Promoting Effective and Inclusive ICT Policy in Africa

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18Apr

New Report Shows How ICT is Aiding Citizen Participation in Uganda

Author admin Posted on

A new report by the Collaboration on International ICT Policy in East and Southern Africa (CIPESA) illustrates how Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) are aiding citizen participation in Uganda, but also points to the challenges that need to be overcome for these technologies to have a wider impact on governance.
The report reviews various ICT tools being used to promote transparency, accountability, and citizen participation in Uganda. It examines the utility and shortcomings of these tools, the challenges they face, and the factors contributing to their success. Furthermore, it offers suggestions for improving the utility, reach, and, hopefully, the success of initiatives that utilise ICT to improve citizen participation.Based on the 24 ICT tools assessed, seven main categories of uses of tools were identified: Information provision; Election monitoring; Lobbying and activism; Voter registration; Elections reporting; Citizen policing; and Civic participation in the post-election period.Innovations especially with mobile telephony and interactive mapping have showcased how ICT can help improve transparency and accountability in the delivery of public services. In the run up to Uganda’s 2011 general elections, ICT tools were used broadly, for campaigning, tallying results, monitoring the actions of political groups and the electoral body, for civic education, and for activism. The tools included mobile phones, automated calls, and crowd sourcing platforms, radio and television, as well as social media. They contributed to transparency of the polls – but probably not to voter turn-out.However, the most immediate challenge to the adoption of these tools is that few Ugandans are embracing them. In Uganda, market penetration for voice stands at 45% with a population coverage of close to 100%. Mobile accounts for more than 90% of new connections, with 910,000 new subscribers being added each year. While this is providing a solid base in terms of numbers of those who can use the ICT, the figures do not tell the whole story. For example, studies show that nearly half of mobile phone subscribers own at least two SIM cards. Moreover, even among the phone-owning class, for many usage beyond voice (and, well, Facebook and radio) remains limited.And there are yet more challenges. Limitations such as the cost of accessing and using the ICT, language barriers and low literacy levels mainly for the internet and mobile based platforms – as well as minimal attention by government to boosting usage of ICT in governance all hinder the effective use of these tools. This study finds that it is therefore crucial for organisations using ICT for participation and democracy to carry out extensive assessments before deploying the technology, to work with others rather than duplicate efforts, to create awareness and capacity among users, and to continuously assess the impacts the ICT initiatives are creating.This research was made possible by funding from the Swedish Program for ICT in Developing Regions (Spider), which is supporting projects in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda, in the areas of education, health, and governance. The results shall directly inform some wider actions in catalysing civic participation and democracy monitoring using ICT, which CIPESA and other SPIDER partners are undertaking in East Africa. Spider has provided seed-funding to a range of organisations that form the ICT4Democracy in East Africa Network (www.ict4democracy.org), who will benefit from this study.
Download the full report here

03Nov

Here’s How Social Media Could Promote Democracy

Author admin Posted on

By Ashnah Kalemera
Social media is fast becoming one of the major uses of the Internet. Wikis, blogs and other social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube have been added to the Internet as enablers for developing, storing and disseminating instant information to audiences of people in diverse locations at a fairly low cost.
Social networks could potentially be used for a broad range of participatory activi­ties, such as demanding for public services like education and water, contacting leaders, political cam­paigns and discussions, and fighting corruption. They also could play a critical role in citizen engagement and advocacy, which have a major bearing on transparency and ac­countability in governance and the conduct of public affairs.
With growing numbers of Africans becoming internet users, monthly web information analysis by Alexa.com shows that there are a significant – and rising – number of users of social media on the conti­nent. Facebook, a social networking platform that allows highly interac­tive processes, claims that it has 750 million users, half of whom log on daily with the average user having an estimat­ed 130 friends.
In June this year, Alexa.com ranked Facebook the second most visited site in the world. The site was ranked the most popular for social networking in Egypt, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Madagascar, Mauritius, Moroc­co, Nigeria and Sudan. In Algeria, Cameroon, Congo, South Africa and Uganda, Facebook was ranked the second most used website.
Twitter, another social networking and micro blogging service with instant dissem­ination of up to 140 character strokes, has also greatly attracted citizens and policy makers on the continent. Ranked the 9th most popular so­cial networking website globally by Alexa.com, it was widely used by South Africans, Nigerians, Kenyans and Ugandans, taking 7th or 8th posi­tion of these countries’ internet traffic.
Overall, users of social networking sites form a network that provides a powerful means of sharing, organising, and finding con­tent and contacts. Citizens, with the capacity to undertake independent analysis of issues, form opinions and influence others, and can lever­age on social media for policy engagement. This engagement can be with other citizens as well as with their leaders. For instance, admin­istration complaints can be made more easily by directing them to public institutions’ Face­book accounts or by mentioning them on Twit­ter.
For governance in particular, infor­mation flow through the smooth collaboration of information providers could help in over­coming various institutional problems such as graft. Citizens’ and governments’ use of so­cial media platforms translates into becoming bound to one another through exposure to a common class of problems, pursuit of joint so­lutions and thereby embracing ‘change’. With more and more applications being developed by individuals and groups, social media stands to become even more interactive, far-reaching and viral.
However, most African governments have not taken significant steps toward making the use of social media and net­works within administrations official and widespread. In fact, the policy environ­ment remains un-conducive with most government Internet related regulations aimed at protecting political interests at the expense of enabling citizen partici­pation.
Ultimately, the prospects and po­tential of social media remain anchored in the complexity that is the socio-economic, technological, political and cultural environment. Access to the in­ternet, ability to effectively use diverse media tools, as well as time and security issues and citizens’ knowledge of how best to use the mediums, will determine how much civic participation, transpar­ency and efficient public service delivery can thrive via the social mediums available.
Although social media networks are unlikely to replace traditional policy and gov­ernance processes in Africa, it is un-doubtable that they can effectively contribute to mean­ingful citizen motivation, sensitisation, educa­tion, mobilization and ultimately, influence. What is required is for governments to lever­age on these technologies in service and infor­mation delivery.

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