The Digital Rights and Inclusion Forum (DRIF) is an arena where tough topical global issues around Internet rights, especially in Africa, are discussed between civil society, technology companies, government, academia and other stakeholders. For the first time ever, the Forum will focus considerable time and energy on digital inclusion, after organising six editions that focused heavily on digital rights.
For more information on the event, click here.
CIPESATalks |
The evolution of the digital economy in Uganda over the last 20 years has broken barriers associated to geography and time and thus enabled information flows critical for business processes, innovation, entrepreneurship, civic participation, learning and research, and government service delivery.
Following concerns on the growing public debt bill, and a constrained tax base, the Uganda government introduced a raft of taxes in the Excise Duty Act (Amended), notably on Over the Top (OTT) services and mobile money transactions. Beginning July 1, 2018, users must pay a tax of UGX 200 (USD 0.05) per day to access various social media platforms including Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter and LinkedIn. For mobile money, a 1% levy applies to deposits and withdrawals, on top of a revised excise duty of 15% up from 10% on transfers. These taxes pose a huge threat on internet access and affordability, and financial inclusion for low income and marginalized groups such as women, youth and rural communities. In fact, the Alliance for Affordable Internet (A4AI) estimatesthat the social media tax will cost Uganda’s poorest up to 40% of their average monthly income to buy a basket of 1GB of data.
Accordingly, CIPESA in partnership with the Internet Society Uganda Chapter seeks to convene stakeholders to deliberate on the economic, social and human rights impact arising from the new taxes. The dialogue will deliberate on how policy making processes can advance inclusive and equitable access to the internet, promote innovation and consumer rights protection. The dialogue builds on previous ones convened by CIPESA, for multiple stakeholders in the ICT eco-system.
See full agenda here.
By Juliet Nanfuka |
Many African countries are caught between developing policies that support the unfettered use of the internet as a tool for social, economic and political growth, and laws that threaten citizens’ rights and use of digital technologies. Often, this is partly due to limited evidence upon which to base policies and decision-making, which results from the scant availability of relevant in-depth research.
As the need for internet policy advocacy that is informed by research grows, it is essential to increase the amount and depth of research originating from Africa. It is equally necessary to expand the methods used beyond the traditional to more contemporary ones such as network measurements, social network analysis and data mining. This has led to the need to train, connect, and build collaboration between researchers, policy makers and internet freedom advocates across the region and formed the basis of an intensive training on internet policy research methods.
The training workshop, which was held between February 27 and March 3, 2018, was organised by the Annenberg School for Communication’s Internet Policy Observatory and the Collaboration on International ICT Policy for East and Southern Africa (CIPESA), alongside several partners from across Africa. A total of 40 participants from 17 countries attended the training in Kampala, Uganda. They included journalists, lawyers, technologists, academics, telecom regulators, government officials, and digital rights advocates.
The six days’ intensive curriculum covering various topics including on policy research, legal analysis, survey methods, social network analysis, strategic communication, data visualization, and network measurement was led by experts in the field, including faculty from Makerere University, University of San Francisco, the University of Pennsylvania, as well as various think tanks and civil society organisations.
The workshop emphasised the need to embrace more collaborative push back efforts such as strategic litigation, the deployment of tools such as the Ooni probe that monitor internet speed and performance, accompanied by social network analysis, data visualisation and data scraping which can reflect patterns of online narrative. It was also stressed that these methodologies, coupled with traditional research approaches through physical interactions such as focus group discussions and key informant interviews would support more multidisciplinary collaborations and versatile communication strategy for internet policy advocacy in Africa.
Indeed, evidence-based advocacy is fundamental today perhaps more than ever, as the affronts to citizen’s rights online continuously evolve, including at a technological infrastructure level (internet throttling, internet shutdowns, surveillance and data breaches), as well as laws and regulations that increasingly criminalise internet use. More recently, financial affronts to online content production and dissemination have been witnessed in Tanzania and Uganda.
The workshop alumni join a cohort of others from the Middle East, Asia, and Latin America equipped with the skills needed to collaborate across disciplinary and professional silos for progressive internet policy and practice at national, regional and global levels.
Below are some tweets shared from the workshop:
Less than 10% of local news sites in Africa are hosted locally. Exceptions include South Africa, Swaziland & Djibouti says @EnricoCalandro & @JosiahChavula . What are the implications for local news when it is not locally hosted? #InternetPolicyAfrica @cipesaug @InternetPolicyO
— Christopher Ali (@Ali_Christopher) February 28, 2018
https://twitter.com/kudathove/status/969500199486984192
Ooni: to understand what is blocked, how it’s being blocked and who is blocking it- it’s not just the data, but the interpretation and use of the data: “we need lawyers… we need policy makers… we need activists” @OpenObservatory @agrabeli_ #InternetPolicyAfrica @cipesaug pic.twitter.com/Ip8fGhTNx7
— Laura Schwartz-Henderson 🙃 (@LauraSHendo) February 28, 2018
https://twitter.com/kudathove/status/969125256911781889
#InternetPolicyAfrica via NodeXL https://t.co/9fqeWOk0xe@cipesaug@natabaalo
@internetpolicyo@elig_safrica@bashmutumba@afrosms@d_kandeh@kudathove@simply_omhle@ngamitaTop hashtags:#internetpolicyafrica#internetfreedomafrica#internetfreedom#uganda
— NodeXL Project (@nodexl) March 1, 2018
Data is not useful unless used as part of an action: policy makers, lawyers, journalists can analyze @OpenObservatory data to interpret socio-political developments. #InternetPolicyAfrica
— Digital Society Africa (@digisocAfrica) February 28, 2018
An interesting point being driven by @Mose_Karanja during the @OpenObservatory session is that http/https could make a difference in what's being blocked or not and by who. #InternetPolicyAfrica pic.twitter.com/DQ8zwgLDw8
— Ese (she/her) (@EseoheOjo) February 28, 2018
Internet measurement: 85% of local news websites are located outside of their respective countries (mostly Europe and US). #Africa #LocalContent #InternetPolicyAfrica pic.twitter.com/jPbSFoCEyL
— Blaise Ndola (@BlaiseNdola) February 28, 2018
https://twitter.com/NHLAKANHLANHLA/status/968457060424781824
Even if your strategic litigation efforts do not result in a significant societal/institutional change it is also a victory to spark dialogue and draw attention to your cause #InternetPolicyAfrica
— ELIG S.Africa (@ELIG_SAfrica) February 27, 2018
https://twitter.com/kudathove/status/968095031763652610
Understanding likely sources of justification for internet disruption in Zambia with @Mose_Karanja @OpenObservatory. A plug for mixed methods work drawing on measurements and legal research! #InternetPolicyAfrica @cipesaug pic.twitter.com/m4OTzue3bl
— Laura Schwartz-Henderson 🙃 (@LauraSHendo) February 27, 2018
Online Chat |
On Friday December 15, 2017, the Collaboration on International ICT Policy for East and Southern Africa (CIPESA) will spend some time sharing insights on internet shutdowns. Between 15h00 and 16h00 East African Time (EAT) we will explore the spate of shutdowns affecting Sub-Saharan Africa and the efforts to navigate them.
Have you experienced an internet shutdown? Are you experiencing a shutdown? What work or insights would you like to share around this issue? What is the way forward?
We will also share insights on the economic impact of internet shutdowns with reference to a new framework we developed on calculating the Economic Impact of Internet Disruptions in Sub-Saharan Africa
A few of the documented cases of deliberate interruption of digital communications in sub-Sahara Africa in December thus far include an ongoing shutdown in Anglophone regions of Cameroon which as of today has run for 75 days. An earlier shutdown in the same region lasted 93 days. This week also Ethiopia experienced interruptions to its communications – primarily Facebook, Whatsapp and Twitter due to protests in the Oromia region. Further afield, in Yemen, there were reports of some internet filtering, blocking, throttling, and social media shutdowns.
Join the discussion and share your views on how we can #KeepItOn and protect #InternetFreedomAfrica
By Edrine Wanyama |
The annual celebration of the International Day for Universal Access to Information (IDUAI) on September 28 is aimed at highlighting the importance of access to Information (ATI) as a cornerstone of all other rights. This year’s IDUAI celebrations were held in Mauritius, organised by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) as part of the E-learning Africa summit (E-Summit). The summit is a fora for deliberation on issues of access to learning and vocational training, access to information, equality and quality in education, literacy and governance with prioritisation of sustainable development solutions.
The Collaboration on International ICT Policy for East and Southern Africa (CIPESA) participated at the e-Summit, making contributions on open access to information and the prerequisites for ATI, including highlighting the need for a conducive policy, legislative and regulatory environment to ensure universal access to information in Africa. Among the measures proposed at the meeting were the full recognition of ATI by more African states supported by the implementation of ATI laws and regulations which effectively empower citizens to demand for information.
Discussions at the summit also entailed a call for governments to ease access to information across multiple platforms including online, in print and through traditional media, alongside clear procedures on how information can be accessed in instances when it is not publicly available. Further, there should be efforts to minimise the costs of accessing information as well as making clear provision for timely information request processing, response and complaints handling mechanisms. A key enabler of the realisation of ATI in many countries will be the repealing of draconian and conflicting legislation and putting in place robust personal data protection measures.
Meanwhile, at the Forum on Internet Freedom in Africa hosted by CIPESA in Johannesburg, South Africa, there was emphasis on the need for governments to limit exemptions to accessible information, improve on data storage mechanisms and systems, provide for mandatory disclosure of information and put in place strong and functional penal mechanisms against information officers who deny citizens information.
Access to information (ATI) is a fundamental human right recognised by international human rights instruments, including articles 19 in both the Universal Declaration of Human Right and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. These articles provide for, among others, the right to freedom of opinion and expression including receiving and imparting information and ideas through media. ATI is also recognised in articles 13(1) and 17 of the Declaration on the Rights of the Child; article 15 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People; and the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 59 (1).
The summit brought together participants from all the 54 African countries. However, African countries continue to grapple with enacting ATI laws. Out of 54 countries, only 22 have enacted ATI laws. Additionally, these existing laws have been criticised for failing to meet international minimum standards, with limitation to access outweighing access rights.
Despite the overwhelming participation of African countries, the dilemma remains in the low response to ATI legislation. It should be noted that the lack of ATI legislation negatively impacts accountability and transparency by the state, which are tenets grounded on access to information.