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/ Mzalendo Trust

YouLead is Africa’s flagship Youth Leadership Program working to unlock youth leadership potential for a prosperous continent by identifying, recognizing, connecting and fostering cooperation among Africa’s vibrant and influential young leaders and their initiatives.

A joint initiative of MS Training Centre for Development Cooperation (MSTCDC) and the East African Community (EAC) in Arusha, Tanzania. H.E. Jakaya Kikwete, former President of Tanzania is YouLead Africa’s current Patron.

YouLead Africa as one of the beneficiaries of the 2022 AGA Civic Tech Fund Award implemented the upscaled ‘Africa Unplugged Series’, a convergence of social media platforms and high-definition audio-visual streaming, to provide relevant content and engagement for African youth with their leaders.

Noting the lack of civic spaces for African citizens, especially young people, to meaningfully participate in governance spaces at the national, regional and continental level, YouLead modeled Africa Unplugged as a continent-wide space for precisely that.

For African youth to plug into policy and programming processes and build solidarity on key emerging issues to create awareness on issues specific to youth participation, and voice in governance.

Website: https://www.youlead.africa/

This podcast episode is co-funded by the European Union. Its contents are the sole responsibility of The Charter Project Africa and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union

The Charter Project Africa is a pan-African initiative supporting civil society to promote the continental commitments contained in the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance (ACDEG) – the central African Union policy document to advance democratic governance in African Union member states. The project is led by six organisations and lasts for three years, starting in the course of 2021. It has a dedicated secretariat based in Addis Ababa which creates linkages between pan-African civil society and African Union policymakers.

SIVIO Institute (SI) is an independent organisation focused on ensuring that citizens are at the centre of processes of socio-economic and policy change. It aims to contribute towards Africa’s inclusive socio-economic transformation. It is borne out of a desire to enhance agency as a stimulus/catalyst for inclusive political and socio-economic transformation.

In this episode, we spoke to Andrew Songa, the Civil Society Secretariat Coordinator at The Charter Project Africa who outlined the Charter Project Africa's Objectives. We also spoke to Eddah Jowah from the SIVIO Institute, one of the grantee organisations participating in the Project. Eddah Jowah is currently the Programs Manager at the SIVIO Institute.

Eddah spoke to Nathi Mcetywa about what the SIVIO Institute's vision of a citizen-led democracy looks like and spoke about the measures they are taking to ensure that citizens are able to take the opportunity to get involved in democratic processes in Zimbabwe SIVIO Institute · Charter Project Africa · African Citizens Watch · SIVIO Institute Annual Barometer Report

The Civic Tech Innovation Network (CTIN), in partnership with the South Africa Centre for Evidence (SACE) invites you to join us as we launch the Civic Tech in Africa Evidence Map, where we will present key findings of the Evidence Map. Yasmin Shapurjee joins host, Nathi Mcetywa for this episode.

The aim of the Evidence Mapping project is to create a common, up-to-date evidence/ knowledge base about civic tech in the African context, to improve support, decision-making and advocacy in relation to civic tech (including more broadly civil society innovation, tech for good and digital governance). At CTIN, we define civic tech as the “appropriate and effective use of digital innovation in connecting government and citizens, in public participation, in transparency and accountability and in delivering public services”.

The launch event will present an opportunity for participants to engage with the map, ask questions and to provide feedback.

Event Details:

Date: Wednesday 8 March 2023

Time: 10.00 AM -12:00 PM

Venue: Tshimologong Precinct and Online

To RSVP to attend the in-person launch email Yasmin Shapurjee at [email protected]

To join online: https://wits-za.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJEkdu6prDIoHtHpofEZ4BZWflxvORtyDlhV Join Launch Event Online

When the printing press was invented more than 500 years ago, it was certainly done with good intentions. However, one of the unintended side effects of that innovation was its use to incite people.

In our times, the story of the Internet may sound similar. The internet, and in particular social media, has become the main theatre of manipulation and incitement. Our online spaces are home to negative commentary and reviews, manipulation and incitement, resulting in dire consequences for individuals, corporations and even nation states.

But what if these negative features of manipulation and incitement aren’t going away and are going to stay as part of our life in the digital world?

Today’s episode look at how we can counter misinformation and manipulation, and whether there is Anything Civil Society Organisations can do?

Joining us for this conversation are Simone Toussi, Melyn McKay and Valerie Khan

Dear South Africa is a non-profit organisation that facilitates public participation to help shape legislative policy at a municipal, provincial and national level. DEARSA Website · DearSA on Twitter

Have you come across any stories reported using data visualation tools lately. That's the work of a data journalist using data to explain complex stories of public interest. Africa Data Hub seeks to lower the barriers that African journalists face to access and use data in their storytelling around health and development.

The Africa Data Hub (ADH) is a collective of data organisations operating across three African countries that work together to provide local journalists with verified accurate up-to-date data, tools, training, mentoring and support to tell the stories that matter with the data they need. We believe that access to quality data not only has the potential to challenge power and the status quo, but also to have a direct impact in addressing vulnerability, inequity and exclusion.

Featured in this episode is Sarah Findlay. Sarah is 'Africa Data Hub' Project Lead at Open Cities Lab. Africa Data Hub Website · Facebook Page · Africa Data Hub Twitter Page

Pollicy is a feminist collective of technologists, data scientists, creatives and academics working at the intersection of data, design, and technology to craft better experiences for tech users Pollicy Website · Pollicy on Twitter · Pollicy on LinkedIn

The Civic Tech Innovation Network (CTIN), in partnership with the International Civil Society Centre (ICSCentre), hosted a discussion titled ‘Making Data Accessible’ as part of its #DigitalDialogues Series.

In our current digital age and what is often termed as a ‘data-driven’ world, civic tech organisations, civil society organisations (CSOs) and similar advocacy organisations have played and continue to play an important role in either collecting and providing the public with access to data or fighting government institutions for access to open data that is accessible and comprehensible.

Considering the evolution of the data landscape, massive amounts of digital information is created daily and when analysed, has the potential to help society understand how to perform better in the future. Civic innovations have thus been leveraged as a means to access data so that we may solve social problems.

Big data is often used as the catch-all term for large, diverse sets of information and while this concept has gained traction within the civic tech field, it has to some extent generated an unintended consequence of making data less open and accessible. Without the sophisticated knowledge in Artificial Intelligence tools used to analyse big data, the use of data in communities for social impact has been significantly limited.

In this session, moderated by Tolulope, we spoke to civic actors that will share insights and lessons from their experiences in making data accessible and comprehensible through partnering with the government. This session is intended to shed light on some of the victories and challenges associated with partnerships of this nature and whether they truly are able to make data open and accessible to the public.

This year marks 15 years since the adoption of the African Charter on Democracy Elections and Governance (ACDEG). The ACDEG is a framework whose main objective was for African States to adopt good democratic and governance principles.

In this episode, we talk about an initiative aimed at boosting civic participation in issues of democratic governance on the African continent. Justin Arenstein spoke to us about the recently launched Charter Project Africa initiative. We talk about how the Civic Tech landscape in Africa and some initiatives doing great work on the continent.

Jason Bygate joins us as co-host for this episode. Jason is the Head of Innovation, Tech, and Data for Development at Capacitate Social Solutions, and he’s recently launched the YoMobi platform in partnership with PwC and UNICEF. He spoke to us briefly about this initiative as well.

Get in touch:

Visit https://civictech.africa/

Follow @CivicTechAfrica on Twitter

Follow Civic Tech Innovation Network on Facebook

Follow Civic Tech Innovation Network on LinkedIn

Share your civic tech initiative with us Charter Project Africa Website · CodeforAll on Twitter · The Charter Project Africa on Twitter · YoMobi Website