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28Sep

How ICT Could Drive Open Government in Africa

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By CIPESA Writer
Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) could be a key enabler of open government in Africa, in the wake of the September 20, 2011 launch of the Open Government Partnership (OGP), a multilateral initiative that aims “to secure concrete commitments from governments to promote transparency, empower citizens, fight corruption, and harness new technolo¬gies to strengthen governance”.
The African countries currently eligible to join the OGP are Kenya, Liberia, Ghana, South Africa, Tanzania, and Uganda – and of them, by September 20, 2011, only Tanzania and Uganda had not indicated their plans to join the OGP. These countries derived their eligibility from their “demonstrated commitment to open government” in the key areas of budget transparency, access to infor¬mation, asset disclosure by politicians and officials, and citizen engagement.
An increasingly large number of people in Africa are accessing modern communication technologies such as the internet and mobile phones. Indeed, at the citizen-to-citizen level, a lot of conversations and actions are taking place via ICT. Many of these ICT-enabled interactions and discussions are empowering citizens, enhancing civic agency and promoting participation in various ways which democratic governments need to nurture.
In East Africa, more so in Kenya and Uganda, social media are hugely popular, and have been proved to be a great mobilising tool which open government promoters should promptly embrace. More generally, given the central role ICT can play in enabling the attainment of the key objectives of open government, Africa needs to enable more of its people to access mobile phones and the internet. And governments must take a lead in using ICT to improve openness, while also supporting civil society ICT-for-Open-Government initiatives.
Such initiatives, among others, include the Africa4All parliamentary initiative operational in Lesotho, Namibia, Tanzania and Uganda, which leverages on web 2.0 technolo¬gies to support collaboration and active engagement of MPs and citizens in the decision making process, and the East Africa ICT4Democracy programme that is working in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda.
Corruption, poor service delivery and undemocratic governance survive on systems that keep information hidden from the public, and bureaucracies which place near-unfettered power into the hands of the few public officials that control this information. Becoming open would require the currently closed African governments to briskly get online in service provision and in pro-actively placing a wide array of information in the public domain.
Moreover, citizens need to be empowered to hold their leaders and public service institutions to account. The countries which have taken a lead in this area recognise that freedom of information represents the citizens’ right to know; and that access to government information enhances public participation, while also enabling more robust scrutiny and discussion of government actions.
For Africa, passing and effecting progressive legislation that guarantees access to information is crucial. So is the need for public bodies to enter and respect citizens’ charters. Besides, concerted efforts to create civic awareness and to enable citizens’ active partici¬pation in fighting corruption and monitoring democracy will be crucial. And smartly embracing ICT would catalyse all these efforts.
Read CIPESA’s September 2011 Briefing on Open Government in Africa, here.

26Sep

Report of the Uganda Internet Governance Forum 2011

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The report of the 4th Uganda Internet Governance Forum organised by the Collaboration on International ICT Policy for East and Southern (CIPESA) in conjunction with the Women of Uganda Network (WOUGNET) and Hive Colab on August 10, 2011, is available for download here

13Aug

Uganda Holds 4th Internet Governance Forum

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By Lillian Nalwoga
The Collaboration on International ICT Policy for East and Southern (CIPESA) in conjunction with the Women of Uganda Network (WOUGNET) and Hive Colab organised the 4th Uganda Internet Governance Forum (IGF) under the theme “Harnessing Internet Development. The forum was held on August 10, 2011 at Hive Colab premises in Kampala, brought together over 50 ICT enthusiasts.
The Uganda IGF is a multi-stakeholder forum open to representatives from Government, NGOs, academia, private sector, as well as any other entities and individuals interested in Internet Governance issues.
Key issues discussed st the 4th Uganda IGF included cyber security management; thepower of social media in citizen empowerment; importance of cloud computing in promoting e-commerce in Uganda,; adopting the best model of internet for Uganda and the management of Uganda’s Critical Internet Resources.
In his opening remarks, James Saaka, the Executive Director of the National Information and Technology Authority Uganda (NITA-U) said that Phase one of the District Business Information Centres had been complemented while Phase Two was underway.
Saaka also said that Phase one of the National Backbone Infrastructure/E-Government Infrastructure (NBI/EGI) project had been completed. Phase Two was scheduled for completion this year September and would involve the laying of 1,477 KM of additional Optical Fibre Cable in the districts of Mbale, Kumi, Soroti, Lira, Gulu, Nimule, Masindi, Hoima, Kyenjojo, Fort Portal, Kasese, Bushenyi, Mbarara, Nakasongola and Luwero. A map detailing the project coverage will soon be available on the NITA-U website. He further welcomed feedback from stakeholders, noting that a repository about government ICT projects was being developed and would be made accessible to the public in due course.
Participants discussed the Ugandan cyber laws which the President assented to six months ago. These included the Electronic Transactions Act, the Electronic Signatures Act and the Computer Misuse Act. Copies of these laws are now available for purchase from major bookshops. However, only the Computer Misuse Law is operational while regulations for the others have not yet been developed. Nevertheless, participants called for massive awareness creation for these laws as many citizens were not aware about their existence and their implications.
Meanwhile, Gloria Katuku, an official of the ICT Ministry, highlighted key strategies under development, which she said included the National Information Security Strategy to be implemented by NITA-U; the IPv6 strategy, awaiting approval from the ICT Minister and the Dot Ug ccTLD Management strategy, which is available on the Ministry Website www.ict.go.ug for comments.
Participants called for the adoption of new ICT tools for communicating and engaging with the government on national matters. They called for the adoption of an internet model that was free and open for all to access. This includes embracing the power of mobile internet hence the need for government to increase mobile penetration by lowering Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) of mobile phones. Measures such as removal of import duties and Value added Tax (VAT) on mobile devices should also be considered by government, they said.
The outcomes of the 4th Uganda IGF will be presented at the regional East African IGF due to take place in Kigali, Rwanda on August 17 –18, 2011.
Presentations made at the Forum can be downloaded here:
Cloud Computing and ecommerce+uigf2011
NIGF PresentationPower of Social Media in Citizen Empowerment
UIGF online discussions 2011
What kind of Internet do you want
NIGF programme 2011

12Jul

CIPESA Challenges Telcos on Innovations That Improve Livelihoods

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In this article about a content licencing agreement between South Africa’s MTN Group and entertainment television channel Trace, Computerworld quotes CIPESA as challenging African telcos and innovators to place a little more focus on innovations that directly impact on peoples’ livelihoods:
By Edris Kisambira 
29.06.2011  | Computerworld Uganda
As African telecom players innovate to beat their competitors, South Africa’s MTN Group has pulled a first by announcing a brand and content licensing agreement with Trace, an entertainment television channel.
As African telecom players innovate to beat their competitors, South Africa’s MTN Group has pulled a first by announcing a brand and content licensing agreement with Trace, an entertainment television channel.
Trace is largely a music video channel that promotes urban contemporary music videos and is available on various cable and satellite pay television platforms.
As Africa’s Internet speeds go up and prices come down, courtesy of fiber-optic cables, one of the major challenges facing Africa is a lack of locally relevant and available content to attract more people online.
The deal with Trace will let MTN offer what it has called innovative entertainment services to the fast-growing youth segment within the African mobile market.
On Monday MTN launched the offer in Cameroon, and it is due to be rolled out in multiple locations. Launches are planned in Ivory Coast, South Africa and Nigeria in the next few months.
“MTN youth subscribers will benefit from the unique entertainment experience around the Trace brand, including exciting local and international content on entertainment and sports, live events and television,” according to a statement issued by the MTN Group.”Any initiative that works to raise the local content that African people access and consume is most welcome, regardless of whether this content is delivered via traditional TV, mobile phone or the Internet,” said Wairagala Wakabi, a researcher at Collaboration on International ICT Policy in Eastern and Southern Africa (CIPESA).
He said many African countries have aspirations for their media, specifically radio and TV, and deliver a bigger proportion of their programming as local content, but due to logistical and capacity problems, these hopes are not translated into reality.
“States, including through their universal access funds, obviously have a big role to play here, but it will be a happy day when MTN, Trace and others leverage on the successes they score within the entertainment sector to also get into innovations that directly impact on the livelihoods of our people in ways entertainment would never,” Wakabi said.
Source:  Computerworld, June 29, 2011

20May

New Trends in ICT Could Foster African Development

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Addis Ababa, 04 May 2011 (ECA) – Experts attending a session on new ICT trends in relation to fostering industrialisation and socio-economic development expressed optimism on the benefits that African can derive from using ICT-enabled services, such as open data access, social media, FOSS applications, and mobile computing.
“Although Africa is not up to speed when it comes to internet connectivity, the continent has 110 million users,” said Dr. Tarek Cheniti of the Said Business School. “Africans are responsive to technology and we have to build on that.”
The session was held during the May 2-5 Second Session of the Committee on Development Information, Science and Technology – CODIST II. According to the Information and Communication Service of the Economic Commission for Africa – ECA, participants focused on the uptake of ICTs in Africa and emphasised that the continent has led the global shift as one of the fastest to turn from fixed to mobile telephony.
Participants were awash with examples of initiatives impacting on society –the village phone operators in Uganda; the optimal grain market information via SMS initiative in Niger; and the e-Care initiative in Ghana.
An alternative to the social networking tool Facebook has emerged: Asanja, boasts a quarter of a million subscribers. In addition, various imitations of youtube and increased use of professional networks, such as linkedafrica.com are thriving.
Mobile applications, such as Mpesa, the famous Kenyan mobile money transfer service launched by Safaricom, are changing the way ordinary Kenyans conduct business. In Ethiopia the ECA is supporting researchers in Addis Ababa University to develop a health communication systems and an Ethiopian (script) keyboard for smart phones.
On the education front, the one laptop per child project has placed 100,000 laptops in as many children in Rwanda, according to the participants, that number could double by the end of 2011. These laptops are not only networked and linked to the internet, they carry 100 books. The country aims to see all its children equipped with one laptop each by 2015.
It was indicated that tablets with the capacity to carry 1,000 books are now under production for distribution to children. Participants stressed, however, that although the laptops are very helpful for advancing children’s education, they should be manufactured in Africa.
On other discussions, the session learnt that African governments are yet to venture into open (government) data systems, which give free access to data sets or information sets produced or commissioned by government or government controlled entities.
José M. Alonso, from CTIC (Spain) said, moving to open data systems, “generates economic return on investments via the creation of innovative products and services by third parties. It also increases transparency, accountability and democratisation of public data, and increases government efficiency and effectiveness.”
In order to reap all the benefits of innovations in science and technology, though, African countries have been urged to first have sound policies for agriculture, education and all other sectors, which could then be complemented by Science and Technology Policies.
–          ECA Press Release No. 61/2011

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