Round 2 Now Open: CIPESA-ICT4Democracy Media Fellowship Programme

Fellowship Opportunity |

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About the ICT4Democracy in East Africa network

The network works in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda to achieve two top-line objectives: 1) Increased citizen participation in governance and the realisation of human rights through ICT; and 2) Improved transparency and accountability of governments through ICT. Partners in the network are the Collaboration on International ICT Policy for East and Southern Africa (CIPESA), the Women of Uganda Network (WOUGNET), Transparency International Uganda, iHub Research (Kenya), the Kenya Human Rights Commission (KHRC), the Commission for Human Rights and Good Governance (CHRAGG, Tanzania) and Toro Development Network (ToroDev). Read more about the network here: www.ict4democracy.org.

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Round 2 Now Open: CIPESA-ICT4Democracy Academia Fellowship Programme

Fellowship Opportunity |

Academia Fellowship2

About the ICT4Democracy in East Africa network

The network works in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda to achieve two top-line objectives: 1) Increased citizen participation in governance and the realisation of human rights through ICT; and 2) Improved transparency and accountability of governments through ICT. Partners in the network are the Collaboration on International ICT Policy for East and Southern Africa (CIPESA), the Women of Uganda Network (WOUGNET), Transparency International Uganda, iHub Research (Kenya), the Kenya Human Rights Commission (KHRC), the Commission for Human Rights and Good Governance (CHRAGG, Tanzania) and Toro Development Network (ToroDev). Read more about the network here: www.ict4democracy.org.

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Using SMS to Promote the Right to Health in Tanzania

By Ashnah Kalemera |

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In pursuit of strategic mechanisms to promote and protect human rights in Tanzania, the Commission for Human Rights and Good Governance (CHRAGG) has this year embraced the use of digital technologies to advance the right to health among vulnerable communities and human rights practitioners in five regions in Tanzania.

In August 2016, CHRAGG embarked on a campaign that leverages its SMS for Human Rights reporting system to improve rights awareness and protection for some hitherto marginalised groups. Under the drive, up to 100 commission staff at the head office in Dar es Salaam and three regional offices (Mwanza, Lindi and Zanzibar) have been trained to improve their understating of the right to health and to enable them to appropriately handle related violation reports received through the digital platform.

The CHRAGG training also benefited 190 individuals including sex workers, the elderly, women, health practitioners and local leaders who were trained on the principles of the right to health and how to monitor and report rights violations. Most of the training beneficiaries (61%) were female.

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SMS as an enabler of the Right to Health in Tanzania

By Ashnah Kalemera |

In its pursuit to establish strategic mechanisms for the promotion and protection of human rights in Tanzania, the Commission for Human Rights and Good Governance (CHRAGG) is progressing awareness on the right to health among vulnerable communities and human rights practitioners in five regions in Tanzania.

CHRAGG’s recent drive which commenced in August 2016 and leverages the existing SMS for Human Rights reporting system has seen capacity building of over 100 staff at its head office in Dar es Salaam and three regional offices in (location of offices) to improve their understating of the right to health and enable them appropriately handle related violation reports received through the platform. Furthermore, nearly 200 individuals including sexual minorities, the elderly, women, health workers and local leaders have been trained on the principles of right to health to increase their awareness and ability to monitor and report on the same. The training beneficiaries constituted 61% female.  Read more

ICT4Democracy in East Africa Participates in 2014 International Conference on e-Democracy & Open Governance (CeDEM14) in Krems, Austria

The ICT4Democracy in East Africa Network was in May 2014 represented by Johnstone Baguma of Toro Development Network and Wilfred Warioba from the Commission for Human Rights and Good Governance (CHRAGG) at the 2014 International Conference on e-Democracy & Open Governance (CeDEM14) in Krems, Austria. They presented research papers on the network’s projects on leveraging ICTs to promote good governance and human rights in Uganda and Tanzania.

During the conference, Baguma chaired a session on “Citizens’ Participation in Governance Processes through ICT in Eastern Africa”. This track was a new inclusion in the conference proceedings, having been lobbied for inclusion by network members during CeDem2013.

Baguma reported on the experiences of ToroDev and the Women of Uganda Network (WOUGNET) working at grassroots level in Uganda. His paper described the relevance of an ICT convergence approach in promoting democratic engagement. The paper also described how simple, affordable, and cost effective ICT tools are used to mobilize, activate the intuitiveness, assertiveness and facilitate local citizens’ participation in good governance processes in Western and Northern Uganda. Through basic ICT skills development exercises, citizens in the two sub-regions can now mobilize off and on – line and deliberate on key issues pertaining improvement of essential service delivery in their localities – which was not the case before the projects implementation.

Baguma’s paper also found that ICT tools have raised the sense of responsiveness amongst leaders to adhere to the needs of the electorate/local citizens. As a result, the assertiveness, engagement and public policy awareness among local citizens and how it affects service delivery was found to have increased in western and Northern Uganda.

The paper advocates for a similar ICT convergence approach for initiatives in East Africa by pointing to the steady increase in the ICT infrastructure deployment in the region and how it has contributed to ICT uptake levels despite other socio-economic and political limiting factors. The use of broadcast, online social media and mobile technologies to engage both government and the public in Kenya during the constitutional reform processes, selection of public officials and contributing to a relatively peaceful and fair electoral process in 2013, were some of the cases analyzed in Baguma’s paper presentation.

CHRAGG’s Warioba presented a research paper which covered a conceptual and technical description of how mobile technology has been used to promote human rights advocacy and protection in Tanzania. Since June 2011, the Commission has utilized a mobile phone text messaging system to facilitate and ease the reporting of human rights abuses and case handling in Tanzania.  Since its official launch in December 2012, the reporting of human rights violations in the country has more than doubled.  CHRAGG’s paper showcased the potential of ICT in promoting social and human dignity, but also encouraging accountability as far as human rights protection are concerned in Tanzania and the entire Eastern Africa.

As part of its awareness campaigns for the system, CHRAGG encourages citizens to seek redress for human rights violations particularly in the areas of poor service delivery, police brutality, corruption and employment rights citizens.

CeDem is a global forum that annually brings together ICT practioners, researchers, academicians, public officials, development partners and the private sector to discuss new trends in using ICT tools to realize improved citizen participation in governance processes and use of open data/information for democratization. The 2014 conference served as an important opportunity for the ICT4Democracy in East Africa Network to showcase its work on an international platform. The conference also served as an experience sharing forum on the challenges faced elsewhere in the world in the use of ICT for Development tools and platforms to share data/information and knowledge for transparency/open governance and enabling democratic practices to thrive through citizen participation in the governance processes.

For related analysis and publication of the above presentations, see; http://digitalgovernment.wordpress.com/2014/05/21/democratic-engagement-through-ict-in-eastern-africa/ and http://digitalgovernment.wordpress.com/2014/05/22/wilfred-warioba-and-abdallah-ally-mobile-enhanced-human-rights-reporting/

Audio of Baguma and Warioba’s presentations are available at http://digitalgovernment.wordpress.com/ and http://we.tl/32l2sRSb59

For pictures, please go to;  https://www.flickr.com/photos/e-governance/

 

SMS System Boosts Reporting of Human Rights Abuses in Tanzania

Growing the capacity of citizens and civic groups including human rights networks to use Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to foster free speech, human rights, access to information and open governance is one of the objectives of the ICT4Democracy in East Africa Network. Since April 2014, the Commission for Human Rights and Good Governance (CHRAGG) in Tanzania has conducted a campaign to raise awareness about the SMS for Human Rights system throughout Tanzania.

The system, which was launched on Human Rights Day in December 2012, has made it easier for citizens to report human rights violations to the Commission. In 2013, a total of 173,493 complaints were received through the system. Since then, the number of complaints filed with the Commission has averaged more than 100 per week compared to 10 per week prior to the system’s installation.

Given that CHRAGG has only four regional offices to cover a large country, the system has reduced the amount of time, inconvenience and cost to citizens for submitting complaints and following up on case progress, particularly for those in rural areas. The electronic case handling system has also eased the work of investigators by reducing their travel burden and enabling more efficient evidence gathering. Besides text message, the platform allows for video and image capabilities for complainants and informers.

The SMS for Human Rights System is a mobile phone based Complaints Handling Management Information System aimed at expanding CHRAGG’s case handling and tracking. An individual is able to file a complaint by texting the word ‘REPORT’ or ‘TAARIFA’ to the toll free number:  +255 (0) 754 460 259. The individual receives a text message confirming receipt of the complaint. Thereafter, a follow up phone call is made by investigators at the Commission to obtain further information, authenticate the report and assign the individual a reference number. The same number can be used to track the progress of a complaint by texting the word ‘STATUS’ followed by the reference number.

However, although many complaints are received through the system, many citizens, particularly on the semi-autonomous island of Zanzibar, were not aware of its existence.  With an estimated population of 45 million people, Tanzania has about 28 million mobile phone subscriptions representing a teledensity of 61 phones per 100 inhabitants.

The system’s awareness campaign launch in Zanzibar in April was officiated by CHRAGG’s Commissioner Zahor Kharmis. CHRAGG’s Director of Human Rights Francis Nzuki and Wilfred Warioba, the Head of Management Information System Unit demonstrated how the system works and fielded questions from the attendees who included journalists, representatives from civil society organisations and ordinary citizens.

The event was televised live on Television Zanzibar (TVZ) and broadcast on Coconut FM radio station. It was also featured on Zanzibar Broadcasting TV and Radio, Independent TV, Radio Coconut, Radio Chuchu, Radio Hits, Radio Zenj, Radio Alnoor and two local print newspapers.

Since the launch, two public awareness meetings have been held in the North Unguja and Urban West regions of Zanzibar island. Furthermore, five similar events have been held in Mtwara, KilwaKivinje, Pwani and Dar es Salaam regions on the mainland.

In addition to the meetings, over four million print leaflets have been distributed encouraging citizens to seek redress for human rights violations particularly in the areas of poor service delivery, police brutality, corruption and employment rights.

The awareness raising campaign is expected to cover at least 18 more regions in the coming months. It is expected to incorporate nationwide TV and radio talk shows as well as social media as part of its outreach campaign.

Established in 2001 in fulfillment of Tanzania’s national constitution, CHRAGG plays the dual role of an ombudsman and a human rights commission for the protection and promotion of human rights as well as good governance.

CHRAGG is a member of the ICT4Democracy in East Africa Network whose work is supported by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) and the Swedish Programme for ICT in Developing Regions (Spider). The network is coordinated by the Collaboration on International ICT Policy in East and Southern Africa (CIPESA).

Celebrations of the Human Rights Day in Tanzania

The Human Rights day which takes place on the 12th of December was celebrated in pomp and color with the guest of honor being Hon. Mizengo Pinda, the Prime Minister of Tanzania. The Chairman for CHRAGG, (Retired)Chief Justice, Captain Amiri R Mamento gave his opening address which focused on Human Rights and the prevention and combating of corruption.

 

During this event, the Complaints Handling System was presented to the Prime Minister by the Head of Information Systems at CHRAGG, Mr. Wilfred Warioba

Guest of Honor Hon. Mizengo Pinda received information from the head of information systems and computer communications Mr. Wilfred Warioba in Banda’s Commission on Human Rights and Good Governance on the work of the Commission on the new complaints handling system which uses cell phone messages

For more information about the Commission for Human Rights and Good Governance  (CHRAGG) activities in Tanzania visit their website

ICT4Democracy East Africa October Newsletter

The October Newsletter of the ICT4Democracy East Africa Network can now be downloaded HERE. This brochure covers the activities of the network partners and focuses on how they are leveraging different ICT platforms to enhance transparency and civic empowernment. The utilized technologies include crowd sourcing platforms like Ushahidi; social media platforms like YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter; and digital and traditional media like websites and radio.

Highlights in the newsletter include details of KHRC’s human rights violations monitoring, CHRAGG’s progress with the complaints handling system, iHub Research’s MGovernance Field work update, TI Uganda’s toll free line, a report on citizen journalism training by CIPESA and ToroDev and WOUGNET capacity building activities during the month of October.

 

Unchartered Waters: ICTs in Human Rights

Founded in 1992, the Kenya Human Rights Commission is one of the oldest and pioneer human rights organizations in Kenya and indeed a premier human rights body.  The organization has often taken on difficult human rights initiatives mainly in the first generation rights of civil and political rights. Some of these initiatives include transitional justice such as detention without trial, torture, unexplained disappearances and assassinations. All of the KHRC’s human rights and democracy work has been carried out through various innovative strategies using methodologies of the prevailing times. These include advocacy and policy influencing, documentation, mass media, publications and materials production. Thus when the KHRC was invited to a workshop by the Swedish Programme for ICTs in Developing Regions (Spider), it was another great opportunity for the organization to not only take lead in the civil society sector in non-traditional methodologies but also to learn new and innovative ideas in the sector. 

What Have We Been Up to Lately

One of the earliest and easiest platforms that the project deployed is social media. While the KHRC already had Facebook, Twitter and YouTube accounts, they had not really been well utilized. However, since the commencement of the project, things have been turned around such that information published on the website can now be pushed further by sharing through Facebook and Twitter. For instance, in August 2011, the KHRC published a book on corruption and impunity of past injustices. The book, titled “Lest We Forget: The Faces of Impunity in Kenya,” was launched through the traditional mass media and sold out. The online copy hit a record 1,000 downloads on the day it was first uploaded and 13,780 downloads in the first month. There was a Facebook link created for it as well which helped further push the publication but also drew public interest in dialogue. It is a document which the public can use to audit who should not be eligible for elections based on corruption records.  The book is available for download here.

The KHRC has also been sharing documentary videos through YouTube as part of educating the public on human rights and governance issues. Recently, during the celebrations of the 2012 International Human Rights Day (IHRD), the KHRC held a series of community outreaches in Nairobi which included public forums and legal aid clinics. This culminated in the Annual Human Rights Lecture whose theme was “Judiciary, a Bastion for Constitutionalism”. Snippets of the event were uploaded on YouTube with the hope that it will stir up conversations about the implementation of the Constitution of Kenya, 2010, a process which is currently under siege from anti-reform forces in and outside the Government.  One snippet features judicial and legal experts as well as some human rights activists while the other features the views from the participants during the question and answer session. The snippets are available here.

Finally, the KHRC was privileged to host a team from the Commission on Human Rights and Good Governance (CHRAGG), which is the national human rights institute of Tanzania. The team from Tanzania visited in order to learn how the bulk sms system works. The KHRC system is not yet up however we were able to have our service provider conduct a demo for the Tanzanian team. This was a shared learning experience for the two organizations as it was a challenge for the KHRC to ensure its own deployment is up in order to be able to share with CHRAGG how the system works.

Wilfred Warioba, (centre) Head of ICTs at CHRAGG together with his colleagues pay close attention as George Mburu, bulk sms service provider demonstrates how the system works 

The Learning Curve

Since the project began, it has been an exiting journey of learning a lot of lessons. It is also interesting to note that there are quiet a number of individuals and organizations interested in the project and an opportunity for the KHRC to showcase this new area of work, should it succeed. So far KHRC has been able to learn a lot while implementing the project. As an organization that is not technologically oriented, the project required quite a bit of research in order to find out what technologies to deploy. This has been through workshops and bi-lateral cooperation with other organizations and individuals.

One key area of learning has been in the area of policy development. Any organization venturing into ICTs as a tool for engagement with the public ought to have an ICT or social media policy. This is crucial because the dynamic of how one runs an individual’s own account is different from those of how runs or manages an organization’s online presence and a simple mistake can have a serious impact on how the organization deals with its publics. For instance, there are all sorts of people out there and when an individual or organization joins any of the social media platforms, one should be prepared for all manner of responses and attacks from the people. There people who speak from a point of ignorance while others are just out rightly rude, arrogant or malicious. It is imperative that the organization has a policy that provides guidelines for online behavior of the staff managing the platforms it uses otherwise it is easy to be drawn into unnecessary exchanges that can give the organization a negative image.

Since ICT4D is a relatively new area of work for most civil society organizations, there needs to be a lot of information sharing within the civil society so that the sector can embrace the changing engagement landscape. Besides information sharing amongst the CSOs it is also important to have multi-sectoral forums which include developers, CSOs (user side), development partners and beneficiaries in order to identify gaps and best practices that can be related.

As an organization, we have learnt too that when utilized well, ICT4D can complement the traditional methodologies and cascade its work. A case in point is using YouTube to share videos, where we have learnt that it helps drive traffic to our website and vice-versa. However we have also learned that long videos take long to download thus not too many people watch them, especially if they are not necessarily entertaining, thus we are working on getting shorter versions of key messages even though it is not easy to reduce complex human rights issues on documentaries to  two-minute versions.

Finally, we look forward to having all our platforms up and running soon where we expect more public dialogue to take place. For example, the citizen participation website  once complete will further help the public debate issues that the human rights networks raise in a community paper called Mizizi Ya Haki (Roots of Rights) that now will be uploaded on the site. This is indeed very exciting as now much of what we do shall be scaled up to reach audience not reached before and therefore we must exploit every opportunity it has afforded us.

Hurinet regional Mizizi Ya Haki editors planning for the next edition in Nairobi at the National editorial meeting. Through ICT4D, the community newspaper will find a wider audience than it currently does

“If you are not on these platforms (social media and other web tools), where are you?” – Ally Khan Sachu, a Nairobi Economist, commenting  during a TV interview on reports that Kenya is top in use of Twitter, only second to South Africa,  AFRICA: Kenya is second most active on twitter.

 

ICT for Democracy in East Africa: October News

SMS for Human Rights

The Tanzanian Commission for Human Rights and Good Governance (CHRAGG) is due to undertake field studies to gather user requirements this November. The results of the study will go toward the features design of the mobile phone based Complaints Handling Management Information System.

Catalysing Civic Participation and Democracy Monitoring Using ICTS

IT support equipment has been procured for the two grassroots based centres that the Collaboration on International ICT Policy in East and Southern Africa (CIPESA) entered into MOUs with last month. A needs assessment including survey of the knowledge, attitudes and practices (KAPS) to determine the ICT for democracy tools used, user and non-user profiles and their [de]motivations is scheduled for November and December. CIPESA’s analysis of Ugandan policies and practices that enhance (or undermine) eDemocracy is also to be finalised in November.

M-Governance: Exploring Conditions for Successful Mobile Governance in Kenya

The literature review as part of iHub’s exploratory research into the successful conditions for mobile governance in Kenya is complete. The review that aims to identify a Kenyan definition of good governance is to be circulated pending final edits. A workshop to identify issues in Kenya’s governance structures with an emphasis on stakeholder roles and relationships was held at iHub on October 27, 2011. The workshop also explored ways in which technology could facilitate and potentially enhance good governance. Further information is available here. Expert interviews and pilot questionnaires are scheduled for November and December.

Reforms through Citizen Participation and Government Accountability

The Kenya Human Rights Commission (KHRC) has contracted a web developer for their human rights issues crowd sourcing website. Information and work from Human Rights Networks (HURINETS) on the ground is to feed into the website using the Ushahidi crowd-map platform. One of the HURINETS working in partnership with KHRC is the KURIA Human Rights Network. The initiative, under the western region Kuria Reform Agenda Consortium, seeks to address systematic insecurity in the Kuria constituency. KURIA’s recently set up crowd mapping platform can be found here.

Promoting Social Accountability in the Health Sector in Northern Uganda

Transparency International (TI) Uganda in October held a workshop where Voluntary and Accountability Committees (VACs) members of Oyam districts were trained on how to report health worker absenteeism and poor service delivery. So far, the project has seen a slight indication of improvements in health service delivery in Lira and Oyam district. Based on arrival logs, health centre workers are recorded as reporting to work on time. For more information, visit TI’s Stop Health Workers’ Absenteeism facebook page.

Empowering Local People and Communities to Monitor Districts’ Service Delivery Through ICTs

Following the Women of Uganda Network (WOUGNET)’s mobilisations exercises in Gulu and Amuru districts held last month, similar exercises were undertaken in Kole, Oyam and Apac districts during October. The exercises, which involved community meetings, informed stakeholders on how ICT can enable effective service delivery. As per the project scope, the mobilisation targeted more women than men (ratio of women to men being 70:30).

Other news

 


 

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