ICT and Governance in East Africa: Preliminary Fieldwork Findings (Part 2) Mwanza, Tanzania

Posted on October 21, 2014 
Filed under Blog, Governance, News

BY VARYANNE SIKA.

iHub

The last week of August 2014 was an opportunity for the iHub Research team to explore the various ways in which ICT tools have/can successfully facilitate or hinder two way interaction between government and citizens towards effective public service delivery, curbing corruption, enhancing access to information and increasing transparency and accountability in Tanzania. The team visited Mwanza and Dar es Salaam to identify some of the innovative ICT initiatives that have facilitated the interaction between citizens and government as well as the (de)motivations for utilizing ICT tools among the various stakeholders (citizens, governments, civil society). While in Mwanza region we visited Magu district and Ilemela district.

READ ON THE PRELIMINARY FINDINGS IN DAR-ES-SALAAM HERE.

In this article we highlight the preliminary findings from Mwanza, Tanzania. We interviewed Tandabui-Afyaradio, Action for Democracy and Local Governance (ADLG), Governance Link, Mwanza NGO Network, ForumSyd, Prevention and Combating Corruption Bureau (PCCB),CROMABU.

Governments, CSOs/NGOs and citizens all have a great role to play in matters of governance. However many citizens have an “I don’t care attitude,after all what incentive will I get out of it?” People don’t see the “incentive” component that comes with participating or rather getting involved in governance issues. This has partly been contributed to by insufficient and unsatisfactory action taken by the responsible authorities. When people report issues related to governance, there’s hardly any expediency in solving the issues raised. The end result is having frustrated citizens with little hope and interest to participate in governance processes. Challenges of using ICT

 

Mwanza FDGFigure 1: A section of participants during the focus group discussion at the Governance Linkoffices in Mwanza
How to make ICTs more effective?

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