ICT4Accountability in Kenya

Nairobi — Kenya is seeking the services of leading mobile phone companies in an ambitious campaign to market the East African Community Common Market. In an Obama-inspired campaign — where ICT played a major role in galvanising public support — the country plans to educate all the 17 million Kenyans who own mobile phones on how they stand to benefit from the Common Market, whose protocol was signed a month ago. It will do this through short text messages. Radio will also be used widely — targeting mainly rural areas. The campaign is spearheaded by the Ministry of East African Community. It will also target specific groups that stand to benefit most from the Common Market. These groups include large firms with cross-border operations, institutions of higher learning, labour unions, federation of employers, bankers association and teachers unions.

Under the Common Market, citizens of the EAC partner states will move freely across the region’s borders. Companies that choose to set up operations in one or more member states will be treated equally with local ones; those who wish to work in another partner state will compete for jobs with local people on equal terms; and those who choose to permanently live in another member country will not be treated as a foreigners. However, Kenya’s EAC Ministry fears that many Kenyans — and East Africans by extension — are still not aware of the benefits of the Common Market. “The Common Market protocol has far-reaching implications for the region in terms of free movement, investment, doing business, immigration rules and labour laws. Therefore, the people need to be sensitised. “We need to explain to them the reasoning behind the various articles in the protocol,” said EAC Ministry Permanent Secretary David Nalo.

On the evening of November 20 when the protocol was signed, the BBC was interviewed people crossing major border points like Namanga and Malaba to establish if they knew what the Common Market would mean for them. “Many of them were ignorant about it,” Mr Nalo said, adding that the ministry has developed a multipronged communication strategy to tackle this challenge. “We’ll undertake a benchmarking exercise — something like an opinion poll — across the border posts (Malaba, Isbania, Busia, Namanga, Holili and Mt Elgon). This will help us design an appropriate communication programme for various people.” Mobile phones feature prominently in the communication strategy.”They are a powerful means of communication,” Mr Nalo said. The basic information to be relayed will include simple questions such as: What is a Common Market? what is free movement of capital? and so on.

The 1%CLUB Uganda research report

After 8 months of extensive research, of which 2 full months have been spent in Uganda, the research report for the 1%CLUB is finished and published online at ICT4Uganda.net.

Simple solution for local Development Cooperation

Countries, districts, counties, sub-counties, villages, communities… organizations. There are countless organizations (in Northern Uganda for this case) actively participating in development activities.

Stolen quotes on ICT4D

Here is a collection of quotes which describe important issues that need to be taken into account when discussing, researching and theorizing about the use of Information and Communication Technologies within the framework of International Development Cooperation. These quotes have been selected and copied from numerous information resources which aren’t referenced here. All of them accumulated through google! Let information be free and accessible to all!

Gulu Visit II: SOVCO and questioning ICT4D

SOVCO team in Ongaku

22 years of internal strife by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) has led to the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people living in the northern part of Uganda. In 2007 a total of 31 IDP camps (which now are called Community Centers) with all together 214,908 people have been administrated to which food aid was being distributed. Now that the situation is stabilizing, many inhabitants are leaving the camps to return to the land that was once their home. But in doing so they encounter a new array of problems and difficult challenges to overcome. I visited two different IDP camps along with 2 different organizations that were active and carrying out projects to sustain the community and improve the lively hoods of the people i.e. BOSCO Uganda and SOVCO Uganda.

 

Gulu visit I: BOSCO and ICT4D in Rural Uganda

BOSCO site volunteers Coope

22 years of internal strife by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) has led to the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people living in the northern part of Uganda. In 2007 a total of 31 IDP camps (which now are called Community Centers) with all together 214,908 people have been administrated to which food aid was being distributed. Now that the situation is stabilizing, many inhabitants are leaving the camps to return to the land that was once their home. But in doing so they encounter a new array of problems and difficult challenges to overcome. I visited two different IDP camps along with 2 different organizations that were active and carrying out projects to sustain the community and improve the lively hoods of the people i.e. BOSCO Uganda and SOVCO Uganda.

Development Cooperation 2.0 with the 1%CLUB

Exciting new challenges and opportunities are emerging fast for organizations within the development cooperation sector. A paradigm shift is taking place in which web 2.0 concepts and technologies prove to play a vibrant and fruitful role in providing capacities for people in developing countries with which they can realize what’s meaningful for themselves. New structures for development cooperation are thus being formed through the utilization of these new technologies; structures which are centered around the concepts of social networking, massive collaboration, crowd sourcing, collective intelligence, transparency, and equally important, individual responsibility. Welcome the emergence of Development Cooperation 2.0.

Visiting KIFAD in Kampala

KIFAD office

I had the opportunity to visit the Kiyita Family Alliance for Development (KIFAD) last week. KIFAD is a local community based Non Governmental Organization with its headquarters in Nansana Town Council in the Wakiso District of Kampala. As they explain in their mission statement, “KIFAD stands out to challenge and respond to causes and consequences of disease, poverty and ignorance with a commitment to mobilize communities to solve their own problems and live with dignity”.

Dullu game goes Digital

Dullu Game Team - Tony & Alex

Tony Wamala, Age 25 Alex Tumuhairwe, Age 24

Ben White: For their final project at university they decided to develop a computer game based on the traditional game of Dullu, a local version of marbles. This is a game that has been played for centuries in Africa. The name changes by country, culture and tribe. Similar versions can be found in Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Kenya, Congo and elsewhere.

YouTube ‘burden’ creates opportunity in Africa

Creating Mobile Based Social Communities

Tom Pickett, director of online sales and operations at YouTube, says the company still hews to its vision of bringing online video to the entire globe. In the last two years, it has pushed to create local versions of its site in countries like India, Brazil and Poland. But Mr. Pickett also says that YouTube has slowed the creation of new international hubs and shifted its focus to making money. He says that does not rule out restricting bandwidth in certain countries as a way to control costs

Accountability starts with Countability

By: Wouter Dijkstra

In Uganda, even at the peoples parliament of Ekimeeza, where intellectuals are supposed to be gathered, there is a substantial lack of numbers, statistics and measureable facts. People have not mastered advanced counting and have no logical perception of values and numbers. 2000 – 500 = a big problem for a lot of people. So how can they understand context?

Experiencing the Connectivity Divide

One can only understand the meaning of the connectivity divide through experiencing it. Nothing as annoying as just simply waiting for something in order to find out that you have been waiting for nothing. But last week I was lucky..
I experienced a ‘mild’ form of the connectivity divide, when I tried to send an email in an Internet cafe in Kampala. After first having tried hotmail, which just didn’t work, I gave my student mail a shot…after some frustrating moments of biting my nails, as a last resort I tried gmail.. and after 20 minutes (of more) trying and crying my email finally got sent. Yoohoo!! Lucky me..

Ekimeeza 2.

This week, the topic of the Ekimeeza was on elections in South Africa and how Uganda could learn or take examples for Ugandan elections in 2011. Again, no position was taken and no preliminary explanation or overview of key concepts concerning elections or South Africa were made. Again, the MP of the day came in 15 minutes after the show had started making the appearance of some kind of god or movie star. He brought his wife and both wore immaculate white casual clothing.

INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION 2.0

INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION 2.0

The 1% Club has put together a great EVENT and post event CELEBRATION for people interested in taking international cooperation to the next level. Please find more details on the event, pass it on to your friends and sign up!!!

Global Teenager Project Chat @Afrikadag2009

The GTP @ Afrikadag 2009

“Pack your old bag and let us take you back to school. However, you can leave your pen and paper behind because you are virtually connected to your classmates from all over the world.”

Saturday the 25th of april, around 1500 people from all across the country found their way to “Afrikadag 2009” in The Hague. This event was dedicated to Africa and Development issues concerning Africa. In the morning and afternoon a total of 45 debates and 8 cultural programs were organized on a wide variety of development subjects. There also were various stands where organizations and NGO’s handed out information, gathered signatures for petitions, collected opinions and much more.