About - Namibia Fact Check

About Us

Namibia Fact Check is an impartial initiative that aims to verify public statements and media reports. Claims will be fact checked for accuracy using credible data and information.

Namibia Fact Check is a project of the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) that was started in mid-2019 in response to a perceived rise in political mis- and disinformation and propaganda in Namibian online political spaces since 2017.

The brainchild of the IPPR’s Graham Hopwood and Frederico Links, Namibia Fact Check has emerged as the first Namibian fact-checking service.

Namibia Fact Check is an initiative that aims to verify public statements and media reports. Claims are fact checked for accuracy using credible, verified data and information from credible sources. Namibia Fact Check is guided by and adheres to the principles of impartiality, transparency and accuracy.

What we do

As a fact checking service, Namibia Fact Check does the following:

Fact checking claims and statements;
Producing and publishing explainers, guides and toolkits;
Conducting open source intelligence (OSINT) investigations;
Media monitoring and social media content production;
Fact checking and verification training;
Providing mentorship and guidance to emerging fact checkers, whether in Namibia or the African sub-region;
Producing podcasts and hosting webinars;
Partnering with media and civil society on information and news literacy initiatives and advocacy;
Engaging with various stakeholders on spreading the facts;
Engaging and collaborating with other African fact checkers through the Africa Facts Network;
Collaborating with other African fact checkers on training and the development of training materials;
Contributing to panel and group discussions around evidence-based policy making;
Conducting and contributing to research on the types, actors, pathways and effects of mis- and disinformation on Namibian media and information landscapes, both online and offline;
And, importantly, holding the powerful accountable for their public statements and claims.

Namibia Fact Check has conducted over 20 training workshops within Namibia, and contributed to a number of southern Africa regional trainings and workshops. In our trainings since 2019 we have consistently covered the following topics, among others:

Fact checking as a public service;
Social media verification;
Photo and video verification;
Website verification and geolocation;
Fact checking politicians and political parties;
Basics of open source intelligence (OSINT);
Spotting and countering conspiracy theories;
Using online tools and resources;
Basics of online research;
How to report the facts;
Etc.

Our Team

Namibia Fact Check has a small team that is drawn from among researchers associated with the IPPR. The regular contributors core team are:

Frederico Links

Editor & lead researcher

Tia-Zia // Garoes

Fact checker / Researcher

Our Partners

Over the years Namibia Fact Check has partnered with a variety of organisations and entities to provide training and verification services. Among our partnerships have been:

Our Funders

Like the IPPR, Namibia Fact Check is reliant on donors for funding its operations.

Since inception in 2019, Namibia Fact Check has relied heavily on the Hanns Seidel Foundation (HSF) for funding our fact checking and for website support, as well as for funding specific research outputs.

Over the years we have also benefited from considerable funding from the following organisations and entities:

DW Akademie
Africa Check
Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA), mostly via Africa Check

For more on our funding over the years, you can view the IPPR’s annual financial statements.