Marija Manojlovic, Executive Director, Safe Online
Marina Madale, MTN Group Executive: Sustainability and Shared Value
Africa’s digital revolution is one of the most powerful development stories of our time. Millions of children now connect daily through mobile phones, accessing education, entertainment, and opportunities unimaginable to the previous generation. Yet alongside this progress lies a stark reality: children face increasing risks of sexual exploitation, cyberbullying, grooming, mental health challenges, privacy breaches and harmful content.
The latest data shows an unprecedented and deeply disturbing wave of digital harm worldwide, growing rapidly in both scale and complexity. The rise of AI companions, immersive platforms, and algorithm-driven feeds creates new layers of vulnerability. Children increasingly interact with bots and avatars that feel “real” but may expose them to harmful content. Without robust prevention frameworks, these risks will scale faster than any reactive response can manage.
Left unchecked, these threats undermine trust in technology, damage mental health, exacerbate inequalities, and erode children’s rights. The long-term impact on children’s development, educational attainment and overall well-being carries profound consequences not only for the individual but for societies and economies at large.
For too long, child online safety has been treated as an afterthought—activated only when harm has already occurred. While takedown mechanisms, prosecution, and survivor support are vital, they cannot keep pace with the speed and scale of digital risks.
Prevention must become the anchor. This means designing digital spaces where risks are minimised by default, children are equipped with resilience, and parents and educators are empowered to guide safe online behaviour. It also means making bold financial commitments and channeling resources into prevention, innovation and proven interventions to strengthen systems and equalize human and tech capacity worldwide.
Safe Online is the only global fund focused on child safety and wellbeing in the digital world. It has invested over $100 million ($25 million in Africa) with tangible impact across over 100 countries. But this is not enough, the scale and complexity of digital harms affecting children have far outpaced the resources available leaving millions of children exposed, unsupported, unheard.
Safe Online has consistently called for systemic approaches that bring together governments, industry, civil society, survivors and young people. Its investments in cutting-edge research and tools help countries understand the scale of technology facilitated child sexual exploitation and abuse and implement evidence-based responses. For example, findings from the $15 million flagship project Disrupting Harm are directly influencing national plans across eight countries in Eastern and Southern Africa.
The urgency could not be clearer: every day, an estimated 300 million children are victims of sexual exploitation and abuse (Childlight). In 2024, reports involving AI-generated child sexual abuse material rose by 1,325% (NCMEC), while online grooming and financial sexual extortion increased significantly, with teenage boys now making up 78% of victims (WPGA). Despite this, most children do not report these harms; research from the Disrupting Harm project shows that across 13 countries in Eastern and Southern Africa, only 3% of victims contacted a helpline. This gap highlights the need for stronger, more accessible, and tech-enabled prevention and support systems. One such example is Aselo, supported by Safe Online, which helps child helplines deliver faster, more effective assistance through digital tools.
For industry players like MTN, this translates into embedding safety at the heart of connectivity. Initiatives such as Room of Safety, developed with MTN Base, have shown how youth-led storytelling can spark critical conversations about online risks. But awareness must be coupled with safety by design—integrating protections into networks, products, and services from the outset.
To make Africa’s digital future truly safe for children, we see five immediate priorities:
- Strengthen evidence and data. Expand investment in research and measurement, so policymakers and companies understand the scale, nature, and evolving risks children face online and the interventions that are most effective.
- Scale cross-sector, prevention-driven partnerships. Telecom operators, platforms, and ISPs must partner more systematically with organisations like Safe Online to drive the system-wide transformation needed, including embeding harm-prevention tools and digital education and skills for children and parents.
- Embed safety in national digital agendas. As governments roll out broadband and digital infrastructure strategies, they must integrate well-resourced child online safety frameworks, ensuring inclusion and protection advance together.
- Elevate children’s voices. Digital strategies should not be about children without children. Through Safe Online’s portfolio and other platforms, youth perspectives must directly shape policy and product design.
- Increase and align investments. Scale financial resources – including innovative funding models – to equalize human and technological capacity globally and drive system-wide transformation.
Moreover, as GSMA projects half a billion African children online by 2030, the region’s ability to embed safety now will define the trajectory of an entire generation. Failure to invest now will endanger individual children and undermine collective socio-economic progress.
Safe Online’s message is clear: We are at a strategic inflection point to scale investments towards proven interventions and build safety nets that are as borderless and dynamic as the digital world itself.
For MTN, this means deepening partnerships with expert organisations like Safe Online to ensure that connectivity comes with safety.
For policymakers, it means aligning well-resourced national systems with global legislative frameworks and best practices.
For the tech industry, it means allocating adequate resources and fully adopting ‘safety by design’ principles across products’ development and business processes to prevent harm from occurring in the first place.
For donors, philanthropy and financial institutions, it means prioritising child online safety to close the current funding gap.
And for all of us, it means recognising that a safe digital world is not just about avoiding harm, it is about enabling every child to thrive, learn, and explore without fear.
Africa has the chance not only to bridge the digital divide but also to set a global standard for safe digital inclusion. By placing prevention at the centre and scaling cross-sector partnerships, we can build an internet where children are not just connected, but truly safe.
The opportunity is before us: to create a digital continent where being online means being protected, and where safe online futures are the foundation of Africa’s progress.
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