Emmanuel BidaJune 16, 2026
The Excellence Foundation for South Sudan has launched a revamped website version and complementary Android and iOS mobile applications for The ClarityDesk, its project that works at the intersection of fact-checking, solutions and data journalism.
Built by Excellence Foundation for South Sudan, with the support of AfricTivistes, within the framework of the AHEAD Africa and Digitalise Youth projects, led by the Digital Democracy Initiative, The ClarityDesk works to improve a healthy information ecosystem by providing accurate information, solutions, data journalism, and a document repository—particularly crucial as South Sudan prepares for its elections in December 2026.
Emmanuel Bida, the Project Director, emphasized that voters’ decisions rely entirely on the quality of information available.
“The ClarityDesk already reached nearly 1,000 website users and over 100 app installs prior to the official launch,” he highlighted.
He praised DangoTech Concepts for their reliable and competitive development team.
For her part, Aisha Dabo, the Programmes Coordinator at Africtivistes explained that The ClarityDesk project was chosen from over 170 applicant proposals due to its creativity and resilience in a challenging civic environment.
“I want the team to focus on three core priorities: accessibility, credibility, and sustainability,” she urged.
Daniel Ngobi, Director and DangoTech expert confirmed that the app does not collect cookies. He said that the data captured is minimal (primarily emails submitted via contact forms) and hosted on secure, restricted-access backend servers.
Website Core Features
- Elections Page: A dedicated space showing announcements, the number of days left until the election, and eventual election results.
- Document Repository: An educational section housing official legislation, circulars, and reports.
- User Engagement Forms: Features located at the top menu allowing citizens to directly submit a claim for verification, pitch a story, or report suspicious content.
- Newsletter: A footer section where users can subscribe with their name and email to receive published updates.
Mobile Applications (Android & iOS)
- Android: The app is roughly 30 MB on the Google Play Store. It features a “Tip of the Day” prompt upon opening, customizable push notifications (for breaking news or election updates), a document section that allows direct downloading to local storage, and a quick-access WhatsApp button to submit feedback or questions.
- iOS: Demonstrating the identical user flow on the Apple App Store, the team explained their User Experience (UX) journey. They stripped down and simplified the interface multiple times based on test feedback to ensure users would never have to “stop and think” when trying to verify a claim quickly.
The organisations assured that the platform is secured for the next five years.
While current operations are in English, the Excellence Foundation for South Sudan says it is actively planning Arabic integration to match South Sudan’s linguistic landscape noting that the majority of verified facts naturally center around politics and elections because those drive the highest public discourse.
The ClarityDesk website and mobile applications are part of the organisation’s Electoral Fact-checking Initiative South Sudan project through the Innovation Fund for Citizen Participation in Electoral Processes in Africa, created in response to growing challenges facing the media sector, including misinformation, disinformation, limited fact-checking capacity, and ethical pressures within both traditional and digital media.
