Overview
About the WATOTO Framework
WATOTO — Wellbeing, Agency, Transparency, Opportunity, Trust, Ownership — is the first Africa-authored, Africa-led Safety-by-Design standard. It fills a gap no existing global framework has filled: an implementation standard that begins from African realities.
Built with children
Grounded in the documented voices of 599 children across 14 African countries (DFC Spotlight on Africa, 2026), 15 Kenyan children in in-depth AI interviews (Right.AI: Kenya, 2025), and children from seven nations at the Kigali Children's AI Summit (April 2025). Their words are the authority.
African philosophical grounding
Anchored in the traditions of A. Bame Nsamenang (social ontogenesis), John Mbiti (Ubuntu and communitarian personhood), Ifeanyi Menkiti (personhood as developmental achievement), and Arnold van Gennep (Rites of Passage). These scholars describe what a child is in African contexts with greater precision than any WEIRD-default framework.
Aligned to continental policy
Aligned with six African Union instruments: the ACRWC, Agenda 2063, the AU Child Online Safety and Empowerment Policy (2024), the AU Continental AI Strategy (2024), the Malabo Convention (2014), and the AU Digital Transformation Strategy (2020–2030). WATOTO is the implementation mechanism for these continental commitments.
Launched
Launched at the Africa Forward AI Summit, Nairobi, May 2026.
Work with us to build safer digital futures for African children
Jennifer Kaberi (CTO & Co-Founder) and Caroline Makumbe (CEO & Co-Founder).
Structural Analysis
The Seven Structural Gaps
Seven things every global child digital safety framework was designed without. All fixable. None of them accidents. WATOTO is built specifically to close each one.
Implementation
The Ten Design Standards
Each Standard is operational and testable — specifying what a product must do, what it must never do, and a Good Practice Note illustrating implementation in African contexts. Click any card to explore in full.
Philosophy
The Ten Guiding Principles
The philosophical architecture beneath the Standards. Where the Standards say what must be done — the Principles describe the values that must animate those decisions. Named in African languages for African realities.