AFCN 2nd Regional Meeting in 2025: Enhancing the Sustainability of Fact-Checking Organizations

May 20, 2025

Amidst the rapid transformations witnessed in 2025, from changes in the policies of technology companies and social media platforms towards the field of fact-checking, to the cessation of American fund provided through USAID to Non-govermental organizations globally and its direct impact on fact-checking organizations, the Arab Fact-Checkers Network (AFCN) from ARIJ, organized its second regional meeting for 2025 on May 20, under the title: “Sustainability of Fact-Checking Organizations and Initiatives in the Arab World“.

The meeting was moderated by ARIJ Director General, Rawan Damen, and included four main topics. The session began with a presentation of the findings from the recent internal AFCN study titled “The Actual Financing Situation of the AFCN Community“ which aimed to highlight the current funding challenges. This was followed by a discussion structured around three interactive topics focusing on:

1. Sustainability challenges and adaptation strategies.
   
   
2. Professional issues related to the concept of “fact-checking”.
   
   
3. Ways to reach a wider audience and enhance societal impact.
   
   

The attendees, who exceeded 50 representatives from 26 fact-checking organizations/initiatives in 13 Arab countries within the AFCN community, discussed sustainability solutions and proposed strategies to overcome all the challenges raised during discussing the topics of the meeting.

In addition, “Tahaqaq” from Morocco and “Sidq” from Yemen presented their successful experiences in strategically rebuilding their organizations through participation in “Go Far Go Togetherً” project in 2024, as well as their own experiences in overcoming the challenges of funding loss that have affected several fact-checking organizations since the beginning of 2025.

Regarding the importance of this meeting for fact-checking organizations, Najlaa Hamdi, director of the Libyan fact-checking organization “TSC,” remarked on the meeting’s impact and said, “The meeting provided me with many alternative solutions for the platform’s continuity after I had made the decision to shut it down permanently. I decided to attend the meeting while I was full of frustration and despair about continuing, but the meeting ignited hope within me and made me cling to continuing despite the lack of opportunities to do so.”

Atheer Al-Mujahid, director of the “Etreek 24 Fact” platform, pointed out that the meeting met her expectations, “and constituted an important opportunity to understand the broader picture of the reality of fact-checking platforms and networks around the world, and the common and unique challenges they face amidst these rapid changes. The study presentation at the beginning of the meeting, with its data and statistics, helped me develop a deeper understanding of the general context in which we operate, and to link local challenges with the global framework.”

In conclusion, the meeting resulted in a set of recommendations, most notably:

1. Diversifying income sources to reduce dependence on grants.
   
   
2. Rationalizing costs by focusing on priorities and building multi-tasking teams.
   
   
3. Enhancing digital presence and improving content and the website.
   
   
4. Expanding local partnerships and regional cooperation.
   
   
5. Flexibility and adaptation to challenges while maintaining public trust.
   
   

It is worth noting that this regional meeting is the second in 2025, the fourteenth within the series of meetings organized by AFCN since 2022. The first regional meeting in 2025 discussed the idea of enhancing and developing investigative journalism by integrating it with fact-checking and producing investigative reports on disinformation.