Research · 2026

The continent is not under-reported. It is mis-read.

SSCML's research is primary-source, pan-African, and policy-relevant. We commission fieldwork, archive what gets thrown away, and publish only when the evidence holds — for editors, ministers, and the practitioners who have to act on what we find.

Flagship
In production · Release Q4 2026

The 2026 State of African Communication Report.

The first SSCML annual — a 200-page assessment of how Africa communicates, internally and to the world, built on twelve months of interviews, newsroom audits, and policy review across thirty markets. Written for editors, ministers, and the institutions that fund the continent's media. Released to fellows and partners in Q4 2026, with a public summary thereafter.

  • 01African newsrooms are funded by audiences they cannot yet name.
  • 02Public diplomacy is being practised, just rarely under that title.
  • 03Crisis response across the continent is faster, and lonelier, than the literature suggests.
Centres

Three centres. One method.

PDL

Public Diplomacy Lab

How African states, institutions, and citizens speak to the world — and to each other. The Lab convenes diplomats, journalists, and policy researchers around the practical craft of public diplomacy.

Director · Prof. Ibrahim Suleiman
  1. 01Soft-power audits of West African foreign ministries
  2. 02Citizen diplomacy and diaspora media
  3. 03Bilateral narrative tracking — Nigeria, Ghana, Senegal
CAML

Centre for African Media Leadership

The operating playbook of the African newsroom — editorial, commercial, political. CAML builds the empirical record that editors and publishers currently work without.

Director · Prof. Tunde Bakare
  1. 01Newsroom sustainability index — 12 markets
  2. 02Editorial independence under state pressure
  3. 03The economics of investigative reporting in Africa
CCO

Crisis Communication Observatory

Live and retrospective case-work on reputational crises across African institutions — corporate, governmental, civic. The Observatory builds the continent's first structured crisis-communication archive.

Director · Dr. Ngozi Eze
  1. 01Annual African Crisis Communication Index
  2. 02Post-mortems on five live crises per year
  3. 03Open methodology for crisis-response audits

Research before opinion. Method before noise.

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