UNESCO and BAKE Partner to Empower Kenyan Digital Creators as “Trusted Voices” for Digital Peacebuilding

As the line between traditional journalism and digital influence continues to blur, UNESCO and the Bloggers Association of Kenya (BAKE) have launched a strategic partnership to strengthen the capacity of digital content creators in Kenya. This collaboration, supported under UNESCO’s Social Media 4 Peace (SM4P) project, aims to build capacities of influencers, bloggers, and podcasters into “Trusted Voices” capable of promoting information integrity and digital peacebuilding in Kenya.

In an era where millions of Kenyas’s rely on social media for news, content creators have become de facto information custodians. However, the rise of disinformation, hate speech, and harmful AI-generated content poses a significant threat to social cohesion. Therefore, UNESCO will support BAKE to conduct an intensive two-day training workshop from 25-26 March 2026 of content creators awarded during the 2025 BAKE Awards in Kenya.

“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. By equipping Kenya’s digital influencers with journalistic ethics and platform governance tools, we are building a new generation of trusted voices who prioritise information integrity as much as they do their creative reach.” John Okande, Programme Coordinator at UNESCO

The training is adapted from Global UNESCO and Knight Center course, “Digital Content Creators and Journalists: How to be a Trusted Voice Online.” Key focus areas of the training will include:

• Information Integrity: Verification techniques and combating deepfakes.
• Journalistic Ethics: Balancing creative freedom with accuracy and accountability.
• Platform Governance: Navigating content moderation and the role of the FeCoMo (National Coalition on Freedom of Expression and Content Moderation in Kenya).

Kennedy Kachwanya, Chairman of BAKE, added: “A strong, ethical creator community is the only firewall against the erosion of public trust. This partnership with UNESCO ensures that our creators don’t just win awards for their creativity, but for their commitment to a safer, more truthful internet for all Kenyans.”

This initiative aims to foster the collective responsibility of creators to foster constructive narratives and safeguard freedom of expression.

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