Read APC's Annual Report 2025 here.
"We began 2025 facing many challenges that very quickly deepened. Funding for digital rights work came under greater pressure, spaces for civil society organising continued to shrink, and diversity, equity and inclusion policies faced significant setbacks. Globally, we saw the growing weaponisation of digital technologies in war and conflict, increasing concentrations of power through the collusion of authoritarian governments and Big Tech, and the environmental and community impacts of an extractive, colonial model. Disinformation campaigns continued to target human rights defenders and their work.
In this difficult context, we knew that moving forward would require both resilience and stronger alliances. We therefore focused on four priorities: strengthening civil society resistance and solidarity; advancing inclusive digital governance and alternatives; holding technology companies accountable while developing alternatives to authoritarian and corporate control; and strengthening our own network to support civil society organising and resistance.
Looking back, what our community achieved in 2025 is a powerful reminder of what is possible when we work together. Through our staff and network of members and partners, we worked across 63 countries, with focused local work in countries including Bangladesh, Brazil, Cameroon, Colombia, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Lebanon, Malaysia, Mexico, Myanmar, the Philippines, South Africa and Uganda.
Subgranting remained a key part of this work, supporting 206 initiatives in 48 countries, 45 of them in the Global South. These initiatives connected resources with capacity building and collective action, supporting technical and policy outcomes, movement building, gender inclusion and environmental justice.
Behind these numbers are stories of courage, creativity and resistance. Our members and partners supported Indigenous communities across Latin America and the Caribbean, developed free technologies for environmental monitoring in Nigeria and Colombia, and fostered community-centred connectivity across Africa, Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean. We stood with activists in Myanmar, defended digital rights amid the genocide in Palestine, resisted authoritarianism online, in the streets and in the courts, and celebrated the long-awaited release of Egyptian activist Alaa Abd el-Fattah.
We continued building a feminist internet that is safe and free for all, confronting technology-facilitated gender-based violence and bringing shared agendas into spaces where decisions about internet governance and our digital futures are made.
The stories in this report are more than a record of our work. They are part of our collective memory and a reminder of what we can achieve together, even in difficult times. As we look ahead, we carry these experiences with us as a foundation for strengthening collective organising in the coming years."
- Chat Garcia Ramilo, APC Executive director
Read highlights of our impact in 2025:
Building intersectional common agendas
In 2025, APC’s impact could be felt in our sustained work in helping to increase the influence of the digital justice movement at global forums, strengthening participation in regional and national internet governance events, and pushing for a collective agenda on financing community networks. We also helped feminist organisations reframe their own experiences of technology-facilitated gender-based violence by building their research capacities through peer support, and fostered a greater collaboration between free/libre and open source software developers and activists working across regions.
Amplifying rights and justice perspectives in digital tech and rights discourses
APC strengthened the voice of women human rights defenders (WHRDs) in advocacy spaces, and the capacity of feminist communities to define their own experience of technology-facilitated gender-based violence, encouraging them to share their perspectives at key events. We helped campaign for digital rights in Palestine, and promoted a digital justice perspective in global forums. We also raised awareness of community networks and alternative feminist infrastructures, as well as the threat of disinformation, while pushing for an end to internet shutdowns in Myanmar and Tanzania.
Collectively shaping digital standards, policies, processes, norms
2025 was a key year for APC, its members and partners in the field of internet governance. A substantive impact was our contribution to securing a permanent mandate for the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) through our sustained advocacy at the World Summit on the Information Society 20-year review (WSIS+20) process. We also refocused the discussions on financing last-mile connectivity through our advocacy on community-centred connectivity initiatives, and strengthened human rights language in global processes. We foregrounded the realities of women human rights defenders in policy spaces, and pushed for gender perspectives to be emphasised in global and regional forums as well as in national legislation, expanding discourse on digital violence. As we have done in previous years, we deepened stakeholders’ understanding of emerging policy terrains.
Building collective capacity for safety, care, resilience
In 2025, the collective work of the APC network resulted in feminists, women human rights defenders and civil society organisations being equipped with digital safety skills, as well as toolkits, processes and procedures developed to address online violence and their care needs. We continued to build the resilience of community-centred connectivity initiatives and to push for organisations in the Global South to work with free/libre and open source software (FLOSS) as a secure technology alternative.
Shared resources and capacity to learn, grow and thrive
Across the network, APC's subgranting strategy demonstrated how resources can build capacity, foster regulatory change, strengthen collective action, and support communities to defend their rights and territories. APC's subgranting programme creates chains of change from resources to capacity building, from capacity to engagement, and from engagement to institutionalisation, supporting technical and policy outcomes, as well as movement building across fields. In 2025, over USD 1.5 million was distributed through 206 subgrants in 48 countries, 45 of them in the Global South. Alongside our subgrants, our APC Member Engagement and Travel Fund also helped members engage and participate in strategic events and spaces. During 2025 these included RightsCon, the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), the Commission on the Status of Women, World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS)-related events, the Forum on Internet Freedom in Africa (FIFAfrica) and regional capacity-building workshops.