCO and Knight Center course, Digital Content Creators and Journalists: How to be a Trusted Voice Online. Key focus areas include:
- Information Integrity: Advanced verification techniques and strategies to combat deepfakes.
- Journalistic Ethics: Balancing creative freedom with the pillars of accuracy and accountability.
- Platform Governance: Navigating content moderation and understanding the role of the National Coalition on Freedom of Expression and Content Moderation in Kenya (FeCoMo).
Kennedy Kachwanya, Chairman of BAKE, emphasized the necessity of the initiative: “A strong, ethical creator community is the only firewall against the erosion of public trust. This partnership ensures our creators don’t just win awards for their creativity, but for their commitment to a safer, more truthful internet for all Kenyans.”