Scroll through any social media feed and you will see children everywhere, creating, sharing and shaping conversations in ways that were unthinkable a decade ago. Yet behind the hashtags and viral trends lies a stark truth: millions of children are navigating digital spaces without protection, literacy or power. They are not only exposed to risks such as cyberbullying and exploitation, but are also denied the opportunity to use technology for education and innovation. According to a 2022 UNICEF study, more than 70 percent of South African children aged 9 to 17 use the internet daily, but fewer than half have received digital literacy education. This means children are online but often unsupervised, unprotected and unheard. They are the most connected generation in history and also the most vulnerable.
As the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund, we believe children should not simply be users of digital technology but leaders in shaping it. In August, the Fund began an initiative on digital safety and child participation in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, aimed at ensuring children have a say in shaping Africa’s digital future. Nelson Mandela once said that there can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way it treats its children. In today’s digital age, that truth is reflected not only in classrooms and communities but across algorithms and online platforms. Every day that action is delayed, more children are left vulnerable and voiceless in spaces that shape their future.
At the African Children’s Summit earlier this year, young delegates from across the continent sent a clear message: nothing about us without us, even in the digital world. They called for stronger regulation of harmful online content, better laws to address online exploitation, and meaningful child participation in digital governance. Their voices underpin the work of the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund. The Fund’s six-month digital safety series has brought together children, academics, civil society, and technology partners through dialogues, workshops and storytelling projects centred on children’s lived experiences.
Digital safety is not only about filtering harmful content or limiting screen time. It is also about shifting power. Children must have the ability to influence the systems and technologies that shape their online lives. Too often digital safety conversations are driven by fear — cyberbullying, grooming and exploitation. These are real risks, but they represent only part of the picture. The other part is possibility. Children can use digital platforms to learn, organise and innovate, provided they have the tools, protection and trust to do so.
The Fund’s digital safety strategy is built on two pillars: protection and participation. Protection ensures that digital environments uphold children’s rights and safety. Participation ensures that children themselves have agency within those environments. Working with partners such as the CyberCulture Foundation, UNICEF and Save the Children South Africa, the Fund is creating opportunities for children to learn how to navigate online spaces safely while also shaping them. Through workshops on artificial intelligence, social media ethics and digital storytelling, children are developing their own recommendations, shifting from being policy subjects to policy authors.
A key element of this initiative is child-led storytelling. Storytelling is not just a record of experience; it is a tool for shaping solutions. One example involves a 14-year-old girl from Limpopo who uses Instagram to coordinate community clean-ups, but faces harassment for speaking out online. Her experience highlights a wider reality: digital spaces reflect the inequalities of society, but they can also amplify voices for justice when designed with intention and inclusion.
The upcoming Girl Power Meets Boy Joy Digital Justice Summit will bring over 100 young leaders together to co-develop solutions that balance digital safety with digital opportunity. Through debates, intergenerational dialogue and policy hackathons, the Summit will produce a child-led Digital Safety Policy Brief that will inform the Fund’s ongoing digital safety work.
As African governments align with the African Union’s Digital Transformation Strategy and the United Nations General Comment No. 25 on children’s rights in the digital environment, the need to include children’s perspectives is more urgent than ever. Policy alone is insufficient. Without the insight of children themselves, even the best frameworks risk becoming disconnected from lived reality. The private sector also has a critical role. Technology and media platforms must move from minimal compliance to co-creation. Protecting children should be a core design principle. Algorithms should be fair, privacy settings should prioritise consent, and content moderation should protect rather than silence young voices.
Africa’s digital future depends on how well children are equipped and protected today. The Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund’s work on digital participation feeds directly into the Children20, an emerging engagement track of the G20 under South Africa’s 2025 presidency. Through this platform, children’s voices from across Africa are influencing global discussions on online safety, digital inclusion and technology governance. By connecting insights from our digital safety work to the C20 agenda, we help ensure that African children are not only consulted but recognised as experts in their own digital experiences.
This builds on the outcomes of the African Children’s Summit, strengthening the link between community-based experience and global policy. The Fund’s role as Sherpa for the C20 track reflects Africa’s increasing leadership in shaping a child-centred digital future.
Nelson Mandela reminded us that children are our greatest treasure. Today, that treasure exists in digital spaces, building communities, expressing themselves and imagining futures we cannot yet see. Our responsibility is to meet them there — not to control, but to collaborate. The Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund believes that when children lead, the digital world becomes more humane, creative and just. The task before us is to protect their rights, amplify their voices and trust their leadership. Children are not only digital natives; they are digital leaders, and the future depends on them.
