The African Declaration Drafter’s Group is pleased to present the African Declaration on Internet Rights and Freedoms which will be released on September 4 at the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in Istanbul, Turkey, and on September 8 at Highway Africa Conference in Grahamstown, South Africa.
14 August 2014
Press Statement
For immediate release
Uganda Launches Portal to Support Citizens’ Right to Information
The Office of the Prime Minister (OPM) through the Ministry of Information and National Guidance today launched the Ask Your Government (AYG) online platform (www.askyourgov.ug) at the Imperial Royale Hotel, Kampala. AYG is an initiative of the OPM in partnership with the Collaboration on International ICT Policy in East and Southern Africa (CIPESA) and the Africa Freedom of Information Centre (AFIC). It is aimed at promoting Ugandan citizens’ right to information in support of transparency, accountability and good governance.
Uganda was amongst the first African countries to adopt Right to Information (RTI) legislation with the passing of the Access to Information Act of 2005. The AYG portal allows citizens to directly send requests for information to information officers in Government departments, ministries and agencies. Responses to the information requests are relayed directly to the email address of the person who makes the requests and are also publicly displayed on the portal.
While Uganda currently has an internet reach of 20% of the population, this initiative will work alongside civil society organisations to ensure that digitally under-represented citizens including people living in rural areas and women can make information requests through the platform. Its wider target audience also includes general citizens with targeted efforts geared at journalists, researchers, university lecturers, and students.
The launch was officiated by Hon. Rose Namayanja Nsereko, Minister of Information and National Guidance who highlighted the changes that government has undertaken in improving information availability within government and amongst Ugandan citizens. She noted, “The tool avails to Ugandans an opportunity to access public information. We as government can also use the platform when planning by identifying the types of information that citizens most request.” She also added that the platform will increase public scrutiny of the Ugandan government and enhance transparency and accountability to citizens.
In his opening remarks, Simon Mayende, Director at the Ministry of Information and National Guidance (MING) in the OPM stressed the commitment of the Ministry towards “ensuring that the public access information held by all public bodies.” He added that“there should be no barriers of this right of citizens.” The launch was attended by media as well as information officers from various government offices who will be the key drivers of the success of the platform. Also present were members of civil society organisations and development partners.
Activities at the launch included a round table discussion. Panellists included Moses Watasa, Commissioner with the OPM/MING and representatives of civil society organisations including Gilbert Sendugwa (AFIC), Wairagala Wakabi (CIPESA), Patrick Tumwine (Human Rights Network), Jude Odaro (Uganda Debt Network) and MareikeLe Pelley (Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung).
Discussions explored topics such as Ugandan citizens’ rights to information as per the Access to Information Act, 2005 and accountability. It also explored the integral role that Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) play in promoting engagement between government, civil society and ordinary citizens.
Mr.Odaro commended the Government for building an elaborate legal and institutional framework to facilitate access to public information by citizens as a critical aspect of development. “This in the long run will help citizens understand government development priorities and plans while enhancing awareness and ownership of development initiatives,” he said. He also stressed the work that has to go into sensitising government officials for increased commitment towards right to information.
Mr.Wakabi stated that the increased proliferation of ICTs in the country provided immense opportunities for government to operrationalise existing legal frameworks and improve social accountability. Indeed, Mr.Watesa pointed out that the AYG website was an important tool in government’s efforts to improve communication with citizens – an area that government hasn’t been doing very well in.
Discussions were followed by the unveiling of the website through a demonstration in which a query on the ministerial policy statement for the Office of the Prime Minister for the year 2014/2015 was requested.
The live demonstration highlighted the simplicity of registering an account and making a direct request to government for swift responses while at the same time creating a library of queries and responses that can be accessed by other visitors to the website who may have similar questions.
A user guide was distributed amongst all those present to help them navigate through the processes of requesting and responding to information queries.
The website launch marks the commitment that government has towards making public information easily accessible to the citizens of Uganda while also providing an effective, cheaper and less time consuming solution to requesting information from the country’s public bodies.
Ask your Government is available on social media:
Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/askyourgovug
Twitter @AskYourGovUg
For further information please contact
https://www.facebook.com/askyourgovug
Twitter: @AskYourGovUg
Hashtag: #AYGUganda
Email: [email protected]
| Ministry of Information and National Guidance – Office of the Prime Minister (OPM)Plot 9-11 Apollo Kaggawa Road,
Kampala, Uganda Tel: +256 417770500 |
Collaboration on International ICT Policy in East and Southern Africa (CIPESA)Plot 156-158 Mutesa II Road, Ntinda Kampala, Uganda Tel:+256 414 289 502 |
Africa Freedom of Information Centre (AFIC)Plot 5 Katego Road, Kamwokya
Kampala, Uganda Tel: +256 414 533554 |
By Juliet Nanfuka
Tanzania’s port of Dar es Saalam is one of the landing stations of the Eastern Africa Submarine Cable System (EASSy). However, the country’s internet penetration rate is relatively similar to those of its landlocked neighbours such as Uganda and Rwanda. A total of 9.3 million people of the population of 45 million accessed the internet in 2013. The country has a teledensity of 61 phones per 100 inhabitants, which translates into 27.6 million mobile subscriptions.
In a fast changing socio-political, economic and technological landscape, the extent of freedoms enjoyed by Tanzanian citizens both online and offline is being stunted by government practices and colonial laws.
In June 2014, British owned telecommunications company Vodafone, which operates locally as Vodacom, disclosed that in 2013 the government of Tanzania made 98,765 requests for local subscribers’ data. According to the firm’s Law Enforcement Disclosure Report, this was the highest number of government requests made among the eight African countries where it operates. It should be noted, however, that Vodafone could not publish the requests made by Kenya and South Africa due to legal restrictions.
The company also disclosed that it had not implemented the technical requirements necessary to enable lawful interception of communications in Tanzania and had not received any demands from authorities for interception assistance. However, the country’s Prevention of Terrorism Act 2002 requires service providers to “intercept and retain a specified communication or communications of a specified description received or transmitted, or about to be received or transmitted by that communication service provider” for purposes of obtaining evidence of commission of terrorism-related offences. This law permits the admission in court of information sourced through interception.
While the 2002 law makes it permissible for the state to snoop on citizens’ communications, other laws dating as far back as the mid 1970s constrain transparency and citizens’ access to information. The National Security Act of 1970 makes it a punishable offence to investigate, obtain, possess, comment on, pass on or publish any document or information which the government considers classified.
Another Act dating from the same era is the 1976 Newspaper Act, which gives authorities powers to “exclude” any newspaper from operation in the “interest of the public”. In a 2012 case, the MwanaHalisi newspaper was banned indefinitely on allegations of publishing two seditious stories claiming that state intelligence officers were involved in the kidnapping and torture of a national strike leader. More recently in 2013, two other publications – the Mwananchi and the Mtanzania- were banned both offline and online for two weeks and three months respectively on instructions of the Directorate of Information. This followed accusations of publishing content aimed at provoking discontent between the government and public.
Although the country’s constitution provides for access to information, freedom of expression and assembly and the right to privacy, the existence of laws that sternly limit publication of government information and support interception of communications raises concern over the country’s online freedoms credentials. Besides, the absence of data protection and privacy laws to safeguard citizens’ information collected as part of mandatory subscriber registration makes online users’ vulnerable to state interference.
Nonetheless, recent government announcements of the drafting of three laws – the Cyber security Act, Data Protection Act and the Electronic Transacting Act – come as a positive step for the country in fighting cybercrime and promoting internet freedoms.
While these steps indicate some appreciation of the complex relationship between data protection and online freedom, there remain many uncertainties about free speech and press freedom in the face of interception, draconian and unclear laws, and harsh penalties – especially with vague state transparency.
Read more on the practices, legislative environment, and threats to online freedoms in Tanzania in the 2014 State of Internet Freedom in Tanzania Report prepared by CIPESA.
By Maria Nakirya
The Busoga Rural Open Source and Development Initiative (BROSDI) with support from the Collaboration on International ICT Policy for East and Southern Africa (CIPESA) has had ongoing training this year for Mayuge district local government officials and the local education community on the creation and use of blogs as tools for community reporting on governance and service delivery.
As part of an ongoing project that focuses on e-governance and citizen participation in the education sector, blogging was one of
the tools identified by citizens to reduce the information gap that currently exists between the schools community, parents and the local government.
BROSDI conducts several trainings in social media for varying community groups and individuals. However, this was the first time that training was conducted for a group of influential persons in the community who had limited computer experience. The group was composed of head teachers, teachers, community leaders and representatives of the community of parents.
The training was aimed at equipping participants with basic knowledge and skills in computer usage –including opening email accounts as basic requirement for blogging and registration for Individual Tax Identification Number (TIN).
Participants welcomed the training which also helped them open personal email accounts, a process that they noted was simple yet some of them had paid as much as UGX 20,000 (USD 8) to have email addresses opened for them by third parties.
A separate training was held for district officials. Participants in this training had some basic computer experience but little knowledge of blogging. However, they found it a very resourceful tool to link them and other district officials to the community they serve. They were able to read and appreciate the articles written by members of the community.
“If only we knew about this before, we would have not spent so much money.” Teacher Grace
“I have been passing at BROSDI, seeing people type on these machines but I didn’t know they can go this far.” A participant headteacher
A key outcome of both trainings was the realisation by beneficiaries that they had a lot of information and content to share which they previously did not know how to package for public consumption. This has greatly boosted their confidence levels and the
quality of blog entries produced. The blogs were shared on the project blog (http://visualizemayuge.wordpress.com) while others created their own blogs. All training participants were eager to post blog entries and encouraged district officials to visit the blog. To ensure a wider audience, they further suggested having the blog link integrated to the district official website.
“I have a daughter abroad who gave me a telephone with all internet settings activated but did not know what to use it for. All I do is to use it for phone calls. I did not know about this internet and that it can do wonders. Will the whole world be able to read about my contribution?” Asks a participant teacher during a training session.
“I didn’t know that I would interact with the community in a different way and I think this works especially in our area where coming to the district is a big problem.” Noted a teacher after a training session
The trainings are part of CIPESA’s wider iParticipate project. In partnership with BROSDI as well as the Northern Uganda Media Club (NUMEC) and eSociety Kasese, ongoing activities are aimed at using ICTs to facilitate better delivery of government services to citizens, empower citizens through access to information, and improve interactions between citizens and public officials.
The project is supported by the Swedish Development Agency (Sida) and the Swedish Programme for ICT in Developing Regions (Spider).