Grants Awarded to Four International Research Teams to Strengthen Information Integrity in the Global South

By Dr Rejoice Malisa-van der Walt

From 26–30 January 2026, CINIA held a five-day convening with members of its IDRC project network. Drawing on the conversations, documentation, and analysis generated during the convening, eight research themes were identified.

Militarised AI, and technology actor chains and accountability;
The Global South as a “testing ground” for new technologies and platforms, and invisibilised conflict harms;
Fragmented policy-change ecosystems and intermediary roles
Physiological and psychosocial harms of technology-facilitated violence;
Democratic resilience under shrinking civic space;
Influencer economies and narrative warfare;
Platform regulation effectiveness in a “moving target” environment;
Sustaining Global South research ecosystems: funding, data access, and a “network of networks”.

Subsequently, a call for data-driven research proposals covering these themes was launched on 15 April. CINIA is pleased to announce and congratulate the following research teams, which have been awarded full grants for their proposals.

Article content — The CINIA-IDRC partners meeting held in Stellenbosch in January 2026.

1. Country: South Africa.

Organisation: UCT/Global Risk Governance Programme/African Hub for AI Safety, Peace, and Security.

Project Title: Smart city, hard policing: actor chains, militarised AI assemblages, and invisibilised harms in Cape Town.

Research Theme: Platform regulation effectiveness in a “moving target” environment.

2. Country: Sri Lanka.

Organisation: LIRNEasia.

Project Title: The Use of Generative AI to Analyze the Political Economy of YouTube Content in Sri Lanka.

Research Theme: Influencer economies and narrative warfare.

3. Country: Egypt/USA.

Organisation: Open Transformation Lab Inc.

Project Title: Manufacturing Consensus Against Rights: Coordinated Influencer Economies and the Delegitimisation of Civil Society Voices in the Arabic-Language Information Space.

Research Theme: Influencer economies and narrative warfare.

4. Country: Brazil.

Organisation: InternetLab.

Project Title: Regulating GenAI in Brazil’s Electoral Information Ecosystem: Evidence from User Perceptions and Model Behavior.

Research Theme: Platform regulation effectiveness in a “moving target” environment

CINIA is excited to partner with the awardees to advance empirical research across these priority tracks.

For more information on the CINIA-IDRC partnership aimed at facilitating collaborations between various research organisations, practitioners and activists in Africa, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), Latin America and Asia, visit: https://cinia.africa/strengthening-information-integrity/