Located in Western Uganda, eSociety Kasese is a resource centre that promotes ICT literacy and the use of ICT for transparency in the local government. As part of its iParticipate Uganda project, the Collaboration on International ICT Policy for East and Southern Africa (CIPESA) has provided to the centre equipment and connectivity support. In addition, we jointly conduct research and citizen journalism training.
Below is an introductory video to the Centre.
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In Northern Uganda “ICT 4 health service delivery” project used technological approach to empower the communities. Through the empowerment, the communities were able to engagement and participate in monitoring and demanding for better health service delivery. The main awareness media technological tools that were used included the local FM radio programs which informed, educated and empowered over 7000 people in and out of the target districts in a period of 12 months, TIU managed a Toll free call center that the communities used for reporting health centre irregularities, for onward action by duty bearers.
Health services remain a great need for many communities and the only facilities that most of them can afford are government health centers which provide free health care services. Most health centers like Ogur, Aromo and Anyeke in Northern Uganda are visited by patients from as far as 24 kilometers. In most cases they ride bicycles to and from the health centers. it is often disappointing for such a patient to reach the health center and find it still locked even by 10:00am. In most occasions, even when the health center is open, some health workers are absent while most drugs are lacking.
Read about how The Commission for Human Rights and Good Governance (CHRAGG) in Tanzania takes SMS to the citizens to strengthen human rights. The newsletter also includes articles on “Health Service Delivery”, “Empowering rural communities through ICTs”, and “Fostering community empowerment through ICTs for service delivery and community participation”, among other things. The Spider ICT4Democracy in East Africa Network is premised on the recognition that Information and Communication Technology (ICT) enhances communication and the right to freedom of expression, as well as the right to seek, receive and impart information.
In this respect, ICT has the potential to increase citizens’ participation in decision-making processes, thus strengthening democratisation. The network is facilitated by The Collaboration on International ICT Policy for East and Southern Africa (CIPESA), based in Uganda. Participating project partners come from Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda.
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Purpose: To promote transparency and accountability in health service delivery through ICT.
Goal: To Contribute towards improvement of health service delivery in Northern Uganda
Objectives
ICT 4 health service delivery pilot project (Funded by SPIDER) has been implemented by Transparency International Uganda (TIU) in two districts (Lira and Oyam) in Northern Uganda; specific health centers that worked directly with the project included health centers from Oyam which included Anyeke HC (Health Center) IV, Iceme HC II, Loro HC II, Agulurude HC III and four health centers from Lira that included Amach HC IV, Barr HC III, Ogur HC IV and Aromo HC III. The ICT project right from inception used technological approach of community empowerment and engagement/participation in monitoring and demanding for better health service delivery. The main awareness media technological tools that were used was the local FM radio programs which informed, educated and empowered over 7000 people in and out of the target districts in a period of 12months. The Toll free call center was the main platform that was and is still being used for active community reporting.
Through the call center TIU received 3267 calls from community members. The reports pointed out key challenges of Absenteeism, under-staffing, ghost workers, poor hygiene, inadequate accommodation facilities, drugs stock out uncoordinated health workers transfers without replacement. and corruption in Uganda police force. Other callers were requesting for project replication in their communities while others wanted to know more about the project. In response TIU managed to conduct health center verification visits to validate the reports. . Some of the problems were handled and resolved at the community level. The health management committees were able to address the challenges. Challenges that proved to be beyond respective health center management level like ghost workers, inadequate staff accommodation and drug stock out were shared with district health officers who were able to respond by first updating staff employment register at district level tallying it with staff numbers physically present at health centers. The district health department also managed to complete construction of staff accommodation at some health units.
Health workers absenteeism was reduced by 30%, the figure was derived by comparing staff attendance/arrival register statistics during inception and after empowering people and structures working together to stop absenteeism. As a commitment for continuous monitoring and provision of better health service delivery, stakeholders committed themselves through development pact signing which has improved working relationship between health workers and health users. Community volunteers have given testimonies to the positive results/changes realized at their respective health centers.
During the entire period of implementation the Local government district health offices of Lira and Oyam supported and participated in project implementation by providing government vehicles for on spot health center visits and also responded to recommendations from TIU in regards to challenges reported from the health centers.
Toll free Call Center:Community volunteers, health users, health workers and other used the facility to report cases to TIU, after receiving the call center reports, verification visits were conducted to spot check, verify and validate the issues reported. TIU frequently called back to seek for clarifications, remotely follow up on urgent challenges reported and giving feedback to callers.
Radio programs; The Radio programs were used to inform, educate and empower project beneficiaries and stakeholders towards collective efforts in promoting social accountability of health workers in health service delivery. Among presenters of the radio program included, CSO partners like Lira NGO Forum, Justice and Peace Center Lira and Voluntary accountability Committee members. They shared with communities the different ideas for improvement, key examples from of what happens on ground and provided recommendations for improving health service delivery. Radio talks-shows reached beyond Lira and Oyam districts. In order for the toll free number to be known to the different take holders, TIU ran spot radio jingles advertising the number and informing the communities on the reporting guidelines. Empowering people enabled TIU to receive reports from different health centers, pointing out challenges in healthcare accessibility. Due to this, health workers were alert at all times since their misconduct would be reported by just a call away.
Strategies used during Project Implementation
Key Results
Sustainability
Project has empowered communities to take up health service delivery monitoring beyond project implementation The community members themselves monitor and demand for social responsibility of health workers. The District local government structures are monitoring the health units and addressing any reported anomalies. TIU is currently ensuring that all pilot projects are up-scaled, proposals are being developed to fund raise and give the ICT 4 Health service delivery life after SPIDER funding.
The Democratization process of the East African Countries still remains elusive as Civil and Political actors of Governments and top leadership remains major impediments in addressing the underlying problems to social evils such as corruption, poor governance, a declining press freedom and lack of respect for fundamental rights and freedom of its Citizens.
The East African Countries of Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania is still bogged down by high levels of corruption, lack of transparency and accountability in the delivery of public service, poor civic participation by Citizens and lack of feedback mechanisms from leaders to citizens in addressing major concerns that directly affects the well-being of communities. This has created a situation whereby we live in a society in which people are less informed about government functions and systems typically breeding an environment in which corruption and poor service delivery can thrive.
WOUGNET with financial support from the Swedish Program for ICT support to Developing Countries (Spider) conducted awareness raising meetings in the District of Tororo and Busia in Eastern Uganda from the 23rd -27th of September 2013. The awareness meetings was aimed at introducing the new project to the district and mapping stakeholders and partners to be involved in the Project.
The Senior Program Officer, Gender and ICT Policy Advocacy, Ms. Goretti Z. Amuriat met a number of District leaders including the Resident District Commissioner (RDC) and the Chief Administrative Officer of Busia, Mr. Okumu Christopher and briefed them about the SPIDER Upscale project in their offices last week. Mr. Okumu said that he believes that it will be one of the best projects in his district and since it is targeting mainly women, he is so happy about it and welcomes it to Busia.
Spider ICT for Education Network Workshop held in Uganda, August 28-29 
Spider project partners at the workshop. From left John Sebaganwa (Open Learning Exchange Rwanda), Regina Monyemangene (Open University of Tanzania), Iryna Kuchma (EIFL), Tito Okumu (Makerere University), and Ulf Larsson (Spider). Raul Silveti (Fundacion LaPaz) participated via skype. Spider and five project partners within education has held a successful workshop in Kampala, Uganda where the Network for ICT in Education was formed.
By Loren Treisman (CNN) – With hundreds of millions of Africans owning mobile phones, citizens are becoming increasingly well connected. This is providing a powerful opportunity for citizens to access critical information about their parliaments and to report on human rights violations, corruption and poor service delivery.
These interventions are amplifying the voices of marginalized communities and helping citizens to hold governments to account.
WOUGNET with financial support from the Swedish Program for ICT support to Developing Countries (Spider) conducted awareness raising meetings in the District of Tororo and Busia in Eastern Uganda from the 23rd -27th of September 2013. The awareness meetings was aimed at introducing the new project to the district and mapping stakeholders and partners to be involved in the Project.