In 2026, the 14th edition of RightsCon is taking place in Lusaka, Zambia, from 5 to 8 May. This event is an important gathering space for the APC community, where we can come together to strengthen our collective advocacy and ensure that civil society is strongly represented in this global multistakeholder summit.
The schedule of RightsCon sessions that members of the APC network are organising and speaking at is available here. Below you will find a collection of valuable resources to help be prepared and informed for the event.
In the spotlight
APC priorities for RightsCon 2026
These are APC's thematic priorities for this year's edition of RightsCon. RightsCon this year comes at a turbulent time for feminist, rights-based, labour and other people-centred movements and civil society more broadly. The implications for APC members, partners and staff and the communities they serve are immediate and severe. APC’s engagement and advocacy afforts at RightsCon will be rooted in this context and in the need to react to it.
Insights for change
Feminist Internet Research Network launches 10 groundbreaking research reports on technology-facilitated gender-based violence (TFGBV)
In examining the deeply gendered and racialised experience of violence, these research projects pay attention to the care, creativity and resilience within individuals and communities that enable not just survival but the possibility of thriving within a socio-technical sphere that was never designed with them in mind.
Bridging the gap: Addressing technology-facilitated gender-based violence in global AI governance
This research provides a comprehensive analysis of the intersection between AI governance and TFGBV. It examines how international, regional and national policy frameworks engage with gendered risks introduced or exacerbated by AI and identifies critical gaps in regulation, protection and enforcement.
APC statement to the UN General Assembly WSIS+20 High-Level Meeting
The High-Level Meeting on the overall review of the implementation of the outcomes of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS+20) took place in December 2025, leading to the adoption by consensus of the WSIS+20 Outcome Document. APC's statement during it summarises the wins and regrets from a civil society and Global South perspective.
Global Information Society Watch: WSIS+20 special edition
This special edition of Global Information Society Watch (GISWatch) considers the importance of WSIS as an inclusive policy and governance mechanism, and what, from a civil society perspective, needs to change for it to meet the challenges of today and to meaningfully shape our digital future.
A framework for developing gender-responsive cybersecurity policy
This three-part framework seeks to support policy makers and civil society organisations by providing practical guidance for developing gender-responsive cybersecurity policies, laws and strategies.
Unyielding: Personal essays from women human rights defenders
Across contexts and geographies, worsening inequalities have fuelled terrible violence, both online and offline, leaving women human rights defenders exposed to unprecedented abuse that is intimate, targeted, and deeply harmful to their personal and professional lives. The contributors to this anthology carefully crafted their stories, despite great challenges to their own well-being and safety.
Online challenges, offline realities: A feminist analysis of women human rights defenders’ digital experiences
Through an analysis of legal frameworks and WHRDs’ experiences in Brazil, Ecuador, India, the Philippines, Uganda and Tanzania, this research explores the interconnection between technology-facilitated gender-based violence and digital authoritarianism, highlighting the ways activists resist, adapt and reclaim space amid escalating online and offline threats.
Placing "gender" in disinformation
In order to better capture the variety of problems that women and gender-diverse people face when expressing their views and opinions, APC co-organised a series of consultations in 2023 to collect further information on their lived experiences, in different cultures and geographies. These in-depth conversations pointed to the fact that gender-based violence, hate speech and disinformation are different challenges that sometimes overlap. It points out that the ultimate goal of gender-related and identity-based disinformation is to discourage the exercise of freedom of expression by women, gender-diverse individuals and marginalised groups and to manipulate the information ecosystem.
Community-focused
Voices from Africa: Building hope and connection across the region
We asked our members in the region what gives them hope, what change they wish for, and how we can act together. They identified three interlinked priorities: languages, online harms and infrastructure. At the core of these issues is the belief that digital rights are inseparable from social justice, and that solutions must be shaped by those most affected.
Change in Motion: Our community shaping technologies for social, gender and environmental justice
Change in Motion is a quarterly special digest from APC on the work and reach of our community. Its latest edition features information from members in the Southwest Asia and North Africa (SWANA) region on how digital technologies have become central tools for surveillance, attacks and the manipulation of information to fuel war. The APC community is also shedding light on urgent challenges on gender, power relations and tech.
Global aid in crisis: Can we find sustainability in a precarious funding climate?
The funding landscape as we know it has changed quickly, creating a climate of uncertainty for many civil society organisations and social movements. The ongoing dynamics risk fracturing movements, turning groups against one another in competition for resources and undermining their collective power. In this context, we have been seeking to reflect together on how to assess and respond to these challenges, precisely at a moment when we need more – and not less – international solidarity and joint action.
Principles for community-centred connectivity initiatives
Community-centred connectivity initiatives are set up and evolve in many different ways, depending on the needs and opportunities that exist in communities, and the cultural, socioeconomic and political contexts in which they occur. They are, by their very nature, responsive to their context and environment. They are complementary to the internet access offered by commercial service providers and state-sponsored public access networks.
A tree is known by its fruit: Growing community-centred connectivity for inclusion, equality and sustainability
This research paper provides a historical perspective of how investments in the telecommunications industry have been made over the years and how effective they have been in closing the digital divide. With a special focus on the socioeconomic and environmental-related impacts of community-centred connectivity initiatives, the research recommends creating an enabling environment for this kind of initiative, as well as designing different innovative financing strategies to scale these solutions.
Technological autonomy as a constellation of experiences: A guide to collective creation and development of training programmes for technical community promoters
The desire for technological autonomy and other means of communicating different ways of living and knowledge have served as inspiration for the development of community networks around the world. From practical recommendations to reflections on how to learn from and value the diversity of communities’ values and principles, this publication offers an important contribution for people, organisations and communities that see training as crucial to promote their own communication and telecommunications processes within their territories or regions, especially for community networks.