Community Data Power & Ownership
Building community control over data, consent, and value.
Who controls community data, and who benefits from it? Without meaningful control over data, communities risk becoming the raw material that powers AI systems while receiving little benefit and having little say in how those systems are designed or used. This pillar focuses on helping communities understand, govern, negotiate, and derive value from the data they generate.
Building Community Power in AI
Resource & Training Centre
The WATA Resource & Training Centre will serve as the movement's central learning and organising hub. It will house WATA's flagship training programme alongside practical advocacy resources, community guides, toolkits, webinars, case studies, and digital learning materials focused on AI, data rights, surveillance, governance, and community organising.
The goal is not simply to increase awareness, but to equip communities with the actionable knowledge and tools needed to participate meaningfully in decisions about AI and data.
Tracking Data Governance
Frameworks & Policies
Translating Policy into Power
Across Africa and globally, governments, corporations, and institutions are developing new rules governing data collection, sharing, storage, and use.
WATA will carefully monitor these frameworks and translate them into accessible information that helps communities deeply understand how emerging policies affect their rights, their economic opportunities, and their daily risks.
Understanding Ethical Data-Sharing
Models & Practices
Data can absolutely support innovation, cutting-edge research, improved public services, and overall community development. The challenge is ensuring that communities maintain agency and benefit directly from their participation.
This specific workstream will explore models for ethical data sharing that fiercely prioritise transparency, accountability, reciprocity, and community control.
The Community Data Compact
Framework & Principles
The Community Data Compact will be a community-led framework establishing core principles for responsible engagement with community data.
It will clearly define expectations around consent, transparency, governance, benefit-sharing, accountability, and community participation. Ultimately, this creates a shared, objective benchmark that governments, companies, researchers, and civil society organisations can be measured against.
Subscribe for more
Join our network to receive the latest probes, policy updates, and insights.