Dear African Wikimedia community WISCom in solidarity with the 2025 Wiki Indaba Core Organizing Team regrets to announce that the Wiki Indaba 2025 has been cancelled.
While we had hoped that the annual conference would happen this year as usual, the events that unfolded so far have made it impossible. You may recall that the 2025 Wiki Indaba conference was initially scheduled to be held in Congo-Brazzaville. However, the situation in the east of DR Congo <https://news.un.org/en/story/2025/02/1160446>, the neighbouring country, was taken into consideration, which resulted in a decision to change the host country. The conference was then moved to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, to be held November 21-23. However, the post 2025 presidential election protests in Tanzania have once again increased security risk for international travellers. In the final analysis we were left with the following options: 1. A conference hybrid, with only the Tanzania scholars and the LoC attending in-person. 2. A 100% virtual conference where everyone joins online as we did in 2022. 3. Postponing to January or February 2026. Unfortunately, all the above options presented demanded pivoting that would have been impossible to execute with certainty and the excellence that we (WISCom and CoT) have come to expect of this conference. In particular, as it regards postponing to January or February, we felt this would bring us back to where we are currently, since we don't know how events will unfold in the country in the next few months. It was as a result of these reasons that WISCom and the CoT decided it would be best not to go ahead with the conference. While we understand that it is becoming difficult to organize this kind of a conference in the current global instability, we believe there is more that could have been done to avoid this situation we find ourselves in. We have therefore requested an urgent meeting with the Wikimedia Foundation in December, where we can conduct an honest forensic analysis of factors that contributed to cancellation and to rework our approach around the Wiki Indaba conference, to avoid the conference being impacted the way it has been impacted this year. The Wikimedia Foundation has issued communications about the cancellation and necessary next steps to wind up the conference preparations and other related logistics while ensuring that all individual and collective efforts by the community members to attend this conference are honoured. We know and understand the impact of this outcome, but we plead with our ever supportive community to trust WISCom will always put the community safety first above everything else. We will hide nothing from you, as we navigate this difficult time and we will do everything in our power to ensure that the next Wiki Indaba sessions are organized in a smooth and respectful manner that you have come to expect. We once again want to take this opportunity to apologize to you all for this disappointing news, rest assured that we did everything we could do to prepare for this conference, and are equally disappointed that we have to cancel at this eleventh hour. We ask for your continued support in the coming days as we clear the path for Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire. Yours faithfully, *Wiki Indaba Steering Committee (WISCom) + 2025 CoT*
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