New Spider Research Publication on ICT4D in East Africa

The publication “ICT for Anti-corruption, Democracy and Education in East Africa” is the first product of the Swedish Programme for ICT in Developing Region (Spider)’s Research Related to Projects initiative which was devised and first implemented in 2012.

Connecting research directly to Spider supported projects aims to establish a closer connection between ICT4D research and ICT4D practice. The support allows ICT4D researchers in Sweden, in collaboration with researchers and practitioners in partner countries, to carry out research on ongoing ICT4D projects. This has generated research that can contribute more directly to development work, and provide a substantial contribution to poverty reduction and other development goals. The publication covers three thematic areas: anti-corruption, democracy and education. The six contributions span from ethnographic descriptions and analyses to explorations of collaborative design and evaluation of the achievement of set capacity building goals from the capability approach.

The volume is edited by Dr Katja Sarajeva, Program Manager at Spider.

Download the publication here.

Fostering Civic Participation and Public Accountability through use of ICTs: East Africa

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.

Continue Reading →