Introduction
The 14th edition of RightsCon will be hosted by Access Now in Lusaka, Zambia from 5 to 8 May 2026. RightsCon is a global summit that is civil society-led and brings together various stakeholders across public and private sectors, including policy makers, tech companies and technologists, academics, journalists, donors and human rights activists.
The event will include over 450 sessions across 18 thematic tracks, including priority issues for APC such as:
- Artificial intelligence (AI) and emerging technologies
- Business and human rights
- Conflict and humanitarian action
- Content governance
- Freedoms and agency in the age of surveillance
- Global cyber norms and encryption
- Online hate and violence
- Tactics and contexts for activists
- Organisational capacity and funding.
APC considers RightsCon an important space to engage in discussion about critical issues related to internet and digital technologies, share information about changing contexts, and connect with diverse individuals and communities within the APC network and beyond.
RightsCon this year comes at a turbulent time for feminist, rights-based, labour and other people-centred movements and civil society more broadly. Countries across the Global North and South are increasingly authoritarian and fascist, embracing the integration of generative AI and surveillance technology supported and led by a small group of tech companies. The weaponisation of technology is also reshaping conflict zones, with digital platforms, surveillance tools, AI systems and data infrastructure being integrated into military strategies and information warfare. This convergence is reshaping the terrain in which we work.
Further, multilateral systems such as at the UN are failing to ensure equity or enforce international law, putting the Global South at a disproportionate disadvantage. Digital cooperation has become transactional, driven by opaque deals and national security interests rather than inclusive and people-centred visions. The multistakeholder model as it is being applied so far is not strengthening Global South perspectives and influence in multilateral negotiations and at different levels. Global South voices and actors, both civil society and governments, are not consistently benefiting from it.
This is compounded by the continued funding crises within civil society, which is fundamentally restructuring the environment in which we work and live. Funding has become increasingly competitive, conditional and siloed, making meaningful collaborations harder to sustain across our movements and organising spaces. We are seeing an erosion of not just our capacities but of our ability to act collectively. This is also forcing movement building away from civil society organisations to on-ground, organic movements, being led by people in the margins: the young, students, Black women, people of colour, queer and trans people, religious minorities, Indigenous peoples, refugees and migrants, and tech workers, who are doing so at considerable risk to themselves.
The implications for APC members, partners and staff and the communities they serve are immediate and severe. We face escalating risks digitally and physically, including harassment, censorship, surveillance, online targeting, disinformation campaigns and restrictions on travel and visas.
APC’s engagement and advocacies at RightsCon will be rooted in this context, and its goals and objectives throughout the event will be to:
- Engage and connect with APC’s network and partners to better understand the impact of these geopolitical and technological changes on their work and communities, offer support and solidarity, and discuss joint advocacy efforts to address these challenges.
- Contribute to thematic discussions related to issues such as technology-facilitated gender-based violence (TFGBV), disinformation, digital threats and repression, and internet governance in the context of conflict and crises, through a social justice and rights-based intersectional perspective.
- Advocate for increased and sustained donor support in the face of growing challenges, and renewed commitment from donors towards digital rights and social, environmental and gender justice.
APC will participate in a number of sessions at RightsCon. The full schedule of APC staff and member sessions can be found here.
APC’s thematic priorities
Securing access to the internet in contexts of conflict and crisis
In the wake of ongoing conflicts, crises and genocides in several regions, it has become increasingly urgent to secure access, infrastructure and other core internet resources for civilian populations. Restoring and maintaining safe and stable connectivity in times of armed conflict requires financial resources, technical solutions and equipment, as well as political commitment and pressure to allow reparations to happen and equipment to enter.
Since the Internet Governance Forum in 2025, APC has been working with the IGF Best Practice Forum on Securing Access to the Internet and Protecting Core Internet Resources in Contexts of Conflict and Crisis to put forward the idea of a multistakeholder mechanism for emergency and rapid response to secure or restore internet connectivity in contexts of conflict and crisis, and to attract additional stakeholders to collaborate on its realisation.
To test and refine this concept, APC is organising a roundtable at RightsCon where a group of experts will discuss, based on the blueprint provided by the IGF Best Practice Forum, how such a multistakeholder mechanism would work in the context of conflict and what challenges, opportunities and gaps would need to be addressed for its implementation.
Building collaborative responses and feminist activism to address technology-facilitated violence, including gender-based violence
APC has been working to understand and address technology facilitated violence, and in particular, technology-facilitated gender-based violence (TFGBV), for almost two decades. Through its Women’s Rights Programme, Social and Environmental Justice Programme and Safety for Voices Initiative, APC has sought to build a collective, community-centred understanding of the phenomenon and its root causes and manifestations, and advocated for approaches that go beyond policy interventions and seek to address the structural nature of such violence.
At RightsCon, APC will aim to move this work forward in a number of ways. The Women’s Rights Programme, through its projects, including the Feminist Internet Research Network (FIRN) and the Feminist Tech Exchange (FTX), will organise a side event on TFGBV on Day 0 that will create a space where diverse experiences and regional realities can be brought into conversation, allowing participants to examine how TFGBV is shaped by structural inequalities, patriarchal norms and uneven access to justice. It will continue the Women’s Rights Programme’s advocacy for an expanded understanding of TFGBV beyond institutionally named and coded technology-facilitated violence. The discussion is intended to move beyond questions of enforcement alone and examine whether current systems adequately reflect survivor realities, community needs, and the role of non-state actors in response and support. In this way, the session becomes a platform for a feminist advocacy for more responsive frameworks, and more inclusive understandings of justice.
In this context, APC has also been working on the issue of safety of women human rights defenders (WHRDs), who work towards the protection of vulnerable communities, human rights and democratic processes, while remaining one of the most at-risk groups, facing constant physical, digital and legal threats, putting their lives and psychosocial safety at risk. In its work leading the Safety for Voices consortium, a global South-based initiative implemented along with Urgent Action Fund Africa, Urgent Action Fund Asia and Pacific and IM-Defensoras, APC uses an intersectional feminist approach that is informed by a Feminist Holistic Protection (FHP) framework, to ensure that external and internal factors that contribute to safety challenges for WHRDs are identified, documented and addressed. At RightsCon, along with its consortium partners, APC plans to create a meeting space for WHRDs from different regions of the world to carry out a contextualisation exercise in which participants identify digital threats and explore practical approaches that are rooted in their lived realities to address them.
Finally, APC will host a private meeting at RightsCon of advocates, defenders, storytellers and others under its Resistance and Resilience: Collaborative Responses to Online Attacks on Environmental Defenders project, which seeks to map out the nature and manifestations of online attacks on environmental defenders, such as targeted disinformation and technology-facilitated violence, including gender-based violence, against communities resisting the violations of their rights and territories. These attacks have had significant consequences for the environmental justice movement, putting defenders and their communities at increasing risk, and the project has sought to develop an understanding of this context, including identifying the complicity of technology companies in violations against these communities and their rights, through the alarming demand for water, critical minerals and energy to power Big Tech acceleration. The session will focus on the key recommendations from the research carried out by APC and its partners on the scope and impacts of online disinformation and attacks against environmental defenders in Brazil, Kenya, Mexico and the Philippines to explore strategies to address the risks faced by environmental defenders in these countries.
Strengthening civil society collaboration on global internet governance through the implementation of GDC and WSIS+20 outcomes
Throughout 2025, APC engaged in the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS)+20 review process, which culminated in the adoption of the WSIS+20 Outcome Document, marking a significant step that will influence the configuration of the digital future. It presents an opportunity to align efforts towards achieving the WSIS vision with the implementation of the Global Digital Compact, the Financing for Development agenda, and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
From the point of view of civil society priorities, the WSIS+20 Outcome Document represents significant wins, but also important shortcomings, as it is presented within the context of worrying setbacks in the field of digital rights and human rights in general, practical difficulties in applying the multistakeholder approach to digital policy and governance, and the fragmentation and weakening of multilateral forums. Meanwhile, the implementation of the Global Digital Compact is progressing rapidly, focusing, among other things, on establishing a Global Dialogue on AI Governance and developing a global framework for data governance, with little clarity as to how the realities of the Global South will be taken into account.
APC, along with key partners, is hosting a closed-door meeting that will bring together members of the Global Digital Rights Coalition, the Global Digital Justice Forum, the Global South Alliance and other civil society actors and allies to reflect on the role of civil society in implementing the directives of the WSIS+20 Outcome Document and the Global Digital Compact, exchange ideas on priorities for focused engagement, and explore possibilities for collaboration in a context that is increasingly adverse and hostile to civil society work and the multistakeholder approach to the governance of digital technologies.
APC will also use this opportunity at RightsCon to strengthen its position on the regulation of artificial intelligence, particularly with respect to ongoing discussions around the configuration and outcomes of the Global Dialogue on AI Governance. APC will coordinate with civil society partners and identify allies at RightsCon with the aim of furthering its advocacy for a human-centric, rights-based, feminist approach to AI regulation and the meaningful inclusion of civil society and other non-governmental stakeholders in AI-related global governance processes.
Other key priorities
Connecting with the APC network and partners
RightsCon presents an important opportunity for APC to reconnect with its members and partners. We hope to be able to use this space to learn about our members’ current work and priorities, to better understand their challenges in the present context, and to chart a plan for the network’s focus moving forward. Towards this end, APC will host and support a number of initiatives during RightsCon.
APC will host a meeting of its board on 2-3 May 2026, followed by a get-together for members and close partners on 5 May 2026, where the APC board will share the highlights from its meeting, and upcoming plans for the network, including the APC Community Gathering 2027 and plans for the development of our next strategic plan beginning in 2028. This will also be a space for members and partners to learn about each other’s work and advocacies. This year, there will be over 20 APC members at Lusaka.
Further, APC will also support its member eQualitie’s side event “SplinterCon”, taking place on 5 May, and will also host a one-day booth on 7 May at the RightsCon Community Village, which will serve as a space for interaction and sharing of APC’s work.
Donor advocacy
RightsCon 2026 presents a key opportunity for APC to engage with a diverse range of funders – both existing partners and potential new supporters – within a shared space. Guided by our resource mobilisation strategy, we will approach the event as a platform not only for fundraising but also for strategic advocacy, particularly in the context of funding suspensions, the rise of anti-rights movements, and a broader decline in international solidarity. We aim to work alongside members, partners and funders to explore pathways for sustained support and resource mobilisation, while collectively responding to the current funding crisis affecting digital rights communities. Our overarching objective is to increase the visibility of APC’s work and that of our network, deepen relationships with existing funders, and secure meaningful follow-ups with new donors to support our key priorities. To achieve this, we will actively invite funders to APC-hosted sessions to strengthen their understanding of our work, engage in relevant discussions within the Organizational Capacity and Funding track, strategise with others in the digital rights field on how they are responding to funding challenges, and pursue targeted one-on-one meetings with donors and partners to build alignment and identify opportunities for collaboration.