c:o/re Fellow 08/25 – 07/26
Fredrick Ogenga is a professor of media and security studies and the founding director of the Center for Media, Democracy, Peace & Security (CMDPS) at Rongo University. He also serves as the CEO of the Peacemaker Corps Foundation Kenya (PCFK). Ogenga was a recipient of the 2016 Southern Voices Network for Peacebuilding Scholarship at the Wilson Center in Washington DC, as well as a visiting research fellow at the Swiss National Science Fund at Swisspeace, University of Basel, in 2023. He was also a 2023 UNDP Fellow in Digital Peacebuilding, a beneficiary of the 2014 and 2016 Africa Diaspora Fellowship (ADF), and a 2014 SSRC’s Africa Peacebuilding Network Fellow. He has worked as a visiting scholar on media and peacebuilding at the Institute for the Advancement of Social Sciences (IASS) and the Africa Studies Center at Boston University, and at the Institute for Policy Research at the University of Berth. He is a senior research associate at the Institute for Pan-African Thought and Conversation at the University of Johannesburg, a senior non-resident research fellow at the Institute for Global African Affairs at the University of Johannesburg and West Indies, and a senior research associate at Swisspeace and the Africa Studies Center at the University of Basel. Ogenga is also a member of the scientific panel on information integrity about climate science (IPIE) and chairs the IPIE scientific panel on AI and peacebuilding.
Technology, Climate and Peacebuilding Nexus: Nurturing Resilient Communities in Western Kenya through Climate Change Information Action Research Anchored on Tree Planting and Carbon Offsetting
Scholarly evidence is increasingly pointing out relationships between climate change and violent conflict. The climate-security nexus in Kenya is relatively well-explored. However, what is under-explored is the nexus between technology, climate, and peacebuilding. This research project examines the creation of this nexus in climate action (climate mitigation, adaptation and peacebuilding) through local knowledge production, using a Pan-African approach to critical theories of technology and innovation, in the context of theories of change, under the rubric of varieties of science. The latter calls for epistemic democracy in climate action to explore how local evidence (action research) can help reassess the centrality of technology in climate misinformation and redesign climate action. The project does so by using local epistemic approaches for innovating alternative livelihoods and peacebuilding mechanisms anchored in community-driven tree-planting initiatives. Methodologically, the research project uses desk analysis, focal group discussions in the form of hybrid workshops, and experimentation, through living labs, to unmask local cultures of research that are rooted in the spirits of utu (humanity), umoja (unity) and harambee (collective responsibility or pulling together) for the realisation of peace as a greater end.
Publications (selection)
Elbeyi, E., Bruhn Jensen, K., Aronczyk, M.., Asuka, J., Ceylan, G., Cook, J., Erdelyi, G., Ford, H., Milani, C., Mustafaraj, E., Ogenga, F., Yadin, S., Howard, P. N., Valenzuela, S. (Eds.). (2025). Facts, Fakes, and Climate Science: Recommendations for Improving Information Integrity about Climate Issues. Zurich, Switzerland: International Panel on the Information Environment (IPIE), SFP2025.2. https://doi.org/10.61452/QHRL3301
Elbeyi, E., Bruhn Jensen, K., Aronczyk, M.., Asuka, J., Ceylan, G., Cook, J., Erdelyi, G., Ford, H., Milani, C., Mustafaraj, E., Ogenga, F., Yadin, S., Howard, P. N., Valenzuela, S. (Eds.). (2025). Information Integrity about Climate Science: A Systematic Review. Zurich, Switzerland: International Panel on the Information Environment (IPIE). Synthesis Report, SR2025.1. https://doi.org/10.61452/BTZP3426
Ogenga, F. (2025). Pan-African Digital Peacebuilding: Maskani Home Platform and Ethno-Political Polarization in Kenya. Routledge. Forthcoming.
Ogenga, F. (2025). Democracy, Governance and Peacebuilding in Africa: Technology, Cybercitizens and Kenya’s Post 2022 Election Jitters. In A. Oye and K. Matlose (Eds.), African Union Agenda 2063: The Past Present and Future. University of Johannesburg Press. https://doi.org/10.36615/9780906785713
Ogenga, F. (Ed.). (2024). Special Issue: Emerging Issues in Social Media, AI and Peacebuilding in Africa. Kujenga Amani.
