Overview

Child Online Africa (COA) is a child-focused research and advocacy non-governmental organization that campaigns for/with children and young people and their families to influence policies and change practices that affect child welfare in Ghana and across Africa. We build partnerships with organizations and individuals to promote online safety by employing rights and evidence-based advocacy approaches to achieve sustainable outcomes. We are pacesetters in Ghana as well as other African countries where we operate on issues of Online Literacy and Safety, Menstrual Hygiene Management, and the General Well-Being of Children and Young People. The above activities we believe will endorse child online safety locally, foster an Africa Fit for Children and promote the Global Child Safety Agenda. Our work with Governments, Local and International Organizations, and individual technical experts seek to end all forms of individual, institutional, and systemic violence against children and young people. Resource Mobilization, Open Strategic Partnerships, Capacity Building, and Policy Advocacy have played key roles in our work. We strategically adopt mass education and provision of digital safety & empowerment education tools, violence prevention and response initiatives, advocacy and research to achieve our goals. We believe both local and international will effectively manage child internet access threats. The complexity of these challenges demands participatory policy development through an intersectional lens to ensure universal action and needed change in practices. Our policy advocacy consultations with the Ministry of Communication in Ghana have promoted Child Online Protection under a bigger Cyber Security framework resulting in mass awareness programs throughout Ghana. These actions have influenced Ghana’s status on the International Telecommunication Union’s (ITU) Child Online Protection benchmarking.