Promoting Effective and Inclusive ICT Policy in Africa

Category Archives: ICT for Democracy

  HomeCollaboration on International ICT Policy for East and Southern Africa (CIPESA)  /  Blog  /  ICT for Democracy
19Feb

Transparency and Accountability Community of Practice Launched

Author admin Posted on

The Transparency and Accountability Initiative (T/AI) has launched a community of practice to bring together development partners, civil society organisations and researchers to expand the impact and scale of transparency and accountability interventions. The launch is taking place from February 17-20, 2013 in Cape Town, South Africa.
Participants from across the world are exploring ways of sharing knowledge and support on where, when and how technology interventions can generate change.
CIPESA is excited to be taking part in the launch and understanding how this community of practice could add value to the work we are doing in the transparency and accountability field, in particular ICTs for Democracy and Open Data and eGovernment.
Read more about T/AI and the community of practice here.
Follow the proceedings on Twitter at #TAlearn.

06Dec

ICT4Democracy in East AFrica Workshop in Dar es Salaam

Author admin Posted on

The ICT4Democracy East Africa Network – of which CIPESA is a member – is currently holding a two day workshop in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. This workshop aims to promote the Network’s activities with partners showcasing the progress of their work to improve democratisation in the region.
The event was officially opened by Eng. Dr. Zaipuna Yonah, the Director of ICT, Ministry of Science and Technology in Tanzania. In his opening address, Eng. Dr. Zaipuna thanked the government of Sweden through (SPIDER) The Swedish Program for ICT in Developing Regions and SIDA (Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency) for supporting the development of ICTs in the developing world and indicated that the work of the ICT4Democracy in East Africa network is already impacting the lives of citizens living in the region.
Eng. Dr. Zaipuna also  highlighted the work the Tanzanian government was doing in developing ICT infrastructure within the country and extending it to neighbouring countries. He urged the members of the network to continue sharing the progress of their initiatives saying that “Accountability should not only be in what we read and write, democracy is more about translating the intentions into realities.”
To view the complete photo gallery of the ongoing workshop  visit this link.
The presentations from the workshop will be uploaded at www.ict4democracy.org

28Nov

The 2012 Africa-EU Cooperation Forum on ICT Opens

Author admin Posted on

The 2012 Africa-EU Cooperation Forum on ICT opened today, Wednesday November 28, 2012 in Lisbon, Portugal. Under the theme Teaming-up for a strengthened and coordinated approach to foster Euro-African innovative cooperation on ICT, the two day forum will bring together European and African stakeholders in the public and private sectors involved in collaborative ICT research and ICT for development to share knowledge and experiences. Furthermore, discuss policy related issues.
The ICT4Democracy in East Africa Network – of which CIPESA is a member – is participating in the forum under the eGovernment & eDemocracy track.
Session chair: Angela Crandall, iHub Research
Panellist: Ashnah Kalemera, CIPESA
The objectives of this session are to understand the different eGovernment/ eDemocracy initiatives being undertaken, discuss the progress being made in governance through the use of mobile tools, and identify the challenges that need to be overcome in order to scale and sustain eDemocracy/ eGovernment initiatives.
The 5th in its series, the event is organised by the EuroAfrica-ICT initiative under the aegis of the European and the African Unions Commissions.
Read more about the forum here.

18Sep

ICT4Democracy in East Africa at a Glance: June 2011 – July 2012

Author admin Posted on

The ICT4Democracy in East Africa network is premised on the recognition that Information and Communication Technology (ICT) enhances communication and the right to freedom of expression, as well as the right to seek, receive and impart information. In this respect, ICT has the potential to increase citizens’ participation in decision-making processes, thus strengthening democratisation.
In this publication, we give you a peek into the initiative’s activities, projects progress and the network partners’ experiences – among them CIPESA – during the last half of 2011 and the first half of 2012 in leveraging on ICTs to hold leaders accountable to citizens, as well as to fight corruption, monitor service delivery, and contribute to building a democratic culture in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania.
Read the full publication here.
 

29Aug

ToroDev trains rural youth and women in online advocacy for improved service delivery

Author admin Posted on

ToroDev has started training rural women and youth leaders in the seven districts of the Rwenzori Region in using online tools to monitor service delivery. The maiden residential 2 days training involving ten participants was held on 16th – 17th of August, 2012 at ToroDev resource center in Fort Portal, Uganda. The training which is supported by ToroDev in partnership with SPIDER/Stockholm University was facilitated by Milton Aineruhanga from WOUGNET.

ToroDev will train 210 rural monitors and advocates in online/ Web 2.0 tools to collect, document and disseminate online public accountability for improved serviced delivery issues. They will particularly oriented on how to interact with the “Ushahidi” online platform and other relevant open-source software. The monitors were also trained in online social media tools, human rights, governance and democratic engagement.
The monitors were highly trained to be independent local citizens that will keep updating the community and project team at ToroDev about the status of service delivery and identifying communities own service delivery needs.
They will further go ahead to mobilize and encourage regular meetings and focus group discussions (FGDs) among the 14 Advocacy Forums in the region on issues of service delivery monitoring.
Rural Monitors will also advocate for quality and timely public accountability from local leaders.  They will use 11 radio stations in the Rwenzori region as a major tool for distributing/disseminating all the information accessed through online/internet and mobile phones.
This information will be converged on the FM radio stations as a way of sharing information with the rest of grass root citizens in the region, who may not necessarily have the skills and afford town or access internet based knowledge tools. The rural FM radio will be used a hub for the convergence of all ICT tools for effective service delivery monitoring in the Rwenzori Region.
Some of the sample articles posted by the rural monitors on the Ushahidi platform.
http://wougnet.org/ushahidi/reports/view/59
http://wougnet.org/ushahidi/reports/view/66
http://wougnet.org/ushahidi/reports/view/62
http://wougnet.org/ushahidi/reports/view/64
http://wougnet.org/ushahidi/reports/view/56
http://wougnet.org/ushahidi/reports/view/51
Documented by Solomon Akugizibwe
This article was published on August 28, 2012, about the ICT4Democracy in East Africa project, which brings together various partners in the region – among them CIPESA.
For more information, visit www.ict4democracy.org

1 … 10 11 12 13 14 … 18