HakiFedha: Bitcoin & Privacy for Civil Society in Africa
HakiFedha, a multilingual knowledge hub built for civil society across Africa, is officially launching to the public. The platform provides practical guidance in a simple language on Bitcoin, anti-censorship, and privacy-preserving tools for civil society actors in Africa.
The name says it all. HakiFedha combines two Swahili words: Haki, meaning justice, rights, and fairness, and Fedha, meaning money and finance. The project is built on a simple conviction: financial freedom and privacy are not technical luxuries. They are justice.
Why HakiFedha Exists?
In 2025, Burkina Faso’s military government issued a decree ordering all NGOs operating in the country to transfer their funds from commercial banks into a state-controlled financial institution. With a single administrative order, civil society organisations lost meaningful control over their own money and financial privacy. The message was clear: if the state can see your funds, it can eventually freeze them, redirect them, monitor them, or simply make them disappear.
Burkina Faso was not an isolated case. It was a warning.
Across Africa, governments are increasingly using financial and communication infrastructure. As a tool of political control and repression. Bank accounts can be frozen without notice. Cross-border transfers can be blocked or surveilled. Donor funds can be restricted at the point of entry. Communications can be surveilled.
For activists, journalists, and human rights defenders, losing access to money does not just create inconvenience. It shuts down operations, silences voices and investigations, and puts people at risk.
HakiFedha was built in response to exactly this reality.
Bitcoin and privacy tools offer a genuine alternative, but they are widely misunderstood, poorly documented in African contexts. And carry real risks for users who make mistakes in self-custody or operational security.
HakiFedha fills that gap. Every guide on the platform is written for non-technical users, with a clear long-term goal of grounding all resources in African realities and focusing on practical action rather than theory.
What the Platform Offers?
The hub covers Bitcoin basics, tools & templates for managing Bitcoin as an organisation, platforms for spending or converting Bitcoin into local currencies in Africa, privacy tools, and anti-censorship platforms. Guides and resources are currently available in English, with Swahili translation underway and additional African languages planned.
Alongside the knowledge hub, HakiFedha is launching BitMentor, a peer-to-peer volunteer network connecting experienced Bitcoiners with civil society groups and actors who need hands-on guidance. BitMentor is not an AI service.
It is human-to-human support for organisations navigating processes such as self-custody setups, multisig configurations, secure donation workflows, Bitcoin accounting and financial reporting, regulatory compliance, BTCPay Server setup, Bitcoin payroll for staff and contractors, and how to communicate Bitcoin adoption clearly to donors and boards who may be unfamiliar or skeptical.
Looking ahead, HakiFedha plans to use Nostr for BitMentor mentor verification, trust, and reputation, allowing the network to establish credibility in a decentralised way without relying on any central authority to vouch for participants.
Built From the Ground Up
HakiFedha has been developed entirely through voluntary effort and sweat equity, sustained by a belief that this resource needs to exist. The working version of the hub is already live at hakifedha.org.
The official public launch marks the beginning of a new phase, with professional design, expanded content, translation, and a formal mentorship matching system in development.
Among the features in development is Faragha Assistant, an embedded guidance tool designed to help users navigate Bitcoin, privacy, and secure communication resources in real time. Faragha means privacy in Kiswahili, and the name reflects its purpose: giving users fast, context-aware guidance without compromising who they are or what they are dealing with.
Faragha Assistant is not a replacement for human support. It serves as an accessible first-response layer that helps users quickly find practical safety guidance and relevant resources, acting as a bridge between the platform’s documentation and the BitMentor human mentorship network. For a civil society actor in a high-pressure situation who needs an answer quickly, that bridge matters.
A Resource Built for the Continent
“An NGO treasurer in Nairobi, an investigative journalist in Lagos, a land rights activist in South Sudan, a whistleblower in Harare, they need guidance that speaks to their reality. That is what we are building,” said the HakiFedha team.
Follow and Connect:
- Official Website.
- X (Twitter): @HakiFedha
- Nostr: nprofile1qqsfec9mjjma0r234us9edkw8pc6fhfftyy2ylf666l3ghsjdmd2k8g35z2h5
Media Contact: hakifedha@duck.com
Bitcoin is accepted as a donation method in support of the project.