Q&A: Civic Tech in Africa–the Power and the Possibilities
/This is the second interview in our series in which we share some of the thinking that helped plan and shape our new Guide to Digital Participation Platforms. Previously, People Powered Communications Director Pam Bailey interviewed the principal author of the guide. Here, Pam interviews Melissa Zisengwe, program officer for the Civic Tech Innovation Network, based in South Africa.
How did you find your way to a specialization in civic tech?
Melissa Zisengwe
In 2018, I got a job as a journalist writing about innovation in the media and civic tech space in Africa. I had always been interested in freedom of information and access to information, so it was a natural progression. I spent a lot of time reading reports and doing desktop research in an effort to find African civic tech initiatives. From this, we (CTIN) built the largest civic tech database in Africa. I spent hours and hours reading online because I was curious about what was happening. The database and our other various activities provided a space for the community to find, collaborate, connect and learn from each other. That's how I became sort of an expert. Now I'm studying for my master’s degree in in ICT (information communication technology) and its intersection with governance.
How would you describe the evolution of civic tech in Africa?
It has gone through several stages. We call it DIY (do-it-yourself), since a lot of civic tech developed as a response to a lack of government capacity, especially in terms of service delivery, accountability, and transparency. Another big influence was the open data movement, which caused a lot of African individuals, organizations and communities to realize the impact that data can have when pushing for accountability and transparency, and fighting corruption in governance.
I’d say it was in 2007-2008 that individuals, communities, startups, NGOs and CSOs (and more) began realizing that technology could be used creatively to address some of these government and social issues. They were encouraged by funders like the Omidyar Network, which is now named Luminate.
Between 2008 and 2016 or so, the space grew all over Africa. That’s great, but it also means that civic tech is filling a void left by government departments, municipalities, and such. So, while we celebrate how much civic tech has done for Africans, we also know that governance challenges remain in many African countries.
There are a plethora of civic tech initiatives in Africa
The other issue is that overall, although it’s improving over time, the uptake of civic tech is still rather low. That's due to many reasons, including a lack of support from government and the digital gap. A lot of people are not yet connected to the internet and thus aren’t digitally “literate.” If you’re creating tools that are very “techie,” a lot of people aren’t going to be able to use them. As a result, African civic tech platforms tend to use low-tech solutions, going where the people are. So, for example, they use Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp–especially WhatsApp. They try to find ways to use existing tools to do their work.
But now, during the last five years or so, everyone is questioning everything. What has been the impact of the work we've been doing? The impact question is being asked everywhere.
“Too many people have been measuring success in terms of how many followers they have on Twitter, how many people interact with them on Facebook. And that’s not right. It should be something like, what has changed due to our work? What progress have we made toward our ultimate objective?”
So that's where we are now, what everyone in the space is trying to figure out. And I think it's the same with funders.
What do you think the impact of civic tech has been?
Call-to-action message on the Amandla.mobi website
You know, I don’t have the magic answer but perhaps one day I will. I would love to do my PhD on this topic. The key is for each of us to ask, “What has changed since we started our project or initiative?” Go to the communities you say you're helping and ask them, “What has changed in your lives?” For example, we have an advocacy platform in South Africa, called Amandla.mobi, that offers a way to create petitions, and it’s used a lot for gender initiatives. And because of that work, the government has addressed some of its issues. For me, that's impact. Now, what more can be done with that?
The bottom line, though: Even the experts have yet to figure out how to measure the impact of civic tech around the world. Isn’t that interesting? Everyone has funded all this stuff for over a decade, and only now they are asking, “What is it that we have actually achieved?” It will bring about a lot of change if people are reflective enough.
Can you cite an example of a case in which you have seen real impact as a result of civic tech?
There’s actually been quite a bit. One example is Ushahidi. It's not the first but it's the benchmark for civic tech in Africa. Basically, it got started when a lot of Kenyan bloggers and software engineers created an online platform for citizens to report post-electoral violence. Eventually, this led to a lot of these platforms popping up in Africa because electoral violence is a big issue. And for me, that signals that people are seeing a bit of change. This kind of technology provides a way to document real-time evidence of what's happening on the ground, and while I don't know if that has actually changed anything in the electoral system, at least it’s now visible to everyone.
Another example is Open Cities Lab, focused on advancing government transparency. It has been doing quite a lot of work in terms of partnering with the government, which is a big challenge in civic tech. Usually, the government sees civic tech as the enemy, or civic tech sees government as the enemy. But if you want to address the issues, you're going to have to come together at some point, because you can’t solve the issues without the government. Meanwhile, government people aren’t innovating to address the issues, so they can’t solve the problems by themselves. So, the two sides eventually have to meet somewhere.
And then there is BudgIT in Nigeria, which monitors government spending and how the public funds are managed. That’s a big problem here too. A final example is the platforms that monitor parliaments. In Uganda, there is Parliament Watch. In Zimbabwe, there is Open Parly, and in Kenya, Mzalendo. They are a big hit in Africa, because they provide citizens an eye on the government. Before they were developed, the people didn't have direct insight into parliament proceedings. For me, that counts as impact as well.
What happens when governments don’t allow oversight and citizen engagement?
I’ve been looking into North Africa for a while now for that reason. However, due to language barriers, it’s difficult to find initiatives in that part of Africa (although I believe there are some). One of the examples I do know of was called Harassmap, which, like Ushahidi, used real-time reporting to document sexual harassment. But I think it was shut down, and that's because the government clamped down on civil society and people feared for their safety.
But you know, even when government doesn’t want to cooperate, collaboration is necessary, at least between civic tech organizations themselves. It helps projects move along and reach more people. That’s in part why we’ve built a community of practice, to allow and enable people to collaborate. We didn't even realize it was such a big need until we became this “matchmaking” platform. It's not a service we advertise on our website, but we find people emailing us all the time, asking if we can help them find someone in this space who can help with a specific need.
How has the COVID pandemic impacted the civic tech space in Africa?
Women farmers in Uganda learn about COVID.
I actually wrote a report on that last year. A lot of civic tech enterprises stepped up during COVID. People didn't know how to find information, trace contacts, etc. Governments weren’t prepared to develop these tools, but civic organizations had them. A lot of existing tools were repurposed. That was quite cool, because that's a big message we’re always trying to communicate: that you should first see what already exists—what’s working and what isn’t—and then see how you can use it. That’s also a theme in the People Powered Guide to Digital Participation Platforms. We share a matrix of what we think are some of the best platforms that already exist, discuss the benefits of open source tools that allow you to adapt them to your own needs, and examine the pros and cons of building your own from scratch.
It was also heartening to see how people have continued to innovate during this time. People are using civic tech to reach a lot of unreachable people and places—for example, rural communities where residents didn't have the information they needed about COVID. For example, the Women of Uganda Network used a platform called M-Omulimisa that’s basically an agriculture tool, but they co-opted it to send COVID-related information to rural areas, especially to vulnerable people like women.
Given the “low-tech” state of civic tech in Africa, what do you see as the value offered by the People Powered Guide to Digital Participation Platforms?
There's a lot of value. A lot of African governments were forced to start thinking about digital governance—which should include digital participation—when COVID hit. So, they put up online platforms and such. But I don't know that they were actually successful, because they didn't think about all of the aspects you have to consider before you build a platform and put it out there. The guide offers a good resource.
There aren’t any African platforms included in our ratings, and that's because they don’t exist. I hope the guide and rankings will serve as a motivation for African civic technologists to consider building tools like these. While we are already using third-party platforms like WhatsApp and Facebook (and that's good, because we're meeting users where they are), that also causes problems when, for example, Facebook changes its user terms and conditions.
“As many people begin to raise questions about social media platforms and their impact on society, it is also an opportunity for the civic tech community to start rethinking the tools they use for their work.”
So, I hope people here will review this guide, look at the examples, and discuss where and how the platforms have been used. I think a lot of them will work in Africa, even on the most basic phones. This is an opportunity for us to reconsider what we're doing, the tech we're using, and the impact we want to have in the long run.
Of course, funding is a challenge here. And in the ratings, we include information on how much each platform costs, at least for those that shared it. So, we provide the detail people and organizations here will need to determine if they can afford it. And if not, what the alternatives are.
But also, the guide isn’t just about using specialized participation platforms; it includes a lot of information about how to start thinking about digital participation overall. So no matter what your situation, the guide offers something.