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.
Category: Blog
ICT4Democracy Network at 2012 Africa-Eu Cooperation Week On ICT–e-Government & e-Democracy session
iHub Research and CIPESA attended the 2012 Africa-EU Cooperation Week on ICT from Nov. 26-30, 2012 in Lisbon, Portugal to participate in the e-Government & e-Democracy session. Vasilis Koulolias of Gov2U and Angela Crandall of iHub Research moderated the e-Gov/e-Dem discussion session. Ashnah Kalemera of CIPESA represented the ICT4Democracy Network. The 90-minute session was attended by a range of stakeholders including the African Development Bank, academics from Europe, technology consultants from Africa and Europe, and government representatives.
ICT4Democracy East AFrica Workshop in Dar es Salaam
The ICT4Democracy East Africa Network is currently holding a two day workshop in Dar es Salaam Tanzania. This workshop aims to promote the Network’s activities where the partners will be presenting on the progress of their work.
The event was officially opened by Eng. Dr. Zaipuna Yonah, the Director of ICT, Ministry of Science and Technology in Tanzania. While addressing SPIDER(The Swedish Program for ICT in Developing Regions) and SIDA (Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency), Dr. Zaipunah thanked the government of Sweden for supporting the development of ICTs in the developing world and indicated that the work of the ICT4Democracy in East Africa is already impacting lives of citizens living in the region.
Dr. Zaipuna also highlighted the work the Tanzanian government was doing in developing ICT infrastructure within the country and urged the members of the network to continue sharing the progress of their work. He completed his address saying that “Accountability should not only be in what we read and write, democracy is more about translating the intentions into realities”
To view the complete gallery of the ongoing workshop visit this link.
The presentations from the workshop will be uploaded later on this site.
CIPESA At The Internet Governance Forum 2012
The annual Internet Governance Forum (IGF) today opened in Baku, Azerbaijan. Taking place from November 6-9 2012, the main theme of this year’s meeting is Internet Governance for Sustainable Human Economic and Social Development.
An initiative of the United Nations, the IGF is a multi-stakeholder dialogue forum open to representatives from Government, NGOs, academia, private sector, as well as any other entities and individuals interested in Internet Governance issues.
CIPESA is participating in the forum with speakers in main sessions:
WS 187 Society before and after the Internet and digital media – Ashnah Kalemera (panelist)
WS 91 Technology, economic and societal opportunities and women – Lillian Nalwoga (panelist)
Furthermore, CIPESA is also participating in events organised by the Association for Progressive Communications (APC), of which it is a member. Read more about APC’s participation at the IGF here.
Read more about the IGF here.
*This article was cross-posted from CIPESA blog
WOUGNET Mapping Social Accountability issues using Ushahidi platform
In October 2012 WOUGNET held the monthly Voluntary Social Accountability (VSAC) Meetings and through this forum bad governance issues were raised and reported. WOUGNET has also been training its beneficiaries on using ICTs to monitor service delivery in their area. They taught skills ranging from using of computers to usage of digital cameras, mobile phones as well as reporting cases on the Ushahidi platform ( http://www.wougnet.org/ushahidi.)
In collaboration with ToroDev, the site contains reports based on issues in health, agriculture, education, public infrastructure, water and sanitation and governance. There are about 178 reports posted on the site since February 2012 and WOUGNET is actively training its beneficiaries on how to make reports on the site.
Lessons from the Field for BoP Developers
We live in a bubble called Nairobi.
There has been a rapid uptake in adoption of mobile services and other web-based applications in Nairobi; however, away from Nairobi, many do not know of the existence of some of these applications and services or their usefulness. This is in reference to developers who are working on applications designed for those people at the base of the pyramid (people who earn less than 2.5USD a day (BOP))
iHub Research is carrying out a survey on the potential for technology in the water governance by finding out what the citizens’ thoughts on service delivery and if they have had any need for a mobile/web or other services as a medium to send and receive information between the citizen and the government/service provider in the water sector. From the 5th to 20th September 2012, researchers were out in the field collecting data. I had the privilege to join the research team at various points during the research.
Online Dialogue on Internet Governance for African Civil society
Organized by the African Civil Society Conversation on Internet Governance (APC), this dialogue conversation takes place from September 12th- 31st December 2012. Interested participants are invited to join the dialogue which will include among African civil society, media and other people who care about a free, open and accessible internet to share views and increase their understanding of current trends in internet regulation and governance.
Toll Free Healthcare Call Center
Transparency International Uganda has put in place the first of its kind a Toll Free Call Center in Northern Uganda. A system that enables health users, community volunteers, local leaders, health workers and any other stakeholder to report challenges at their respective health centers. We recommend that for any person who wishes to use the number 0800200188 does visit the health center and identify key challenges from the particular health center, call and report accordingly. Once the calls are received and challenges reported, verification visits are conducted to verify and follow up what are on the ground. During the verification visits we also ensure that relevant authorities at the health centers and sub counties take up action towards solving identified challenges.
Northern Uganda Health centers are not fenced
Transparency International Uganda
(ICT for health service Delivery)
Health centers not fenced in Northern Uganda.This health center has one of the highest patients’ turnover, majority of these patients are always women and children from neighboring villages and sub counties, over 100 patients are attended to on a daily basis excluding HIV ADIS patients who report to the facility for counseling and accessibility to ARV drugs.- Most of the facilities in Northern Uganda are not fenced, as a challenge the health facilities have lost items like mosquito nets, drugs, blankets and furniture because there is easy escape from these facilities. The work of the watchmen is made more difficult considering that there is no specific check point that can be put in place. Information form most health centers in-charges indicates that each year the district health offices have always given priority of fencing some of the health centers but nothing has yet been done.
- Transparency International Uganda have been tasked to follow up on at district level to task top leadership to take up actions in regards to these facilities need for fencing which has always been promised but nothing practical is seen on the ground
ICT for Health Service Delivery
Patients at Ogur health Center IV (Northern Uganda
These were just a cross section of patients at Ogur health center IV where health centers open up late (10:00am), high number of patients becomes much more difficult to handle because most health facilities do not work on patients has they come but do wait for patients to turn up in large numbers. Has a solution to this challenge, Transparency International Uganda field staffs have been holding advocacy and management meetings that seek to empower the health workers, informing and involving heath management in taking up key responsibilities in health management.- During these meetings, health workers were found to be opening the facilities late because they say patients do report late at the health centers; even if they opened early enough they would have no one to work on, others were found to be attending to their personal businesses and also having negative attitude towards their work, an attitude derived from need for more payments; In response to late arrival/opening of health centers, the health workers were made to understand that they are under contract to open the health facility latest by 8:00am, whether the patients are there or not, the health center should be opened and staffs ready to work, opening and arrival time shouldn’t be dependent on availability of health users. Health workers have also been encouraged to love their job no matter how little the payments may be, conditions may be hard but the work that health workers do is more humanitarian and God given.
We call upon all health workers and health users to take part in health service delivery monitoring at their respective health center, for its all our duty to ensure that people are held socially accountable and health sector is free from corruption. Call Transparency International Uganda for free on 0800200188 and report health challenges at your respective health centers in Northern Uganda.