Kofi Annan Foundation

Acronym: Kofi Annan Foundation

Established: 2007

Address: Rue de Varembé 09/11, 1202 Geneva, Switzerland

Website: https://www.kofiannanfoundation.org/

Stakeholder group: NGOs and associations

The Kofi Annan Foundation is an independent not-for-profit organisation, established in Switzerland in 2007 by the late former UN Secretary-General and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Kofi Annan. Its board is composed of prominent personalities from the public and private sectors, and it has a small team based in Geneva, Switzerland.

The Kofi Annan Foundation wants a fairer and more peaceful world, where no one is left behind, where democratic principles and the rule of law are upheld, and divides are bridged through dialogue and international cooperation.

The Foundation works closely with partners from international and regional organisations, foundations, universities, and civil society. It channels expertise, convenes all stakeholders around the table, and forges coalitions of trusted influence that can make change happen.

The Kofi Annan Foundation has three strategic objectives:

Strengthening democracy and elections, because popular legitimacy provides the basis for democratic governance, accountability, and respect for human rights and the rule of law.
Empowering youth to build a peaceful, sustainable future because they are active agents of change and must be given the opportunity to shape the world they will inherit.

Advocating for a more effective, inclusive, and equitable multilateral system, and promoting Kofi Annan’s core belief that structured international cooperation is key to solving challenges in today’s interconnected world.

Contents

Digital activities

The Kofi Annan Foundation addresses digitalisation within the scope of youth, and peace, as well as elections and democracy in the follow-up to the Kofi Annan Commission on Elections and Democracy in the Digital Age (KACEDDA).

The Commission has proposed a series of actions to mitigate the negative impact of social media on elections and democracy, several of which the Foundation is directly implementing. These include new models to counter political disinformation, pre-electoral pledges regarding digital behaviour and activities, and the gauging of digital vulnerabilities of elections. The Foundation is also mobilising digital tools and platforms to increase the representativeness and inclusivity of elections and democratic decision-making, particularly for young people.

The Kofi Annan Foundation leverages digital platforms and technology to advance its mission of promoting peace, sustainable development, and human rights. Through our online presence, the Foundation disseminates information, engages with global audiences, and implements initiatives that harness digital tools for greater impact.

Some of our digital activities include:

Extremely Together: This global youth-led initiative empowers young people to prevent violent extremism. Utilising digital storytelling, social media campaigns, and online resources, Extremely Together engages youth in promoting peace and countering radicalisation narratives.

Kofi Annan Changemakers: Facilitating intergenerational dialogue, this programme connects young leaders with experienced mentors through virtual platforms. The digital format allows for widespread participation, fostering a global exchange of ideas and strategies for positive change.

Kofi Annan Commission on Elections and Democracy in the Digital Age (KACEDDA): The Commission has proposed a series of actions to mitigate the negative impact of social media on elections and democracy, several of which the Foundation is directly implementing. These include new models to counter political disinformation, pre-electoral pledges regarding digital behaviour and activities, and the gauging of digital vulnerabilities of elections. The Foundation is also mobilising digital tools and platforms to increase the representativeness and inclusivity of elections and democratic decision-making, particularly for young people.

Electoral Vulnerability Index: The Kofi Annan Foundation has developed the Electoral Vulnerability Index (EVI), a predictive tool designed to assess the risk of election-related violence. This initiative aims to identify elections that may be particularly susceptible to violence, thereby enabling international and domestic actors to prioritise resources and interventions effectively.

Digital policy issues

Capacity development

While the Foundation does not use this terminology to describe its work, we have adopted it in line with our internal taxonomy. Its use in this publication is for consistency and clarity within that framework.

Fostering youth leadership

Sharing the leadership values, wisdom, and lessons of Kofi Annan with the next generation is an important element of the legacy work of the Foundation. Digital tools allow us to reach young people in every corner of the globe who would otherwise not be able to benefit from his advice and that of the people who worked closely with him. Two cohorts of Kofi Annan Changemakers – young leaders from different fields and backgrounds – have now harnessed digital communications tools and platforms to improve their leadership skills and build critical capacities.

The Foundation has expanded its youth and peace projects to regions including Colombia, Pakistan, and Southeast Asia. New initiatives include:

• Bridges to Peace – Preventing and countering violent extremism and terrorism in Uganda

• Environment of Peace – Youth-led research on climate, environment, and peace

• Voices of Reconciliation – Using music to strengthen youth’s resilience to violence in Colombia

• Champions for Peace – Empowering young people in Southeast Asia

The Foundation has launched the Leadership Excellence in Politics (LEiP) initiative focused on rebuilding trust in political leadership for the 21st century. Additionally, the Kofi Annan NextGen Democracy Prize has been established to recognise exceptional leadership in defending, renewing, and promoting democracy.

Ethical and democratic leadership

The WYDE Civic Engagement – Accountability Hubs brings together a group of exceptional young leaders from sub-Saharan Africa in a comprehensive digital and in-person training and networking programme to enhance their skills in ethical and democratic leadership, project management, advocacy, and communications and develop pilot actions to put their project ideas into practice with dedicated seed grants.

Digital tools and AI

The Foundation works with civil society, electoral management bodies, and the private sector to develop capacity and tools to counter electoral-related disinformation. It has developed a tool, the Electoral Vulnerability Index, to identify elections at risk from digital threats and predict election-related violence.
The Foundation has published a report titled ‘GenAI at the Ballot Box: A Review of Generative AI Use in the 2024 European Parliament Elections’ and convened discussions with policymakers and civil society in Brussels to identify strategies to protect future elections from the malicious use of AI.

Human rights issues

Digital rights and youth participation

The Digitalise Youth Project, part of the Digital Democracy Initiative, aims to address the shrinking civic space and rampant disinformation in the Sahel and neighbouring regions by empowering local youth activists and civil society organisations. Launched in January 2025, it focuses on enhancing digital skills, promoting civic tech solutions, and raising awareness about online political engagement. By connecting human rights defenders and the tech community, the project equips young activists and media organisations with the knowledge and tools to navigate the digital ecosystem, protect themselves from surveillance, and fight against disinformation. In addition to its capacity-building work, Digitalise Youth’s advocacy efforts seek to promote digital rights at local, regional, and international levels.

Ensuring the protection of human rights in the digital era

The Foundation works with electoral stakeholders to mitigate the impact of online disinformation and hate speech and to ensure that threats from the digital space do not undermine citizens’ rights to political participation and that digital tools increase voters’ ability to make informed and educated electoral decisions.

The Foundation has also established a gender, equality, and inclusion initiative to ensure these principles are integrated across all its work.

Violent extremism

The Extremely Together programme consists of young people from around the world working to counter the impact of extremism in their communities. The initial cohort of ten impressive leaders has grown to include national hubs throughout South and Southeast Asia, East Africa, and the Sahel. Digital tools allow these young people to draw on the network and support of the Kofi Annan Foundation and share experiences to improve the impact of their work.

Interdisciplinary approaches

While the Foundation does not use this terminology to describe its work, we have adopted it in line with our internal taxonomy. Its use in this publication is for consistency and clarity within that framework.

Supporting elections with integrity

Regarding its activities on elections and democracy, the Foundation’s digital work is based on KACEDDA’s findings. The Commission was first established in 2018 and was composed of members from civil society and government, the technology sector, academia, and the media. The objectives of the Commission were to identify and frame the challenges to electoral integrity arising from the global spread of digital technologies and social media platforms, develop policy measures to tackle these challenges and highlight the opportunities that technological change offers for strengthening electoral integrity and political participation, and define and articulate an advocacy programme to ensure that the key messages emerging from the Commission were widely diffused and debated around the world.

The Kofi Foundation has joined the Global Network for Securing Electoral Integrity (GNSEI), which convenes election stakeholders to advance electoral integrity in the face of critical threats to democracy.

The Foundation’s Elections and Democracy projects are active in countries including Ghana, Kenya, the DRC, Malaysia, Nigeria, and more broadly in Sub-Saharan Africa. In 2022, the Foundation urged Kenyan electoral candidates to pledge to appropriate and peaceful online behaviour, including avoiding all forms of gender-based violence, as part of its project ‘Securing the Digital Environment for the 2022 Election in Kenya’, funded by UNDEF.

In addition to articles addressing issues such as the interplay between democracy and the internet, the impact of digital on elections and democracy in West Africa, and digital dangers to democracy, the Commission published an extensive report titled Protecting Electoral Integrity in the Digital Age. It addresses, among other things, hate speech, disinformation, online political advertising, and foreign interference in elections. The report proposes a set of 13 recommendations that address capacity building, norm building, and actions to be taken by public authorities and social media platforms. The Foundation is now working to implement certain recommendations, in cooperation with key stakeholders from civil society, academia, the private sector, and government.

The Foundation has published additional reports, including ‘Eliminating Violence Against Women in Politics’, and has hosted workshops addressing online gender-based political violence, such as a two-day multistakeholder workshop with the Centre for Multiparty Democracy (CMD-Kenya) in Nairobi in November 2021.

In 2022, the Foundation joined the European Partnership for Democracy (EPD) network to reinforce European actions promoting democracy worldwide. It regularly convenes discussions in Brussels to strengthen and inform EU mechanisms that play a role in protecting digital rights, such as the Media Freedom Act and the Artificial Intelligence Act.

Advancing multilateralism

The Foundation has expanded its focus to include a dedicated area of multilateralism that advocates for a fairer, more inclusive multilateral system. Key initiatives include:

• Multilateralism and Democracy – Understanding how democratic leadership is essential to solving global challenges

• Kofi Annan Commission on Food Security – Calling for urgent action to reform global food governance

The Foundation is collaborating with the Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy on a project titled ‘Understanding the Links Between Multilateralism and Democracy to Tackle Global Challenges More Effectively’, which includes thematic roundtables on topics such as ‘Artificial Intelligence and Democracy’.

Digital tools

Conferencing technologies

Raising awareness of Kofi Annan’s legacy

The Kofi Annan Foundation uses digital tools to raise awareness of Kofi Annan’s legacy, by providing electronic access to selected speeches and quotations, as well as to a collection of his papers compiled by the City University of New York on our website and to some of his recorded statements and discussions via our official YouTube channel.

Through our podcast, Kofi Time, we promote Kofi Annan’s values and their relevance today to a global audience. In Kofi Time, Ahmad Fawzi, one of Kofi Annan’s former spokespersons and communications advisors, examines how Kofi Annan tackled a specific crisis and its relevance to today’s world and challenges. Kofi Annan’s call to bring all stakeholders to the table – including the private sector, local authorities, civil society organisations, academia, and scientists – resonates now more than ever with many who understand that governments alone cannot shape our future.

In the first 10-part series, Fawzi interviews some of Kofi Annan’s closest advisors and colleagues, including Dr Peter Piot, Christiane Amanpour, Mark Malloch-Brown, Michael Møller, and others. Kofi Time is available to stream via the Kofi Annan Foundation website, SoundCloud, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.

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