Civic Tech in Africa with Nathi Mcetywa

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has made significant strides in various fields such as agriculture, technology, and digital health, and it has now made a grand entrance into government systems. Considering the current state of democracy in Africa, African governments cannot afford to lag behind in adopting this innovation. The introduction of AI in government systems stems from the growing demand for participatory and deliberative forms of democracy, including budget tracking, social audits, and transparent online voting systems. In today’s episode, we spoke about something that’s not necessarily new but has been grabbing the headlines for a great part of this year. We will be looking at how Artificial intelligence can be used as a tool for good governance on the African continent. This season we spoke briefly about initiatives that have used technology to keep governments accountable, and today I want us to get into some specifics around how Artificial Intelligence can be useful as a tool for accountability and transparency in government. Olasupo Abideen has written about how this can be done and today we talk to him about a recent article he wrote for the Civic Tech Innovation Network. The article is titled ‘Exploring Artificial Intelligence Technologies for Enhanced Deliberative Democracy’.

Yosr Jouini is an interdisciplinary researcher studying emerging technologies and their social implications in the global South. She is the director of Technoloxia, a technology & innovation centre based in Tunis. She is also the host of the 'Digitally Yours podcast', which specialises in digital rights. Technoloxia is a North African-based collective with a mission to provide community-centered perspectives on the region from the region. Technoloxia is the newest member of the Regional Ambassador Programme (RAP). The Regional Ambassadors Programme (RAP) founded in 2022, is a programme aimed at strengthening regional connection and participation in the civic tech space. Yosr joins Nathi Mcetywa to talk about the growth of civic tech in Tunisia and more generally in North Africa. She reflects on the impact that collaboration has had for North African civic tech organisations in Tunisia. She also reflects on another level of accessibility that innovators need to think about and what that means for innovators. Read more about accessibility from this 'Accessibility ABCs guide'.

Financing and funding civic technology activities take up a significant portion of most organisations’ worry hours. Often, when there are shortages of funds, this is viewed as an organisational failure. But instead of looking at funding and financing as a reflection of innate value, it should rather be viewed as one of the tools that allow us to reach our social impact. It is a strategic tool that should be considered alongside all of an organisation’s other strategies as well. In this episode we spoke to Razzano and Amy Mutua about some of the best ways civic tech organisations can go about financing their initiatives. Gabriella is the Executive Director and Co-Founder of OpenUp, a civic tech lab based in Cape Town. She is also a board member of the Civic Tech Innovation Network. Senior Atlantic Fellow in Social and Income Equality; and an Expert on AI and Democracy for the African AI Observatory. Amy Mutua is the Research Assistant for the Tayarisha Centre for Digital Governance. This project is the culmination of ongoing dialogues and research conducted by the Civic Tech Innovation Network (CTIN) which have aimed at exploring financing issues, strategies and models appropriate and applicable for the African civic tech innovation ecosystem. African civic tech plays a significant role on the continent, but many innovators in the space still struggle with their funding and financing options. In some ways this mirrors challenges in other non-profit and social innovation work, but we think that there are also new, unique challenges. They created this project to provide a platform for civic tech innovators and organisations across Africa with access to resources, information, and the co-learning networks they may need to help grow and sustain their practice and impact. This site is intended as an interactive, ever-growing space and we encourage you to own, engage and interact with its resources and tools. And of course (as co-owners!), also let us know how we can improve it so that it is as useful as possible to you and your civic tech peers. This work contributes to CTIN’s core mission by connecting people and organisations with diverse knowledge, skills, experience and expertise and providing relevant information and insights on civic tech from the African continent and elsewhere. In this way, the innovation network aims to contribute to growing the civic tech community, improving practices and outcomes. This project was initially funded by CIVICUS – supported by the CHARM project. The microsite is developed by OpenUp. OpenUp partners with government, organisations, industry leaders and civil society to identify, gather and make accessible information that supports open communities and an empowered citizenry. Tayarisha is the Initiative on Digital Governance, established (2021) at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. It is a hub for teaching, research, policy dialogue, and outreach on the challenges and opportunities presented by digitisation in the public sector, society, and industry in Africa. The Centre for Digital Governance (CDG) straddles the nexus of government, business, and society, and is concerned with issues of regulation, public policy and ethics. The CDG contributes to the creation of public good by conducting academically rigorous, cutting-edge action research; providing world-class education; and contributing to public debate on the challenges and opportunities presented by digitisation.

The Ushahidi Platform helps communities turn information into action with an intuitive and accessible crowdsourcing and mapping tool. By enabling the rapid collection, management and analysis of crowdsourced information, Ushahidi empowers everyone—individuals, community groups, governments, activists, organizations—to create meaningful change. In this episode, we spoke to Daniel Odongo from Ushahidi. Daniel is the director of implementation at Ushahidi. We spoke to Daniel about their development and growth in civic tech in Africa and across the world

Parliamentary monitoring sites allow citizens to keep an eye on the people in power. They make it easy to find out who represents you, what’s being debated, and how members have voted. Mzalendo Trust, located is a non-partisan entity that keeps an eye on Kenyan Parliament with a mission to facilitate public participation in Parliamentary processes through Information Sharing, Research and Networking. In today’s episode we are talking to Philip Gichana about this tool. We are going to look at how effective this tool is, how the public responds to it, how the media benefits from information shared on this platform, but most importantly we will talk about the interesting processes of data collection and visualisation that happen in the background. Mzalendo Trust are one of the grantees in the Charter Project Africa initiative. The Charter Project Africa is a three-year pan-African initiative supporting civil society to promote the continental commitments contained in the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance (ACDEG). This charter is a central African Union policy document that aims to advance democratic governance in African Union member states. Website Link: https://info.mzalendo.com/