Africa’s Evolving Infosystems: 

A Pathway to Security 

and Stability

A RESEARCH PAPER FROM THE AFRICA CENTER FOR STRATEGIC STUDIES

by Steven Livingston

March 2011
The Africa Center for Strategic Studies

The Africa Center for Strategic Studies supports the development 

of U.S. strategic policy toward Africa by providing high-quality 

academic programs, undertaking policy-relevant research and analysis, 

and fostering awareness of and open dialogue on U.S. strategic 

priorities and African security issues. Toward these aims, the Center 

is committed to building networks of African, American, European, 

and international military and civilian leaders and articulating African 

perspectives to U.S. policymakers.
Africa’s Evolving Infosystems: 

A Pathway to Security 

and Stability

by Steven Livingston

Africa Center for Strategic Studies

Research Paper No. 2

National Defense University Press

Washington, D.C.

March 2011
For additional publications of the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, visit 

the Center’s Web site at http://africacenter.org.

Opinions, conclusions, and recommendations expressed or implied 

within are solely those of the contributors and do not necessarily represent the views of the Defense Department or any other agency of the 

Federal Government. Cleared for public release; distribution unlimited.

Portions of this work may be quoted or reprinted without permission, provided that a standard source credit line is included. NDU Press 

would appreciate a courtesy copy of reprints or reviews.

First printing, March 2011
iii

Contents

Executive Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Misinformation and Violence. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Challenges to Press Freedom in Africa. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

How to Respond?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

The Ascendancy of Cellular Telephony. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Expanding Access to Information and Networks. . . . . . . . 10

Mobile Telephony and Security. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

Remote Sensing Satellites and Event Mapping. . . . . . . . . 19

Radio. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

African Information and Communication 

Technology (ICT) Innovation Centers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

Organizations, Institutions, and Security. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

Policy Recommendations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

Notes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

Acknowledgments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

About the Author. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

Africa’s Evolving Infosystems

1

“Africa doesn’t need strongmen, it needs strong institutions.”

—President Barack Obama

Address to Ghanaian Parliament, July 11, 2009

Executive Summary

Political instability and violence in Africa are often the products 

of rumor and misinformation. Narrow interests have used politically 

biased newspapers and radio programming to spread disinformation 

and champion politically divisive causes. Meanwhile, reasonable 

opposition voices have been kept silent and shuttered from public 

life, often by repressive, even violent means. This remains a serious 

concern across Africa.

Against this backdrop, the emergence of new information and 

communication technologies in Africa, advancing in tandem with 

emerging democratic institutions, is noteworthy. Over the past 5 years 

the annual growth rate for mobile telephony in Africa has been 65 

percent, more than twice the global average.

Linked by mobile telephony and supported by geographical 

information systems, civil society networks now have unprecedented 

opportunities to develop security-monitoring programs, provide 

information needed for effective health care, create banking services, 

and provide farmers with market information. Remarkably innovative 

uses of mobile communications, often paired with radio broadcasting, 

have created entirely new types of institutions that promote 

transparency, accountability, and security. These evolving institutions 

are often organic to Africa and pegged to the immediate needs of the 

communities they serve. Technology innovation centers, created and 

staffed by African engineers and technicians, are leading the way 

in developing solutions to longstanding problems. Mobile phones 

are now irrevocable features of African life, and high-speed Internet 

connectivity soon will be too.
ACSS Research Paper, No. 2

2

While the new information technologies can, at times, be used 

for less positive purposes, including crime and politically motivated 

violence, on the whole they are enhancing human security and 

sustainable economic development across the continent. As with 

all technology, on their own they are politically neutral. The key to 

realizing the positive potential in new technologies in Africa is found 

in focusing on the human motivations behind them. Policy initiatives, 

therefore, should focus on encouraging the development of applications 

that aim to improve human security, accountability, and transparency.

Initiatives include supporting Africa-based innovation centers 

where hardware and software applications are developed specifically 

suited to local needs. Other initiatives should be directed toward basic 

research concerning the political, economic, and security implications 

of local networks created by mobile telephony and related technologies. 

What are the measurable effects of mobile telephony on the lives and 

well-being of people across Africa, whether living in cities or remote 

villages? What are the effects of leaping from isolation in remote 

locations to being integrated in a global information network, within 

the lifetime of a young adult? There are many unanswered questions. 

Future policies and best practices must be informed by scientifically 

grounded answers. These and other policy recommendations center on 

leveraging the emerging technologies for positive purposes.
Africa’s Evolving Infosystems

3

Misinformation and Violence

Rumors and misinformation fuel political tensions and violence 

in Africa. This is because many African communities have lived in 

information-constrained environments with few opportunities to 

corroborate news. As a result, inaccurate stories spread widely before 

being countered. Even then, these false perceptions may never be fully 

erased. In the meantime, individual and collective responses to the 

distortions, especially those that are threatening in nature, may set off a 

cycle of violence. Exploiting the weakness of these information systems, 

opportunistic politicians and media owners have often trumpeted feigned 

grievances and imaginary enemies to mobilize popular support behind 

self-interested positions—with predictably polarizing effects on the 

affected societies. Citizens are left without the information they need to 

properly assess the causes of social, political, and economic problems they 

face—or to assist in formulating and monitoring effective responses.

In Kenya, an independent review commission established to 

investigate the 2007 post-election violence found that the live 

broadcasts of some vernacular language radio stations were inflammatory. 

Listeners were told to “arm themselves against their enemies,” drawing 

uncomfortable parallels with Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines’ 

infamous role in fanning passions during Rwanda’s 1994 genocide.1

Unsubstantiated information also exacerbated social tensions in 

Egypt during the swine flu outbreak of 2009. Although the spread of 

the H1N1 influenza virus had nothing to do with pigs, roughly 300,000 

were slaughtered—the country’s entire stock—as a way of controlling 

the spread of the disease. At the time, there had not been a reported 

case of H1N1 in Egypt. Christian farmers accused the government of 

religious intolerance.2 Reports of this sort worsened already strained 

Muslim-Christian relations and may have indirectly contributed to the 

rioting of thousands of protesters and clashes with police following the 

murder of six Coptic Christians in January 2010.3
ACSS Research Paper, No. 2

4

In the Nigerian state of Plateau, more than 2,000 people have 

been killed in communal violence since 2001, including more than 

500 in attacks in early 2010.4 Media have played a role in deepening 

these tensions. Indeed, an analysis of the attacks by Chatham House 

concluded that the Nigerian government needed to “take steps to curb 

hate-speech and control rumors.”5

Tensions were exacerbated by the uncertainty created by President 

Umaru Yar’Adua’s unexpected departure from Nigeria in November 

2009 for medical treatment. Contradictory accounts of his health in 

the Nigerian press added to confusion in Abuja. Since the president 

left Nigeria without properly transferring power to the vice president 

and without communicating with the Nigerian people, it wasn’t clear 

who was in control. Rumors and uncertainty of this sort fuel instability 

and violence.

The effects of rumor and misinformation are not limited to 

dramatic episodes of violence. They also affect the long-term 

health of African societies. After years of effort, in 2004 the World 

Health Organization (WHO) was aiming to finally eradicate polio 

as part of a global campaign to vaccinate communities where the 

disease persisted. Nigeria was one of the six remaining countries 

that hosted the polio virus.6 However, misinformed Muslim leaders 

in the northern Nigerian states of Kano, Kaduna, and Zamfara 

claimed the vaccine program was a Western plot designed to sterilize 

Muslims and called for a boycott. Another unfounded rumor had 

it that the vaccine was, in reality, the HIV/AIDS virus and that it 

was being administered to reduce the size of the Muslim population. 

Consequently, many parents tragically stopped allowing their children 

to be vaccinated. WHO spent the next several years combating 

the rumor. Nonetheless, by then the Nigerian virus had spread to 

other African nations and in 2009 there were polio outbreaks in 19 

previously unaffected countries. Today, Nigeria continues to host the 

largest number of polio cases in the world.7
Africa’s Evolving Infosystems

5

Political instability, personal insecurity, disease, and persistent 

poverty—these are just a few of the concrete damaging outcomes of 

rumors, misinformation, and an unprofessional and underdeveloped 

African media. Weak information and communications networks 

leave people vulnerable and political systems unstable. Conversely, as 

noted by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent 

Societies, “Giving vulnerable people the right information at the right 

time is a form of empowerment. It enables people to make the decisions 

most appropriate for themselves and their families and can mean the 

difference between being a victim or a survivor.”8 

The objective of an effective communication system in a functioning 

democracy is to fill the public sphere with factually grounded information 

that assists government officials, civil society, and the general public 

in their efforts to find appropriate solutions to mutually recognized 

problems. Where powerful institutions are closed, secretive, and 

remote from citizen’s lives, media, in turn, will remain underdeveloped, 

unprofessional, and regarded as a threat to political stability and 

human security. Where the press is allowed to operate responsibly and 

freely, citizens benefit from an open and honest public dialogue about 

the problems they face. Research also points to a strong relationship 

among democratic institutions (including a free and functioning press), 

economic development, and the avoidance of conflict.9

Viewed in this way, a country’s political stability is only as good as 

its systems for communicating timely and reliable information. Security 

and economic development are strengthened by information systems 

that promote accountability and transparency. A clear path to increased 

stability and improved human security, therefore, is found in initiatives that 

strengthen media, intrasocietal communication, and access to information.

Challenges to Press Freedom in Africa

Following South Africa’s successful hosting of the 2010 World Cup, 

African National Congress (ANC) party leaders proposed a restrictive 
ACSS Research Paper, No. 2

6

press law that threatened to tarnish the country’s newly burnished 

image. Party leaders were angered by news accounts of corruption by 

ANC officials. The Protection of Information Bill would obligate heads 

of government agencies to withhold broad categories of information. 

Prison sentences of up to 15 years for publishing secret material would 

serve as a “deterrent to unauthorised disclosure.”10 Nobel Laureate 

Nadine Gordimer joined other South African writers in saying, “This is 

the threat of a return to the censorship under apartheid.”11

According to Freedom House’s 2010 annual survey, the average level 

of press freedom across the continent declined significantly in the previous 

year, representing the largest overall drop of any region in the global 

analysis.12 A total of 5 sub-Saharan African countries were rated Free, 19 

were rated Partly Free, and 24 remained Not Free. As a consequence of 

Namibia and South Africa declining in the rankings to Partly Free, no 

countries in southern Africa were rated as Free in the survey. 

Other surveys have produced similar results. In a survey of 178 

nations, Reporters Without Borders found that 7 African countries 

ranked in the top 50 of the most open media environments, while 14 

ranked in the bottom 50 (see table).

In Rwanda, the government has intimidated journalists and closed 

newspapers. In June 2010 an opposition journalist was shot to death 

after he published an article linking the government with the attempted 

assassination of an exiled Rwanda general.13 Other journalists have been 

jailed and threatened. A 2008 law banned criticism of the president 

and requires journalists to reveal their sources in court. The Rwandan 

government has also made it difficult for foreign journalists to work inside 

the country. Belgian, Ugandan, British, and French journalists have been 

denied entry or expelled from the country. A number of other journalists 

have been imprisoned, harassed, or forced into hiding.

Resources are another pressing problem. Basic resources for news 

operations are lacking across the continent.14 Printing presses, newspaper 

stock, distribution vehicles, and many of the other necessities of printing 
Africa’s Evolving Infosystems

7

and distributing a newspaper are in short supply. Sometimes even 

something as indispensable as electricity is unreliable, making it difficult 

to use computers and run printing presses. Even where the economy is 

relatively strong, such as South Africa, Nigeria, and Kenya, journalists are 

hampered by inadequate resources and lack of professional training, and 

stymied by political pressure and harassment. These factors contribute 

directly to undermining access to timely and accurate information.

How to Respond?

For some, the recent trends in press freedom suggest that 

Africa is not ready for democracy. According to this view, the more 

appropriate course of action is to lower expectations and focus instead 

on creating stable hierarchical administrative structures that have 

greater capacity to manage basic improvements in infrastructure and 

Bottom 50 Top 50

Country Rank Country Rank

Cameroon 129 Namibia 22

Algeria 133 Cape Verde 26

Morocco 135 Ghana 27

Ethiopia 139 Mali 28

Nigeria 146 South Africa 38

DR Congo 148 Tanzania 41

Swaziland 155 Burkina Faso 49

Libya 160

Somalia 161

Tunisia 164

Equatorial Guinea 167

Rwanda 169

Sudan 172

Eritrea 178

2010 World Press Freedom Index

Source: Reporters Without Borders.
ACSS Research Paper, No. 2

8

promote economic development. Indeed, throughout the Cold War 

and beyond, standard development theory assumed the best path to 

the achievement of rapid economic development was through the 

support of authoritarian regimes.15 Although they strongly disagree 

with it, Morton H. Halperin and his colleagues articulate the basic 

rationale for this development orthodoxy.

Because of the superior organizational abilities 

inherent in their hierarchical structures, only 

authoritarian governments can match resources to 

urgent strategic tasks such as increasing savings 

and investing in public works like highways and 

dams, building up a disciplined military, enforcing 

the rule of law, and creating a functional 

education system. Authoritarian governments can 

undertake all of these things more efficiently than 

can lumbering democracies.16

Hierarchy is regarded as necessary because of the complexities and 

the transaction costs associated with developing a national economy. 

Transaction costs are the costs associated with organizing and managing 

human activities. Hierarchies are, in the main, an information distribution 

system established where the scale of operations makes face-to-face 

interaction impossible. CEOs and generals do not tell each subordinate 

what to do; instead, he or she uses an information distribution system, a 

chain of command, to distribute directives and monitor compliance. This 

has long been considered the most logical and efficient organizational 

structure to meet pressing development and security needs.

Information technology changes this dynamic. Rather than 

requiring a hierarchical command structure, information is distributed 

from everyone in a network to everyone else in the network. The rapid 

and deepening penetration of mobile telephony across Africa has made 

this alternative possible.
Africa’s Evolving Infosystems

9

The Ascendancy of Cellular Telephony

Novelist William Gibson once remarked, “The future is already 

here—it’s just not evenly distributed yet.” Yet we are getting closer. 

Cellular telephony has been the most rapidly adopted technology in 

history.17 By mid-2010 there were five billion mobile phone subscribers 

or more than 7 of every 10 persons on the planet, a 25 percent increase 

over just the previous year.18 One recent estimate claimed that by 

2020 there would be 50 billion wireless devices performing an array of 

functions.19 Figure 1 illustrates the rapid growth of cellular telephony 

between 1998 and 2009, far outpacing the adoption rates of other 

technologies, including the Internet.

Most of the growth in recent years has occurred in the developing 

world. Mobile penetration in Africa soared from 2 percent at the turn 

of the century to 28 percent by the end of 2009.20 Growth rates in some 

countries have been nothing less than astonishing. With a total national 

Figure 1. Mobile Telephony Growth Relative to 

Other Technologies

A decade of information communication technology growth

driven by mobile technologies

Mobile cellular telephone subscriptions

Internet users

Fixed telephone lines

Mobile broadband subscriptions

Fixed broadband subscribers

per 100 inhabitants

67.0

25.9

17.8

9.5

7.1

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

An estimated 4.6 billion

subscriptions globally

by the end of 2009

1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009

Source: International Telecommunication Union, World Telecommunication/

Information and Communication Technology Indicators Database.
ACSS Research Paper, No. 2

10

population of 38.5 million people, Kenya saw mobile phone subscribers jump 

from just 200,000 in 2000 to 17.5 million in 2009. In 2010, about half of all 

Kenyans subscribed to a mobile telephone service, with many more using 

phones made available by friends and family.21 Ghana recorded a mobile 

penetration rate that exceeded 60 percent by the end of 2009, after having 

stood at just 22 percent 3 years before.22 In the Middle East, sub-Saharan 

Africa, and South and Southeast Asia, mobiles are not replacing existing 

landline telephones, as in the industrialized world, but are instead giving 

people the means to communicate over distance for the first time.

Figure 2 illustrates the impressive rate of growth of mobile telephony 

in Africa. Eager businesses have responded to this expanded market. In 

many African towns, it is common to see most buildings and, at times, 

it seems, almost every surface painted in the varying bright colors of 

competing mobile phone companies. In Goma, located more than one 

thousand miles from the capital at the far eastern edge of the Democratic 

Republic of the Congo (DRC), even the traffic circle in the center of 

town is painted in the deep purple hues of a major cellular provider. 

Expanding Access to Information and Networks 

Clearly, the expansion of cellular service in Africa has been 

motivated by a desire for profits, not politics. Yet significant political 

effects have resulted from the growth of mobile telephony. Sudaneseborn billionaire Mo Ibrahim, a leading entrepreneur in the mobile 

telephony industry in Africa, has noted this unintended effect.

The mobile industry changed Africa. I must admit we 

were not smart enough to foresee that. What we saw 

was a real need for telecommunication in Africa, and 

that need had not been fulfilled. For me that was a 

business project.23

Information technology has changed who can gain access to and 

deliver information. Now, everyone in a network can simultaneously 
Africa’s Evolving Infosystems

11

share information. As a result, the organizational structure involved in 

nearly every human endeavor, from selling books to fighting wars, is 

being transformed. Coordinated activities that were once prohibitively 

expensive (measured according to time, money, and manpower) are 

now practicable because of information networks.

This is happening because mobile phones and other information 

technologies have dramatically reduced the cost of information. This 

in turn allows motivated persons to pursue solutions to endemic 

political, economic, and social ills that would have been, in the 

absence of the lower costs, too difficult to sustain. As technology 

writer Clay Shirky notes, “Loosely coordinated groups can now 

achieve things that were previously out of reach for any other 

organizational structure.”24 More than other technologies, mobile 

phones create resilient and adaptable networks suited to the needs 

of disparate populations. They also lead to a serious reassessment of 

the orthodoxy that says hierarchical regimes are best suited to further 

Figure 2. Mobile Telephony Growth in Africa

Source: International Telecommunication Union, World Telecommunication/ 

Information and Communication Technology Indicators Database.

Information communication technology developments in Africa,

1998–2008 penetration rate 

per 100 inhabitants

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008

4.2

1.5

0.9

0.1

Mobile cellular telephone subscriptions

Internet users

Fixed telephone lines

Mobile broadband subscriptions

Fixed broadband subscribers

32.6
ACSS Research Paper, No. 2

12

rapid development. Transparency and accountability structures 

inherent in democratic systems—including responsible media, 

civil society empowered by new technologies, and international 

organizations—help specify problems and priorities, articulate 

solutions, and monitor progress in their implementation. 

Mobile telephony allows nongovernmental organizations 

(NGOs) and other groups to organize disparate and often marginalized 

populations into new kinds of organizations and types of group activity. 

This includes financial services, health care, collective security, and 

human rights monitoring. The importance of this phenomenon can 

scarcely be overstated. Data transmissions (texting, short message 

service—SMS, digital maps, etc.) are perhaps the most important aspect 

of communicating via mobile phones in Africa.25 A survey commissioned 

by the United Nations Foundation and the Vodafone Foundation found 

that the key benefits of mobile technology for all NGOs include:

◆ time savings (cited by 95 percent of the 560 NGOs polled)

◆ ability to quickly mobilize or organize individuals (91 percent) 

◆ ability to reach audiences that were previously difficult or 

impossible to reach (74 percent)

◆ ability to transmit data more quickly and accurately (67 percent)

◆ ability to gather data more quickly and accurately (59 percent).26

This rapid expansion in data transmissions is dramatically 

improving the capacity for oversight in Africa. There are scores of 

accountability-enhancing programs based on mobile phones emerging 

across Africa. Only a few can be highlighted here. FrontlineSMS, for 

example, distributes a free software program that enables users, usually 

civil society organizations, to  send and receive text messages with 

large groups of people. In Nigeria, a local Nigerian NGO known as the 

Network of Mobile Election Monitors (NMEM) used FrontlineSMS to 

monitor the 2007 presidential elections. In total, over 11,000 messages 
Africa’s Evolving Infosystems

13

were received into the SMS hub. They provided a richer picture of 

how the voting went, even in rural polling stations with fewer official 

observers. A sense of transparency lent greater credibility to the overall 

election process.27 Such technologies can dramatically supplement 

traditional election-monitoring systems in a vast country with poor 

roads and little in the way of support services. 

During the 2010 constitutional reform referendum in Kenya, an 

SMS-based monitoring mechanism called Uchaguzi strengthened 

Kenyans’ confidence in the balloting. As one observer noted: “Kenyans 

got a chance to track election results minute by minute. I had both the 

TV and my laptop on and I could easily compare results across broad 

platforms and channels and they were consistent!”28 The strength of 

programs like FrontlineSMS and Uchaguzi is found in their ability to 

create loosely knit organizations that enhance transparency. One might 

speak of regulation by revelation. Corruption is abated “because people 

knew that if they try to rig the election there could be someone behind 

them that may send a text message reporting the incident.”29

Textuality, another mobile telephony initiative, runs several 

programs intended to improve health care. Stop Stock-outs is an 

organization that tracks medicine inventories at the local level. A similar 

program is called Pill Check. It enables members of a local community 

to visit public hospitals to check the availability of drugs. This is an 

enormous benefit in keeping local dispensaries supplied. Another 

initiative, Text Messages Across Nigeria, tracks the distribution of some 

63 million mosquito nets.30

Movirtu, a for-profit initiative, is expanding the use of mobile 

telephony by poor rural communities in sub-Saharan Africa and South 

Asia with an innovative business model. One of Movirtu’s services is 

called MXPay. Movirtu installs a server in a mobile operator’s switching 

center that provides access to basic mobile banking for those who do 

not own a mobile handset or a subscriber identity module (SIM) card, 

or have a bank account. Users are assigned a number and a password 
ACSS Research Paper, No. 2

14

that enables them to “log in” to the system with any available handset. 

Those who lend their phones for this purpose receive an airtime top-up 

credit, which is calculated as a percentage of the transaction. 

Expanding financial services to the rural poor redresses a longheld, major obstacle to development. With access to financial 

institutions, households can create a reliable savings plan that helps 

smooth out the uneven revenue flows typical of rural economies. It 

also reduces the need for rural households to store virtually all of their 

assets as livestock, which are inevitably vulnerable to drought, disease, 

or limited grazing areas. The system can also be used to distribute funds 

to recipients by aid agencies. What these examples share is the use of 

inexpensive, highly mobile, and adaptable mobile networks. Through 

distributed problem-solving, networks identify problems, monitor 

conditions, and implement solutions.

There are other examples. PlanUSA is a well-regarded American 

NGO that specializes in child protection and well-being programs. One 

project under development in Benin uses SMS and mapping to help 

bolster existing child protection networks:31

SMS allows for anonymous and low cost reporting. 

It’s hoped that this will encourage more reporting. 

More reporting will allow for more information, and 

for patterns and degrees of violence to be mapped. 

This in turn can be used to raise awareness around 

the severity of the problem, advocate for the necessary 

resources to prevent it, and develop better and more 

targeted response and follow-up mechanisms.32

Another use of the emerging ubiquity of mobile telephony is 

in commercial transactions and market exchange. For example, 

mCollect is a Trade-in-Hand initiative started in 2006 with the 

intention of enhancing export opportunities and trade throughout 

West Africa. Trade-in-Hand is a program run by the International 
Africa’s Evolving Infosystems

15

Trade Center based in Geneva, Switzerland. It began in 2006 as 

a program in Burkina Faso and Mali to provide farmers with daily 

commodity price quotes using SMS messaging. One of the Tradein-Hand initiatives is called Mobile Marketplace. It offers a virtual 

marketplace to small-scale producers who have access to a mobile 

phone by enabling them to advertise their products to exporters 

and other big buyers. This greatly expands opportunities to connect 

buyers and sellers beyond a farmer’s or trader’s immediate locale. 

Better awareness of prices also reduces low-income farmers’ risk when 

deciding whether to plant a particular crop.

Trade-in-Hand is not alone. There are similar initiatives found 

around Africa, including TradeNet/Esoko and Resimao. Both of 

these programs make market data available on the Web and via 

mobile phones. The Grameen Foundation Technology Center has 

implemented a similar program in Uganda under the name Community 

Knowledge Worker (CKW). CKW collects and relays agricultural 

information from farmers by mobile phone to provide a vital link 

between farmers and buyers. All of these initiatives use mobile networks 

to create and share information that enhances market efficiency. 

In addition to providing market information, medical supply 

inventories, and election monitoring, mobile telephony is having an 

effect on corruption. Nigerian 419 scams are legendary among email 

users around the world, but they have their greatest adverse effect on 

Nigerian society. The “419” reference is to the article of the Nigerian 

Criminal Code dealing with fraud. These scams have led to widespread 

cynicism within Nigeria about the ulterior motives of seemingly wellintentioned initiatives, with almost anyone and anything being a 

potential target of a scam. With so little social capital, energy is wasted 

on efforts to detect scams, rather than getting things done.

Using aggregate data analysis, Catie Snow Bailard found that 

perceptions of corruption declined in reverse proportion to the increase 

in mobile telephony. The greater the access to mobile phones, the less 
ACSS Research Paper, No. 2

16

likely was the perception that society was irredeemably corrupt. This 

is a product of networked information systems that increase access to 

a much broader array of information, thus facilitating relatively simple 

fact-checking. As Bailard notes:

With mobile phones, aid agencies can directly contact 

schools and villagers to ensure that aid is appropriately 

disbursed. In addition, mobile phones make it easier 

for villagers to learn that they are entitled to receive 

a certain amount of aid, increasing their capacity to 

demand that aid. Mobile phones also diminish the power 

of local officials to extract bribes by better connecting 

individuals with alternative officials or with villagers 

who can provide information regarding alternative 

channels, reducing a given official’s sole discretion over 

the supply of services, permits, or licenses.33

Mobile Telephony and Security

International peacekeeping organizations use cellular telephony to 

extend their reach into otherwise inaccessible areas. In 2009, United 

Nations Security Council Resolution 1906 instructed the United Nations 

Mission DR Congo (MONUC)34 to “build on best practices and extend 

successful protection measures piloted in North Kivu, in particular 

the establishment of Joint Protection Teams, Early Warning Centers, 

communications liaisons with local villages and other measures,” in the 

provinces of North Kivu, South Kivu, and Orientale. “MONUC’s intent 

is to increase the Force’s information collection capacity and interaction 

with local populations in the field through private mobile phone 

operators, in order to enhance the protection of civilians.”35

To this end, MONUC’s Civil Affairs Section (CAS) has 

developed joint strategy and contingency plans aimed at “improving 
Africa’s Evolving Infosystems

17

protection of civilians, mitigating the humanitarian consequences 

of military operations, and strengthening the interactions between 

MONUC military and civilian components.”36 As a part of its 

information-gathering initiative, private telecommunications 

operators in the DRC were contacted by MONUC to help create a 

“surveillance center” concept of operations. The Surveillance Center 

is a 24-hour-a-day call center staffed by an interpreter and MONUC 

soldiers responding to unfolding incidents. It allows civilians in the 

area to call in reports of security incidents as they happen. Critically, 

it has also improved communication between MONUC patrols—

which are staffed overwhelmingly by soldiers who do not speak a local 

language—and local people, who can speak directly to the interpreter 

via telephone or radio while the patrols are still present. Relations 

between local populations and MONUC before the creation of the 

Surveillance Centers were tense, in part owing to a perceived lack of 

UN responsiveness. “Today significant improvements in the speed and 

frequency with which MONUC soldiers in North Kivu are responding 

to security incidents have renewed trust in the mission.”37

Information technology is also improving real-time responsiveness 

to civilians at risk in conflict zones. In March 2009, the Congolese 

army and MONUC joined forces in Operation Kimia II. The objective 

was to forcibly disarm the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of 

Rwanda (FDLR), a Rwandan Hutu militia group, some of whose leaders 

participated in the genocide in Rwanda in 1994. Yet the Congolese army 

was itself accused of human rights abuses during the operation. Human 

Rights Watch documented the deliberate killing by Congolese soldiers of 

at least 270 civilians in a remote part of North Kivu province.

In response, MONUC’s Rapid Response and Early Warning Cell 

(RREWC) was created in May 2009 to help harness information 

in support of security and civilian protection efforts. The RREWC 

collects and assesses information from all monitoring sections on 

incidents occurring in the context of a joint operation and quickly 
ACSS Research Paper, No. 2

18

transmits reports and recommendations to senior MONUC officials. 

The system aims to provide operational information relevant to civilian 

protection to military commanders on the ground. At the heart of all 

of these initiatives are mobile phones. Access to such tactical level 

real-time information is of vital importance in many African security 

environments where threats are posed by highly mobile irregular forces 

that are often intermingled with civilian communities.

There are also examples of community-based civilian security 

initiatives using mobile phones. Oxfam–Great Britain (GB), a 

development, emergency relief, and advocacy organization, funded an 

initiative in Kenya called PeaceNet, an umbrella organization made up 

of Kenyan organizations and individuals dedicated to human security and 

political accountability.38 Oxfam–GB contributed approximately 40,000 

British pounds to the development of an information nerve center that 

would serve as a central reporting station where data from the field could 

be assimilated and used to take steps to avert bloodshed. In December 

2007, as tensions rose after the disputed presidential election, information 

texted into the nerve center was then passed along to relevant authorities 

and police. The thinking was that putting a few policemen or elders in 

place could prevent something unfortunate from happening.39 Using this 

approach, the nerve center was able to mobilize local religious leaders, 

NGOs, and authorities in the Rift Valley city of Eldoret to take effective 

measures as reports were called in about impending violence. Violence in 

that instance was avoided. Similarly, following the murder of a member 

of parliament, a vigilante group planned a reprisal attack on residents of 

a rival ethnic identity. Once the nerve center learned of this it mobilized 

a “peace committee” who persuaded the young members of the vigilante 

group to disband and go home.40

Although they are helping to improve the lives and well-being of 

many people across Africa, mobile phones are not panaceas for all that 

troubles Africa, nor are they always put to positive ends. In Mozambique 

in 2010, for example, serious food riots were probably exacerbated by the 
Africa’s Evolving Infosystems

19

use of mobile phones and the panic and misinformation they facilitated.41

Although Mozambique officials denied it, the BBC reported that at the 

height of the violence the country’s two mobile phone companies were 

forced by government authorities to suspend SMS services.42 Technology 

is politically neutral. Human motivations vary and, when matched with 

tools, they make possible an endless variety of outcomes. An airplane can 

reunite families, deliver relief supplies, or be turned into an instrument 

of destruction and misery. Likewise, mobile phones can be used to 

coordinate violence and crime. The key is to find ways to emphasize 

the use of the technology toward the creation of positive outcomes. The 

expansion of information technologies and civil society organizations in 

Africa is providing unprecedented opportunities to do just that.

Remote Sensing Satellites and Event Mapping 

Better organizational capacity through communication technology 

is not the product of a single system, but rather multiple, overlapping, 

and reinforcing systems. Another key component of the modern 

information system in Africa today, accordingly, is high-resolution, 

commercial, remote sensing satellites.

In 1999, a company called Space Imaging launched the world’s 

first privately owned and operated high-resolution remote sensing 

satellite. It offered customers 1-meter resolution panchromatic 

satellite images and other value-added products such as a variety of 

detailed maps and three-dimensional perspectives. With the fleet 

of remote sensing satellites that have been launched since 1999, 

private organizations, news media, and even individuals have access 

to satellite imaging that is well under 1-meter resolution. This has 

dramatically expanded what can be known and by whom. For 

example, it was an NGO that revealed the Iranian nuclear program 

in December 2003, not the United States or another state.43 Whether 

such a capability is in the best interest of international security is still 

a point of debate. Yet what is clear is that high-resolution commercial 
ACSS Research Paper, No. 2

20

satellite imagery—now down to about 30-centimeters resolution—

can make life more difficult for dictators. A recent example from 

Zimbabwe is instructive.

In 2006, as the government of Robert Mugabe prevented foreign 

reporters from entering the country and intimidated local journalists into 

silence, remote sensing satellite images helped fill the information void 

by capturing evidence that the community of Porta Farm was destroyed 

by police and military forces and that thousands of residents were forcibly 

relocated as part of a campaign against political opponents. The American 

Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) commissioned the 

images and Amnesty International in London and Zimbabwe Lawyers for 

Human Rights (ZLHR), based in Harare, disseminated the findings.44

Geographic information systems (GIS), the geospatial data 

management software used to process the data collected by remote 

sensing satellites, have also advanced in sophistication. Google Earth 

is probably the most commonly seen example. GIS and remote sensing 

have been paired with cellular telephony and geographical positioning 

satellites to create crowdsourcing solutions to pressing social needs, 

such as human rights monitoring and disaster response. Crowdsourcing 

refers to the distribution of problem-solving to “crowds,” to members 

of the general public who are tied together in a network.45 Rather 

than relying solely on institutionally based expert analysis, problems 

are addressed using social networks created by Internet or cellular 

telephony. A “crowd” is the source of solutions. 

Those who build crowdsourcing solutions and use mobiles and GIS 

software are referred to as event or crisis mappers. Event mappers use 

GIS and reports sent by SMS, calls, or email messages to plot events. 

This creates a database of incidents that can be analyzed for patterns, 

evidence profiles, and other analytic tools. Ushahidi.com is one such 

organization—though one without a specific physical presence. Rather, it 

is a Web site supported by a network of mostly Kenya-based developers as 

well as contributors from around the world who use and adapt its open-
Africa’s Evolving Infosystems

21

source software to specific event mapping purposes. Its origins are found 

in the realization that GIS and mobile phones could be paired to monitor 

the violence that followed the flawed 2007 elections in Kenya.46 Using 

reports submitted via the Web and mobile phones—45,000 in all—GIS 

maps were created to visualize patterns of violence. The maps helped 

track claims about what happened to whom at what point and where. It 

created transparency and a means of accountability.

The service since has grown to a worldwide movement of volunteers 

and users. For example, it was used in South Africa to track xenophobic 

violence against immigrants.47 A more advanced version of the software 

was deployed to monitor violence in the Eastern Congo in 2009.48 Al 

Jazeera-International used it during the Israeli invasion of Gaza in 2009.49

Furthermore, the Ushahidi platform has been used to coordinate relief 

efforts following the devastating earthquake in Haiti and the wildfires in 

Russia. This constitutes a next step in the development of the technology, 

moving beyond its original function of aggregating knowledge of widely 

dispersed events to now being used to coordinate responses, especially 

where governments are weak and ineffectual. Resources are matched 

with needs, all by use of voluntary participation networks.50

Voix des Kivus (Voice of the Kivus) offers another example 

of event mapping. In 2009, it distributed mobile phones to three 

persons in each of four villages in the eastern Congo. These twelve 

people were trained to use the phones to provide data on behalf 

of their communities. This includes reports of violence and other 

security concerns, as well as reports regarding development initiatives, 

food production, and key social events. In the summer of 2010, the 

program expanded to additional villages throughout the region.51 The 

point of the effort is to link these remote population settlements in a 

support and security network. Alerting villagers to potential dangers, 

or allowing villages to alert security forces of developing concerns, 

extends a layer of security and safety to rural populations currently left 

largely to their own devices. 
ACSS Research Paper, No. 2

22

Unlike the unplanned engagement of mobile phone users found in 

crowdsourcing, the Voix des Kivus initiative uses “crowdseeding”—the 

strategically planned placement of mobiles with selected individuals 

and the establishment of long-term relationships with each user. There 

are trade-offs to this approach. On the one hand, the information 

collected from seeded phone users is probably more reliable because 

of the training that accompanies recruitment to the program. On the 

other hand, crowdseeding may create greater security risks for those 

with the phones. As witnesses to criminal behaviors—and carrying 

the means to report it—phone holders are at greater risk of becoming 

targets of violence themselves. To mitigate this potential risk, project 

leaders have established a system that allows the mobile users to opt 

out of message distributions and to specify recipients. 

Radio

Mobile phones are not only paired with high-tech surveillance 

satellites, they also complement radio, a deeply rooted communication 

system in Africa. With relatively low literacy and low penetration rates 

for television (especially in rural areas), Africa is a radio continent. 

For example, 92 percent of the approximately 800,000 persons in 

Swaziland have one or more radio sets in their household, with 86.5 

percent of the population reported to listen to radio one or more 

times a week. In Malawi, there is only 1 television station but 16 radio 

stations and 2,600,000 radio receivers—250 radios per 1,000 residents. 

In Chad on the border with the Sudan, Radio Sila is a community 

and humanitarian radio station broadcasting in Massalit, Dadjo, 

Arabic, and French. It reaches almost a million refugees and internally 

displaced Chadians.52

As Ethan Zuckerman of Harvard University’s Berkman Center has 

observed, the only technology that “compares to the mobile phone in 

terms of pervasiveness and accessibility in the developing world is the 

radio. Indeed, considered together, radios and mobile phones can serve as 
Africa’s Evolving Infosystems

23

a broad-distribution, participatory media network with some of the same 

citizen-media dynamics of the Internet, but accessible to a much wider, 

and non-literate audience.”53 As an example, Zuckerman cites Interactive 

Radio for Justice, a participatory radio show in the conflict-affected Ituri 

region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo that uses short message 

service to enable listeners to ask questions about justice and human rights 

to a panel of Congolese and UN officials. Similar examples can be found 

elsewhere in the DRC and in other countries. Leaders of a network of 

17 community radio stations in the volatile eastern region of the DRC 

estimate that, together, five million people listen to their programming. 

There are at least three identifiable effects associated with mobile 

phones and radio. First, listening to radio programming creates a deeper 

sense of community. According to Jacques Vagheni, the director of 

Radio Tayna, one of the 17 community stations in the region, listening 

to radio in villages is a community activity.54 Several members of 

a village gather to listen to a single radio and then talk about the 

programming they’ve heard. Radio clubs are commonly formed among 

listeners and serve as a forum for discussing programming content and, 

most interestingly, formulating ideas for future programming. Club 

members use mobile phones to call in programming suggestions. 

Second, community radio serves as a political forum and as a 

link between authorities and the public. Moreover, community radio 

is generally allowed greater latitude in terms of freedom of expression 

than other media. As Vagheni observes, “Community radio brings news 

to the people that they want to hear. It brings information they need. 

Government media (on the other hand) is all about ‘The president 

did this and the minister did that.’” Also, community radio brings 

information from the people to the political decisionmakers, as well as 

the decisions of the authorities to the people. 

Third, community radio contributes to the security of the community. 

As Vagheni explains, “If there is an event happening in their area they 

(listeners) call the station,” much in the way commuters in the West call 
ACSS Research Paper, No. 2

24

a radio station to report a traffic mishap that is likely to affect the larger 

community of listeners. Radio and mobile telephony knit the community 

together. Radio and mobile phones also provide communities tools that 

empower them to build connections with external organizations that can 

help meet pressing safety, health, and economic concerns.

Radio Okapi, the MONUC/Hirondelle Foundation radio network in 

the DRC, contributes to community-building, security, and the provision 

of public service information.55 Since its founding in 1995, the Hirondelle 

Foundation has created several other radio stations in crisis areas, including 

Star Radio in Liberia; Radio Ndeke Luka in Bangui in the Central African 

Republic; Moris Hamutuk, a radio program for refugees in Timor; Miraya 

FM, in Sudan; and Cotton Tree News, in Sierra Leone. 

UN peacekeeping missions have also established radio stations 

that have become the de facto national broadcasters, providing 

citizens with trusted local news programs and nonpartisan public 

affairs forums. In the Sudan, DRC, Somalia, Liberia, and CÔte 

d’Ivoire, UN-backed radio services offer essential national sources 

of local news. In relying on national announcers, producers, and 

reporters, these stations have given local broadcast journalists onthe-job training. As William Orme, a media development advisor 

with UNDP, notes:

By almost any measure—political impact, 

infrastructural improvement, giving voice to dissent 

and minorities, raising local journalism standards—

the peacekeeping radio stations contributed more to 

media development in these postconflict countries than 

any other concurrent media aid programs, including 

the many journalism-targeted projects of UNESCO 

[United Nations Educational, Scientific, and 

Cultural Organization] and UNDP [United 

Nations Development Programme].56
Africa’s Evolving Infosystems

25

Despite its many powerful attributes, radio cannot, by itself, in 

most instances, provide the information required to address the more 

intractable problems facing rural African populations. Phillips, Hossain, 

and Arends-Kuenning find that mass communication campaigns are most 

effective when combined with personal communication and outreach. 

“Outreach has proved to be an effective means of providing service but 

an inefficient scheme for communication and exchange. Communication 

schemes involving groups are effective mechanisms for introducing 

ideational change but lack the elements of privacy and personal rapport 

that are essential elements of effective service delivery. Combining 

communication strategies with outreach produces synergistic effects 

that build upon the advantages of group and individual encounters.”57

Such strategies “demonstrate that outreach has a continuing impact on 

program effectiveness, even after a decade of household visitation.”58

In other words, combining mass media with interpersonal 

communication is the most effective way of transferring effective 

messages—and generating behavioral change. While only a fraction of a 

target population may hear the original message, if the content is relevant, 

waves of others will subsequently hear the message via personal networks.

The importance of the combination of a communications medium 

and community outreach in Africa can be seen when considering 

certain development initiatives. For example, in many parts of Africa, 

HIV/AIDS infection is a major health concern. In some countries 

infection rates are now well above 25 percent of the total adult 

population and climbing. Funded by the U.S. Agency for International 

Development (USAID), MTV’s “Staying Alive” campaign for radio in 

Senegal helped stations organize an AIDS awareness campaign. For 6 

months in 2005, 32 radio stations in Senegal talked about HIV several 

times a week—something that had never happened before. Besides 

broadcasting, a Dakar community station, Ndef Leng FM, which 

reaches nearly two million people in 14 languages, sponsored skits 

at festivities where young people played roles of ordinary Senegalese 
ACSS Research Paper, No. 2

26

facing the epidemic. The initiative stimulated a dramatic upsurge in 

the level of discussion and awareness on the subject. The campaign 

was successful since it drew on Senegalese culture and values and had 

the consent and active participation of community, civil, and religious 

authorities, both Christian and Muslim.59

Unfortunately, it is impossible to reach all affected communities 

through person-to-person outreach. Some are simply too remote. In 

those instances, radio, listener communities, and mobile phones may 

help create a sense of community and ownership of initiatives that would 

otherwise not exist. For individuals living in remote, dispersed, and 

dangerous regions in eastern Congo and elsewhere in Africa, this makes 

it possible to at least approximate the intimacy of personal outreach.

Whether it is community radio in DRC or Darfur, or Radio Okapi, 

or national radio in Senegal, what seems clear is that radio taps into local 

culture and language and has a reach and intimacy that are unmatched 

as a mass medium. Mobile phones deepen that sense of community 

and connectedness by making what is by nature a passive, one-way 

communication system into an interactive, participatory medium.

Still, the tremendous potential found in community radio and 

cellular telephony is not fully realized because of the challenges associated 

with working in areas of extreme poverty and insecurity. Practically all 

journalists working for community radio stations in the DRC lack adequate 

pay and functioning equipment. Even relatively insignificant items, such 

as voice recorders, are in short supply. The stations themselves are simple 

cinder block or mud-block buildings with makeshift equipment. Rebels 

often attack and loot the more remote stations, or occupy and use them for 

their own purposes—until driven out by government or UN forces.

African Information and Communication 

Technology (ICT) Innovation Centers

Many of the information technology innovations making a 

difference in Africa have been—and are now—developed on the 
Africa’s Evolving Infosystems

27

continent. Kenyan information technology (IT) developers created 

Ushahidi in response to the instability and violence following the 

2007 national elections. Since then the Ushahidi platform has 

been adapted to various purposes around the world. Uchaguzi, the 

elections monitoring system, was developed by many of the same 

key players involved in the creation of Ushahidi. Many of these 

social entrepreneurs were also involved in the creation of iHub, a 

gathering space in Nairobi for technology enthusiasts and bloggers 

drawn together for the high-bandwidth connectivity, mutual 

inspiration, and technical support. The iHub center is an example 

of the sort of innovation centers that urban studies research 

and sociological studies point to as agents for further economic 

development and innovation.60

Inspired by iHub, Hive Colab in Kampala, Uganda, offers 

another example of an Africa-based innovation center. It is an open, 

collaborative, community-owned, work environment for young tech 

entrepreneurs to focus on projects, access the Internet, and have a quiet 

professional environment in which to develop their ideas, hold events, 

and generally collaborate. It is associated with another Kampala-based 

initiative called Appfrica, which facilitates, mentors, and incubates 

software entrepreneurs in East Africa.

In Cape Town, South Africa, business leaders founded the Cape 

Town Information Technology Initiative (CITI) in 1998. One of 

CITI’s key initiatives is the Bandwidth Barn (BWB). Similar to iHub 

and Hive Colab, the BWB, has been in operation since 2000 and is a 

leading ICT business incubator. In 2010, CITI proposed Cape Town 

as the site for a Google incubator, an innovation center funded by the 

global search giant, and an InfoDev incubator. InfoDev is a World Bank 

“ICT4D” initiative that looks for ways to leverage IT for development 

and economic growth. As hubs in a global network of innovation sites, 

the Hive Colab, BWB, and iHub are physically located in Africa but 

integrated into a global flow of scientific and technical information.61
ACSS Research Paper, No. 2

28

In 2010, the U.S. Department of State teamed up with iHub, Hive 

Colab, and Social Development Network (Sodnet)—a Kenya-based 

organization that promotes civil society—in sponsoring the “Apps4Africa” 

contest. Building on the foundation established by Secretary of State 

Hillary Clinton’s Civil Society 2.0 initiative, Apps4Africa competition 

encouraged the production of software applications suited to Africa’s 

development needs. The competition attracted more than twenty entries 

from participants in Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, and Tanzania. First Place 

went to a Kenyan developer’s mobile application that helps farmers track 

the fertility cycles of cows. Second Place went to Kleptocracy Fighters, 

Inc., a mobile application that allows citizens to record and report real 

time information concerning possible government corruption. Reports can 

be audio, video, or text. Mamakiba, the Third-Place winner, is an SMS 

savings calculator and prepayment tracking tool designed to help lowincome women save and prepay for their maternal healthcare needs.62

In another impressive example of IT innovation, participants 

at iHub joined teams from around the world in a “Random Hacks of 

Kindness” competition in June 2010. The “hackers” came together in 

real time for a marathon weekend of coding around problems relating 

to natural disaster risk and response. The problems tackled included 

the development of landslide prediction software for risk reduction 

in developing countries. Rainfall-triggered landslides are a common 

occurrence in poor communities around the world, and large events 

can cause loss of life, require community relocation, and cost millions 

of dollars. The Nairobi team’s submission received the grand prize.63

Another problem involved the development of a missing persons 

identification system to be deployed in the aftermath of a hurricane or 

other disaster resulting in mass dislocations of populations.

There are several other initiatives that one could point to in 

illustrating the growth and impact of the IT sector in Africa, all 

in just the last few years. For example, Geekcorps-Mali promotes 

stability and prosperity in the developing world through information 
Africa’s Evolving Infosystems

29

and communication technology. It pursues an evolving array of ICT 

initiatives in West Africa. Kiwanja.net, an offshoot of FrontlineSMS, 

provides advice and support for African and international NGOs on 

the use of ICT for development and related objectives. In fact, there 

has been such a proliferation of technological initiatives emerging out 

of Africa that keeping track of them all requires the assistance of a 

monitoring technology. AfriGadget is a site dedicated to tracking and 

highlighting sustainable technologies developed for Africa, usually by 

Africans. In 2008, it was named by Time magazine as one of the topfifty Web sites in the world.64

Besides homegrown innovation centers such as iHub, CITI, and 

SmartExchange, African locations have been selected by several major 

global IT companies for placement of IT innovation centers.

◆ Ericsson Innovation Center (EIC) has three application 

development hubs: Nigeria, South Africa, and Kenya. EIC 

concentrates on mobile applications. It is modeled after the 

Gramjyoti project in India and the Alokito Bangladesh project, 

both of which centered on the linkages between mobile 

telephony and economic development. 

◆ Nokia Research Center–Nairobi focuses on the needs of the 

African mobile phone user.

◆ Microsoft announced that it would build four innovation 

centers in Africa, including two in South Africa.

◆ IBM launched its Africa Innovation Center in Johannesburg in 

September 2009—part of a US$120-million, 2-year investment 

in the African IT sector.

Africa can expect bigger changes in the near term. Figure 3 illustrates 

the undersea high-bandwidth cables servicing Africa by 2011. About 80 

percent of global data transmission uses undersea cables. As of mid-2009, 

40 percent of continental Africa’s nations were without a direct highbandwidth cable connection. Satellite uplinks were used instead but at 

rates that were twenty times more expensive than bandwidth prices in 
ACSS Research Paper, No. 2

30

the United States. The new cable systems will alter that pricing structure, 

opening up new opportunities for the growth of high-speed Internet 

and better cellular telephony.65 Once all 12 undersea cables are fully 

operational in 2011, Africa’s total international bandwidth will increase 

from about 6 terabytes per second (tbps) in 2009 to as much as 34 tbps.66

Organizations, Institutions, and Security

Because security is the product of sound institutions and 

organizations, we are led to ask questions about their origins. 

Figure 3. African Undersea Cables

Source: Stephen Song, http://manypossibilities.net.
Africa’s Evolving Infosystems

31

Institutions that contribute to transparency and accountability, such 

as a free and responsible press, are often a part of the answer. Nobel 

Laureate Amartya Sen’s oft-quoted observation summarizes the 

proposition: “There has never been a famine in any country that has 

been a democracy with a relatively free press. I know of no exception.”67

In his analysis, Sen demonstrates that famines have less to do with 

deficiencies in the overall availability of food than they do with the 

distributional effects associated with government decisionmaking. 

Famines are typically the result of bad decisions, the lack of timely 

information, and the lack of means for putting political pressure on 

government leaders to take appropriate and timely action. A free press 

and other democratic institutions offer the best protection against these 

disconnects. Timely, accurate information is an obvious prerequisite 

to holding government decisionmaking accountable. “Newspaper 

reports and public protests,” notes Sen, “carry not only information 

that authorities can use, but also elements of pressure that may make 

it politically compelling to respond to these danger signals.”68 Timely, 

accurate information helps create predictability, and predictability and 

security are closely related.

What kind of organizations and institutions are best suited to 

creating these conditions? While there may not be a single answer to 

this question, a few general tenets emerge. In this study, two stand out: 

a free press and civil society empowered by new technology.

Clearly, a free press has an essential role to play in fostering 

access to information. Unfortunately, according to Freedom House 

and Reporters Without Borders, press freedom in Africa seems, on 

the whole, to be slipping backwards. This is why continued efforts to 

improve the professionalism of journalists in Africa are so essential, as 

are the equally important efforts to encourage governments to be aware 

of the long-term positive benefits of press freedom. This is not an easy 

task, particularly when press freedom is often seen as threatening to 

insecure and weak governments. 
ACSS Research Paper, No. 2

32

In semi-authoritarian countries, challenges to press freedom are 

daunting. “On paper, Rwanda has more private newspapers and radio 

stations than at any point in its history. In practice, independent 

news coverage is minimal due to business woes and government 

intimidation.”69 Autocratic governments will instinctively try to shut 

down or intimidate those who try to use information technology to 

further freedom’s reach.70 In other instances, insurgent groups force 

mobile phone operators to turn off towers so as to thwart efforts to 

improve security with alert systems that rely on mobile phones.71 Yet, 

as ICT becomes more widely adopted, those governments that restrict 

the flow of information will increasingly stand out. They must also be 

forced to absorb the deleterious effects these restrictive policies will 

have on their economies.

The larger point is that organizational dynamics, economics, and 

political pressures both shape and are shaped by information access. 

And given the role of a free press in security, stability, and development, 

it is important that we give careful consideration to how information is 

accessed and its effects on the nature of organizations and institutions. 

Not all information is the same. One common distinguishing 

property of information is cost. It costs more in time and energy, for 

example, to physically transport information on paper than it does 

to send it electronically. This is having a major effect on the nature 

of journalism throughout the world. Costs take the form of newsstock, ink, binders, distribution systems, etc. They are met by large 

organizational structures, such as The New York Times, or Le Monde. 

These costs also offer opportunities to those who wish to interrupt the 

flow of physically constructed and distributed information. Interference 

in the system (such as seizing the printers and disrupting the availability 

of ink or paper) impedes the process. 

There are other examples of the relationship between the cost of 

information and the nature of organizations. Information in printed 

books gives rise to an organization called a library. Yet it costs more 
Africa’s Evolving Infosystems

33

in time and space to use a card catalogue to manage information in a 

library than it does to store it electronically. Furthermore, it costs more 

to store a physical book than it does to store the same information 

on a website. It is also more costly to check a book out of a library 

than it is to download it from a Web site. One must go to a library, 

check the catalogue, and find the correct shelf—only to discover that 

the book is not there. This takes time, energy, and resources. When 

stored electronically, the same information is available to a “library 

patron” without leaving home—assuming the required communication 

technology is in place. These are opportunity costs—the cost of what 

one could be doing rather than what one is doing, in this case, going to 

retrieve a book that isn’t there. Nor can an electronic book be checked 

out and made unavailable to other readers. There are as many copies as 

there are readers. The actual cost of the book, its storage costs, and the 

opportunity and transaction costs associated with its use are all affected 

by the nature of the information that creates a “book.”

Likewise, these sorts of costs affect group activities oriented to 

common goals. Information costs can be thought of as an aspect of what 

economists call transaction costs. This refers to the effort required in 

time and energy to conduct business, or to organize any human endeavor. 

Low-cost, abundant, easily distributed information lowers transaction costs, 

which affects the nature of institutions and organizations. This explains the 

emergence of the security, health, and financial initiatives in Africa 

described earlier that are enabled by mobile networks. 

Writing a century ago, sociologist Max Weber noted the relationship 

between the chief characteristics of information and the nature of 

organizational structure. In his era, that meant a large, hierarchically 

structured bureaucracy. Bureaucracy is established according to the needs 

of rational administration and organized according to areas of expertise 

in a high-cost information environment. Resting on a belief in the 

rationality of rules and the demonstrated capacities of those elevated 

to authority to issue directives, bureaucracy was understood as a kind of 
ACSS Research Paper, No. 2

34

meritocracy. It emphasized the importance of knowledge and expertise 

over personality and identity. Weber refers to “the rational specialization 

of functions and the rule of expert knowledge” in describing the 

organization of hierarchical administrative systems.72

In Wirtschaft und Gesellshaft (Economy and Society), Weber also 

argues that the administration of business depended on the tempo of 

operations. This in turn is determined by the “peculiar nature of the 

modern means of communication, including, among other things, 

the news service of the press.”73 The tempo of administration must 

match the flow of information coursing through society. Accordingly, 

hierarchy and command and control systems are inherently about the 

efficient flow of information across a large number of people based on 

the differentiation of skill, knowledge, and responsibility. This is the 

premise of hierarchical organizations: that information is scarce, costly, 

and difficult to assimilate and manage. 

Political scientist Bruce Bimber picks up on Weber’s link between 

information and the nature of organizational structures in society. For 

an example he points to the nature of information systems in North 

America in the 18th and early 19th century. Its chief characteristic 

was the “absence of an effective system for the national-scale flow of 

political information.” Although he is describing a particular time and 

place, his point applies equally well to information and organizations 

across history and location. Bimber writes:

Before the 1820s, communication and the exchange 

of information were constrained by the limits of faceto-face contact and slow human travel. No electronic 

or electrical communication medium would operate 

until the telegraph at mid-century, and no true system 

of national news existed to assemble and distribute 

information. Postal service was rudimentary, with the 

distribution of mail unreliable and often unavailable 
Africa’s Evolving Infosystems

35

in many places. The number of roads or rivers used 

for conveyance of messages was insufficient to move 

information around the country in a functional way.74

He is describing an underdeveloped region, regardless of the 

timeframe. This was important for, as must be kept in mind, information 

technology includes more than electronic devices. Roads, railroads, 

the pony express, and (now) air travel are also elements of information 

technology. They convey information. The consequences of the inability 

to communicate politically germane information in such an environment 

are profound. Because public officials are without a systematic way of 

gauging citizen preferences, representation rests on conjecture and 

rumor—or worse, manipulation and exploitation. At the same time, 

with so little information available to those living far from administrative 

centers, citizens have little guidance in assigning responsibility for political 

outcomes to appropriate officials. Accountability is all but impossible. 

What is more, citizens are unable to communicate with one another. 

As Bimber observed in his example of an underdeveloped North 

America, the limited flow of information “obstructed the formation of 

coalitions and coordinated political action.”75 The capacity for democratic 

governance, political accountability, and the nature of political organization are 

deeply affected by the characteristics of information and communication.

Organizations are—or at least can be—less hierarchical, more 

adaptable to changing circumstances, and networked. For example, 

rather than brick and mortar buildings, modern political advocacy 

organizations and interest groups have virtual presences, meaning they 

occupy an information space more than they do a physical one. Ushahidi 

and Voix des Kivus don’t exist in the same way other more established 

organizations with similar purposes do. Yet established organizations have 

patterns of doing things that are not easily changed, sometimes for very 

good reasons. Rather than use crowdsourcing, some NGOs rely on country 

experts—often a lone individual posted to a region—who is responsible 
ACSS Research Paper, No. 2

36

for offering assessments of the stability and security of his or her region in 

periodical reports. This approach mirrors the system used by nation-states 

for decades. Its strength is found in the expertise and credibility of the 

area expert. The weakness is in the time delays, excessive demands, and 

vulnerabilities resulting from relying on a lone individual.

“Post-bureaucratic” organizational structures reflect an 

information-rich society, one characterized by cheap, plentiful, 

and easily managed and distributed information. Various collective 

action initiatives do not require organization at all, at least not in the 

traditional sense. This constitutes “the opening of formerly closed 

organizational boundaries.”76 Within and among organizations, the 

segregation of information according to official roles is weakened. They 

become more open and inclusive—and less hierarchical. In this sense, 

horizontal organization is more democratic. “Structurally, democracies’ 

‘horizontal networking’—that is, the flow of ideas back and forth 

between the public, private, and civic sectors—allows for greater 

versatility, timeliness, and capacity for adjustment in the adoption and 

implementation of a policy than the hierarchical structures typical of 

authoritarian systems.”77

Scarce and restricted information encourages the development of 

undemocratic, opaque, and unaccountable institutions of governance. 

Information abundance encourages greater transparency and 

accountability. The trends in mobile telephony, the expanded availability 

of broadband cable, and the use of radio in community services in Africa 

describe an emerging environment of information abundance. As obstacles 

to information flow continue to fall, unprecedented new opportunities for 

improving governance and security in Africa will continue to emerge.

Policy Recommendations

Development in Africa not only improves the lives and well-being 

of Africans, it also contributes to global peace and security. While 

speaking at an event marking the announcement of a new economic 
Africa’s Evolving Infosystems

37

development initiative of the United States, Secretary of Defense 

Robert Gates put the point this way: “Development contributes to 

stability. It contributes to better governance. And if you are able to do 

those things and you’re able to do them in a focused and sustainable 

way, then it may be unnecessary for us to send soldiers.”78 The growth in 

the number of mobile phones available to economically disadvantaged 

people, the availability of remote sensing data to nongovernmental 

organizations, and the complementary availability of radio are 

contributing to democratic governance and security in Africa through 

greater transparency and accountability. New kinds of institutions 

and organizations have emerged—Ushahidi, iHub, FrontlineSMS, 

Voix des Kivus, MobileActive—that knit communities together, 

protect civilians, and help them get a fair price for the fruits of their 

labor, while helping ensure greater accountability. New information 

technologies and applications such as mobile phones and community 

radio listener clubs have deepened the impact of established media. 

The central policy recommendation emerging from this analysis 

is to strengthen and expand these trends—with the aim of supporting 

responsive African information initiatives. These, in turn, will augment 

ongoing progress toward security, development, and democratic 

governance on the continent. 

Support IT Innovation Centers. The catalysts for so many of the 

key changes in African information systems described in this study 

have come from Africa itself. CITI, SmartXchange, the Johannesburg 

Centre for Software Engineering, Geekcorps-Mali, Kiwanja.net, Hive 

Colab, and iHub are African initiatives in response to African needs. 

The full effect of this is subtle and therefore might be missed. When 

one visits iHub in Nairobi, or attends a CITI event in Cape Town, 

or speaks with those who keep the community radio station running 

in Goma, one immediately senses a well-deserved pride. There is 

ownership and commitment and a palpable sense of ambition in these 

places. There is a sense that, “We did this.” The fact that international 
ACSS Research Paper, No. 2

38

analysts and academics come to these groups to learn about their 

ongoing accomplishments is itself a significant indicator of the depth 

of the changes at hand. In the past, these international experts came 

to offer advice and lecture, not learn about the latest innovation in the 

application of technology for positive social change. 

Innovation centers should be supported by grants, technical 

exchanges, and infrastructure support. Yet African initiatives must 

remain African. To strike the needed balance between appreciated 

support and an unwarranted tendency toward co-optation, international 

assistance should be collaborative. Civil society organizations today are, 

by the nature of the electronic networks described in this study, global 

in reach. Supporting these local information technology initiatives 

through grants, technical advice, or exchange programs helps create 

a stronger capacity on the global scale. Technology supplies the 

tools required for local initiatives to overcome the transaction costs 

associated with collective action. The international focus should, 

for the most part, remain on the development of the technological 

capacity to form organizations needed to address the economic and 

security priorities of African communities. These communities are then 

best suited to developing the initiatives that will be effective for them. 

Similarly, strengthening exchange programs with African students 

and community leaders involved in the development of technologies 

addressing human needs in Africa will help build indigenous capacity. 

Encouraging further exchange programs with leading technology firms, 

such as Google, Microsoft, IBM, Ericsson, Yahoo!, and others will also 

deepen the technical know-how of African entrepreneurs. With the 

expanding technical facilities and greater bandwidth, workshops with 

these technology companies can be virtual. 

Strengthening exchange programs should not be limited to technical 

fields but targeted to governance more generally. Ory Okolloh, the Kenyan 

lawyer whose vision led to the creation of Ushahidi, and who now serves 

as its executive director, obtained an undergraduate degree in political 
Africa’s Evolving Infosystems

39

science from the University of Pittsburgh and a law degree in 2005 from 

Harvard University. In 2006, she cofounded the parliamentary watchdog 

site Mzalendo—the Kenyan equivalent of the Congressional Record and 

C-Span in the United States.79 Innovations in the social application of 

technology are just as important as technological innovation.

Assist Women Empowerment Initiatives. Statistical evidence points 

to a gender gap in the ownership of mobile phones, with fewer women 

in the developing world owning and using mobile phones. According 

to statistics provided by the GSMA Development Fund and the 

Cherie Blair Foundation for Women, women overall are 21 percent 

less likely than men to own a mobile phone. In Africa, the figure is 23 

percent. Women represent nearly two-thirds of the untapped market 

for mobile phones.80 In an effort to close the mobile phone gender 

gap, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has backed an initiative called 

mWoman. Closing the gap empowers women in the marketplace and 

improves safety.81 Assistance efforts should give special priority to the 

empowerment of women and to helping close the mobile gender gap.

An example of such a program is Tostan’s Jokko Initiative: 

Mobile Technology Amplifying Social Change. Tostan is a 

development NGO with operations in eight African nations. The 

Jokko Initiative aims to provide women with access to mobile 

phones and training in applications for community engagement and 

social change. Among its priorities is connecting women with one 

another and with their communities, helping to build consensus on 

local development priorities.

Support Liberalization of the Telecommunication Sector. 

Governments should limit their direct involvement in the 

mobile telephony business. Since the liberalization of Nigeria’s 

telecommunication sector in 2000, the industry has become a source 

of approximately 5,500 jobs, with another 450,000 jobs associated 

indirectly with the industry.82 Yet the penchant for government 

control continues to constrain these opportunities in many African 
ACSS Research Paper, No. 2

40

countries. Ethiopia has maintained a monopoly on mobile telephony, 

resulting in a penetration rate of just over 1 percent in 2007. In 

neighboring, war-ravaged Somalia, three competing mobile service 

providers had a 6 percent penetration rate. 

Yet liberalization must come with effective regulation. Governments 

should be encouraged to regulate the mobile market in ways that support 

competition. Without regulation, mobile service providers are less likely 

to provide affordable rates for connections between operators and for 

international service, even within Africa. Interconnection tariffs limit 

effective competition as dominant providers drive competition out 

of the market by, essentially, excluding them from the local network. 

Also, government intervention may be needed to create incentives for 

the provision of services in rural areas. Regulators can require carriers to 

provide coverage in rural areas as a part of a licensing agreement. 

Another approach is to create a Universal Access Fund (UAF). 

Financing expansion of mobile services to high-cost and low-income 

regions, historically, has been provided by either higher tariffs for some 

services (such as domestic long-distance or international calling) or by 

state subsidies. Increased international competition has, in most cases, 

made high tariffs untenable. To avoid reliance on state subsidies, UAFs 

have been set up to channel a portion of revenue from all the carriers 

into a fund for redistribution as subsidies to expand universal service or 

access. Colombia and Peru established such funds in 1994, followed by 

Chile and Mexico in 1995 and Guatemala in 1996.83 Each operator can 

bid for a subsidy from this fund to help develop additional services in 

underserved regions. 

UAFs can be used to extend mobile telephony coverage to the 

market margins. According to research conducted in 24 sub-Saharan 

African nations by the World Bank, 57 percent of the population 

is already within range of a mobile signal. Globally, $3 billion of 

market-led investment would leave only 3 percent of the global 

population without access to a mobile signal by 2015.84
Africa’s Evolving Infosystems

41

Expand and Sustain Radio’s Reach. Radio broadcasting continues to 

be a central source of news and information across Africa. Its significance 

to the daily lives and well-being of people in rural communities is 

strengthened by the communities’ ability to “talk back” to the radio 

stations with mobile phones. Listener clubs help develop programming, 

provide stations with information about community events, or call 

stations during crises to warn others of evolving threats. Aid agencies 

and government offices use radio to provide citizens information about 

health, safety, and other sorts of practical and valuable information. 

Recognizing the importance of radio, in 2010 the UN Food and 

Agriculture Organization’s Extension, Education and Communication 

Service provided equipment for producing and receiving radio 

programming to partner radio stations and members of the Association of 

Community Radios in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.85 Initiatives 

such as this are needed in communities across Africa. A more ambitious 

program for expanding community radio stations would strengthen their 

ability to knit communities together with much needed information about 

agriculture, health, security, and other community needs.

A related priority is to give more attention to sustaining radio 

systems established by the UN during peacekeeping operations. The 

information vacuum that is created when UN peacekeepers depart can 

be only partially filled by less professional and more localized community 

radio stations. With this in mind, the UN should establish partnerships 

with credible and capable local media outlets, such as nonpartisan 

public broadcasters or community radio networks, if such institutions 

exist. Where they do not exist, development efforts should include the 

incubation of sustainable radio systems that will remain even after the 

UN has departed. Current peacekeeping radio services should begin 

planning now for their eventual closure, and help build local broadcasters 

that could provide similarly professional and nonpartisan programming.86

Share Geospatial Data. The changes described in this study are tied 

to the fundamental global expansion of the availability of information. 
ACSS Research Paper, No. 2

42

A key instance of this is geospatial information, one of the central 

components of event mapping. Remote sensing data and GIS maps give 

organizations the ability to see into spaces that were once beyond the 

reach of even large organizations. Accordingly, steps should be taken to 

expand the availability of geospatial data.

The United States National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency 

(NGA) supports geospatial data analysis for the United States 

Government. This includes supporting humanitarian assistance 

programs, disaster relief, resource development, and construction 

projects. NGA’s imaginative use of unclassified geospatial data in 

Mongolia offers an example of what can be done in Africa. NGA 

first entered into an exchange and cooperative agreement with the 

government of Mongolia in 2004. Since then, detailed gravity and 

elevation data of Mongolia are helping produce highly accurate digital 

terrain models, important to the safe operation of flight navigation 

systems.87 In Africa, unclassified high-resolution geospatial imagery 

obtained from the commercial satellite image providers can be shared 

with African health and human welfare agencies, or with nonstate 

actors, to monitor environmental concerns or human rights issues, or 

help plan development projects. 

Develop Journalism Training Programs. The central premise of 

this analysis is that secure and stable societies are associated with open 

and responsive information systems. New information technologies are 

dramatically enhancing the capacity of such systems. Yet it would be a 

mistake to lose sight of the positive effects of “old-fashion” information 

technologies such as newspapers and radio stations. A free press is 

essential to development, stability, and security from violence and 

hunger. A clear path to increased stability and improved human security, 

therefore, is found in initiatives that strengthen existing media, as well as 

those that develop new media and civil society initiatives. 

Except for South Africa, qualified institutions dedicated to 

training journalists in the region are either underdeveloped or missing 
Africa’s Evolving Infosystems

43

altogether.88 International lending agencies should support initiatives 

that raise the standards of journalism education in Africa. 

Representatives of the international community with a presence 

in Africa should also lead by example and proactively engage African 

journalists. Regular press conferences, press releases, background interviews, 

and other “press availabilities” can help set norms for engagement between 

government officials and journalists. They also represent potential 

experiential learning opportunities for local journalists. Spokespersons 

should encourage best practices, including regular clarifications of what 

it means to speak of “ground rules,” specifying background from on-therecord interviews. Individual follow-up with those who show professional 

promise should also be encouraged.89

There are several noteworthy examples of Africa-based 

independent initiatives aimed at strengthening journalism capacity in 

Africa. For example:

◆ The Mohamed Amin Foundation runs the MoFORCE Training 

for Television and Film program in Nairobi. It attracts aspiring 

broadcast journalists from all over Africa who want to learn 

technical aspects of television and film production. 

◆ Canada’s Carleton University launched its Rwanda Initiative 

in 2006. It consisted of four journalism professors, all veteran 

journalists, who took up residence at the National University of 

Rwanda in Butare. Since then the initiative has sent more than 

seventy Canadians to Rwanda to teach journalism, work as media 

interns, or conduct training sessions with working journalists.90

Research ICT-Security Initiatives. What is the impact and 

effectiveness of some of the innovative MONUC and communitybased ICT civilian protection initiatives reviewed in this study? 

Aside from the encouraging anecdotal evidence, little is known 

about the long-term effectiveness and viability of security and 

human welfare initiatives created by mobile telephony and related 

technologies.91 Though serious ethics considerations must be met first, 
ACSS Research Paper, No. 2

44

there are viable research designs involving cross-sectional analysis 

comparing the security of communities with mobile telephony 

versus communities without access to these technologies. Detailed 

longitudinal research on the introduction of mobile telephony and 

the security impact of these initiatives should also be supported. The 

Voix des Kivus program is doing some of this sort of work now, but 

much more needs to be done. Once completed, the research should 

inform efforts by the African security sector and international 

peacekeeping forces (particularly the African Union, United Nations, 

European Union, and U.S. Africa Command). The communitybased findings should have a training component attached so conflict 

resolution and early warning groups can most effectively build the 

technology components into their networks.

Africa has realized impressive progress in its information and 

communications environment over the past decade. This has 

opened up unfathomable new opportunities for information-sharing, 

education, and accountability on the continent. While there 

are no quick fixes or easy solutions to Africa’s many challenges, 

the development and safeguarding of reliable and innovative 

communication institutions are indispensable paths to greater 

security, democratic stability, and development. 
Africa’s Evolving Infosystems

45

Notes

1 Report from OHCHR Fact-finding Mission to Kenya, 6-28 February 2008 (United 

Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, February 2008). Keith Sommerville, 

“Kenya: Violence, Hate Speech and Vernacular Radio,” Montreal Institute for Genocide 

and Human Rights Studies, March 2010.

2

 Nadia El-Awady, “Media and Government to Blame for Egypt Swine Flu Chaos,” 

Science and Development Network, May 15, 2009, available at <www.scidev.net/en/

middle-east-and-north-africa/opinions/media-and-government-to-blame-for-egypt-swineflu-.html>.

3

 Jack Shenker, “Egyptian Christians Riot after Fatal Shooting,” The Guardian, 

January 7, 2010, available at <www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/07/egypt-gunmenkill-coptic-christmas>.

4

 “Nigeria: Investigate Massacre, Step Up Patrols,” Human Rights Watch, March 8, 

2010, available at <www.hrw.org/en/news/2010/03/08/nigeria-investigate-massacre-steppatrols>. 

5

 Elizabeth Donnelly, “Violence in Jos, Nigeria: Bloody Agendas and Hidden 

Hands,” Chatham House, March 10, 2010, available at <www.chathamhouse.org.uk/

media/comment/jos/-/1047/>.

6

 Ebrahim Samba, Francis Nkrumah, and Rose Leke, “Getting Polio Eradication 

Back on Track in Nigeria,” The New England Journal of Medicine 350, no. 7 (February 

2004).

7

 “Nigerian Polio Outbreak: When Myth Trumps Medicine,” Global Health Forum, 

August 24, 2009, available at <www.globalhealthforum.org/poliooutbreak.php>; “Wild 

Poliovirus Weekly Update,” Global Polio Eradication Initiative, August 11, 2010, available at <www.polioeradication.org/casecount.asp>. 

8

 “When Information Saves Lives: Engaging Local Media in Humanitarian Crises,” 

Internews, available at <www.internews.org/global/er/hm_saveslives.shtm>.

9

 Morton H. Halperin, Joseph T. Siegle, and Michael M. Weinstein, The Democracy 

Advantage: How Democracies Promote Prosperity and Peace (New York: Routledge, 2010); 

John R. Oneal and Bruce Russett, Triangulating Peace: Democracy, Interdependence, and 

International Organizations (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2001).

10 “Govt Defends Need for Information Bill,” South African Press Association, 

September 17, 2010.

11 Celia W. Dugger, “Proposed Restrictions on the News Media Cause Alarm in 

South Africa,” The New York Times, August 22, 2010. 

12 “Freedom of the Press, 2010 Edition,” Freedom House, April 29, 2010, available 

at <http://freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=16&year=0>. 

13 These observations are based in part on interviews in Kigali from April 22 to 

April 27, 2010, with several Rwandan journalists, all of whom requested anonymity 

for their own personal security. See also David Smith, “Editor Blames Security Forces 

After Rwandan Journalist Shot Dead,” The Guardian, June 25, 2010, available at <www.

guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jun/25/rwandan-journalist-shot-dead>; and “Newspaper’s 
ACSS Research Paper, No. 2

46

Deputy Editor Gunned Down Outside Home in Kigali,” Reporters Without Borders, 

June 25, 2010, available at <http://en.rsf.org/rwanda-newspaper-s-deputy-editorgunned-25-06-2010,37812.html>.

14 For one of the more comprehensive studies of the state of African media, based 

on fieldwork of dozens of researchers in 17 countries, see African Media Development 

Initiative, BBC World Service Trust, 2006, available at <http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/

worldservice/trust/pdf/AMDI/AMDI_summary_Report.pdf>.

15 See especially Seymour Martin Lipset, “Some Social Requirements of Democracy: Economic Development and Political Legitimacy,” The American Political Science 

Review 53, no. 3 (1959), 69–105.

16 Halperin et al., 4. Emphasis added.

17 “The World in 2009: ICT Facts and Figures,” International Telecommunication 

Union, October 2009, available at <www.itu.int/net/pressoffice/backgrounders/general/

pdf/3.pdf>.

18 “Over 5 Billion Mobile Phone Connections Existed Worldwide,” BBC, July 9, 

2010.

19 Richard Wray, “In Just 25 Years, the Mobile Phone Has Transformed the Way 

We Communicate,” The Guardian, January 1, 2010. 

20 Measuring the Information Society: The ICT Development Index (2009). International Telecommunication Union, 2009, available at <www.itu.int/net/pressoffice/backgrounders/general/pdf/5.pdf>. 

21 Elaine Engeler, “Poor But Networked: UN Study Says Cell Phone Use Surging,” 

Associated Press, February 23, 2010.

22 Daniel Nonor, “Ghana: Mobile Penetration Rate to Hit 60 Percent by End of 

Year,” The Ghanaian Chronicle, August 11, 2009.

23 Dave Lee, “Mo Ibrahim’s Mobile Revolution,” BBC, October 16, 2009. Ibrahim 

founded Mobile Systems International in 1989 and Celtel in 1998.

24 Clay Shirky, Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations (New York: Pengiun Books, 2008).

25 Sokari Ekine, ed., SMS Uprising: Mobile Activism in Africa (Cape Town: Pambazuka Press, 2010).

26 Sheila Kinkade and Katrin Verclas, Wireless Technology for Social Change (Washington, DC: UN Foundation–Vodafone Group Foundation Partnership, 2008). The 

survey was conducted from December 10, 2007, to January 13, 2008.

27 The Network of Mobile Election Monitors, “Election Monitoring Report,” 2007, 

available at <www.kiwanja.net/miscellaneous/NMEM_Election_Report.pdf>.

28 Curt Hopkins, “Kenyan Election: A Real-time Mobile Revolution,” The New 

York Times, August 5, 2010. 

29 Ibid. 

30 Geoffrey Njoku and Paula Fedeski, “Text messages bolster world’s largest distribution of mosquito nets,” United Nations Children’s Fund, available at <www.unicef.org/

infobycountry/nigeria_53421.html>. 
Africa’s Evolving Infosystems

47

31 Linda Raftree, “Tweaking: SMS Violence Reporting System in Benin,” April 24, 

2010, available at <http://lindaraftree.wordpress.com/2010/04/24/tweaking-sms-violencereporting-system-in-benin/>.

32 Linda Raftree, “Finding Some ICT Answers in Benin,” March 1, 2010, available 

at <http://lindaraftree.wordpress.com/2010/03/01/finding-some-ict-answers-in-benin/>. 

More generally, the potential effectiveness of mobile telephony in child protection and 

monitoring initiatives was made clear in conversations with Nicholas Wasunna, Senior 

Advisor, World Vision Kenya, and Tobias Oloo, Associate Director, Integrated Child 

Development Integrated Ministry Quality, World Vision Kenya. 

33 Catie Snow Bailard, “Mobile Phone Diffusion and Corruption in Africa,” Political 

Communication 26, no. 3 (July 2009), 338.

34 In May 2010, the Security Council, adopting Resolution 1925, announced that 

MONUC would be renamed from July 2010 to the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO). For consistency 

with source documents, this study will use MONUC.

35 “Needs Assessment: Establishment of Early Warning Centres (EWC) within 

MONUC Bases” (unpublished), Office of the Deputy Special Representative of the 

Secretary-General-Civil Affairs, MONUC, March 17, 2010. 

36 “MONUC Briefing Note on Protection of Civilians, Kinshasa, March 2010.” 

Background information also provided by Stéphane Auvray, Protection Officer, Office 

of the Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General-Civil Affairs, MONUC. 

Interviewed April 12, 2010, Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo.

37 “DR Congo: Improved Civilian Protection Activities Still Need Support,” Refugees International, November 13, 2009, available at <www.refugeesinternational.org/

policy/field-report/dr-congo-improved-civilian-protection-activities-still-need-support>.

38 Interview, Irungu Houghton, Pan-Africa Director/Directeur en Politiques Panafricaines, Oxfam-GB, Nairobi, Kenya, February 2010.

39 Kinkade and Verclas, 38.

40 Peace and Development Network Trust, “PeaceNet Kenya Post 2007 Elections 

Update 04–07 Jan 2008,” January 2008, available at <http://ocha-gwapps1.unog.ch/rw/

rwb.nsf/db900sid/AMMF-7ANHGN?OpenDocument>. 

41 Jennifer Aker, “The Mozambican Riots: Food for Thought,” Center for Global 

Development, September 13, 2010, available at <http://blogs.cgdev.org/globaldevelopment/2010/09/the-mozambican-riots-food-for-thought.php>.

42 “Mozambique ‘Blocked Texts’ during Food Riots,” BBC, September 14, 2010. 

43 Steven Livingston and Sean Aday, “NGOs as Intelligence Agencies: The Empowerment of Transnational Advocacy Networks and the Media by Commercial Remote 

Sensing in the Case of the Iranian Nuclear Program,” Geoforum 40, no. 4 (July 2009).

44 “Zimbabwe Shattered Lives—the Case of Porta Farm,” produced jointly by 

Amnesty International and Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights, March 31, 2006, 

available at < www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/AFR46/004/2006/en/734c8e3a-d44d11dd-8743-d305bea2b2c7/afr460042006en.pdf>.
ACSS Research Paper, No. 2

48

45 Jeff Howe, “The Rise of Crowdsourcing,” Wired, June 2006; Daren C. Brabham, 

“Crowdsourcing as a Model for Problem Solving: An Introduction and Cases,” Convergence: 

The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies 14, no. 1 (2008); Shirky.

46 “Kenya’s dubious election,” BBC, January 8, 2008. Ushahidi illustrates the fact 

that many of the technological and social innovations described in this study come from 

Africa. Ushahidi was originally suggested by Ory Okolloh, a Kenyan activist, lawyer, and 

blogger. Other founders include Eric Hersman, Juliana Rotich, and David Kobia. 

47 Eric Hersman, “The Ushahidi Engine in South Africa,” Ushahidi, May 26, 2008, 

available at <http://blog.ushahidi.com/index.php/2008/05/26/the-ushahidi-engine-insouth-africa/>. Eric Hersman was generous with his time in a meeting in Nairobi on 

March 3, 2010.

48 “Tracking the Eastern Congo Conflict,” Ushahidi, available at <http://drc.

ushahidi.com/>.

49 “War on Gaza,” Al Jazeera, available at <http://labs.aljazeera.net/warongaza/>.

50 Gregory Asmolov, “Russia: Online Cooperation as an Alternative for Government?” Global Voices, August 30, 2010.

51 Peter van der Windt, “Voix des Kivus,” Crisis Mappers Net, October 12, 2009, 

available at <www.crisismappers.net/group/conferencepresentations/forum/topics/voixdes-kivus?xg_source=activity>.

52 “In Chad, Locals Celebrate Their Radio Station’s Official Inauguration,” InterNews, 

March 16, 2010, available at <www.internews.org/prs/2010/20100316_chad.shtm>.

53 Ethan Zuckerman, “Why Cell Phones May Be the Most Important Technical Innovation of the Decade,” My Heart’s in Accra, April 26, 2007, available at <http://www.

ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2007/04/09/draft-paper-on-mobile-phones-and-activism/>.

54 Interview with Jacques Vagheni, director of Radio Tayna and vice-president of 

Collectif des radios et télévisions communautaires du Nord-Kivu (CORACON), Goma, 

Democratic Republic of the Congo, April 16, 2010. The impact of community radio 

in the Great Lakes region of Africa was also clarified and reinforced by Pierre N’sana, 

Kinshasa director of Institut Panos-Paris, Kinshasa, DRC, April 12, 2010.

55 Radio Okapi is operated by MONUC and benefits from the financial support 

of the Hirondelle Foundation. See Radio Okapi at <http://radiookapi.net/>. Interview 

with Jean Jacques Simon, MONUC Radio Okapi DRC Chief, Kinshasa, DRC, April 

13, 2010.

56 Bill Orme, “UN Peacekeeping Radio’s Unexamined Past and Uncertain Future,” 

Communication, Media, and Development Policy, February 17, 2010, available at <www.

comminit.com/en/node/310843/bbc>.

57 J.F. Phillips, Mian Bazle Hossain, and Mary Arends-Kuenning, “The Long-term 

Demographic Role of Community-based Family Planning in Rural Bangladesh,” Studies 

in Family Planning 27, no. 4 (July–August 1996), 213.

58 Ibid., 204.

59 “MTV Inspires Radio AIDS Education,” U.S. Agency for International Development, 2005, available at <http://africastories.usaid.gov/search_details.cfm?storyID=399&
Africa’s Evolving Infosystems

49

countryID=21§orID=0&yearID=5>.

60 Richard Florida, The Rise of the Creative Class, Cities and the Creative Class, and 

The Flight of the Creative Class (New York: Basic Books, 2002).

61 Caroline S. Wagner, The New Invisible College: Science for Development (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2008).

62 “Secretary Clinton Congratulates Winners of First Apps4Africa Competition,” U.S. Department of State, October 6, 2010, available at <www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/

ps/2010/10/149048.htm>.

63 “Access to Landslide Prediction Software for Risk Reduction,” Random Hacks of 

Kindness, available at <www.rhok.org/problem-definitions/full-list/access-to-landslideprediction-software-for-risk-reduction/>. 

64 “50 Best Websites: 2008,” Time, 2008, available at <www.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1809858_1809956_1811528,00.html>.

65 Gary Kim, “Twelve New African Undersea Cables Coming,” TMC Net - South 

Africa, September 3, 2009, available at <http://africa.tmcnet.com/topics/othercountries/

articles/63642-twelve-new-african-undersea-cables-coming.htm>.

66 Just over a thousand megabytes equals one gigabyte, and just over one million 

megabytes equals a terabyte. Put differently, 1,048,576 (1,0242) megabytes = 1 terabyte.

67 Amartya Sen, Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlements and Deprivation 

(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981); see also Amartya Sen, “Development: Which 

Way Now?” The Economic Journal 93, no. 372 (December 1983).

68 Jean Drèze and Amartya Sen, The Political Economy of Hunger (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), 263. There are echoes of the CNN effect hypothesis in this claim. 

The CNN effect hypothesis suggests that media pressure alters the nature and tempo 

of foreign policy decisionmaking. See Steven Livingston, Beyond the CNN Effect: An 

Examination of Media Effects According to Type of Intervention (Cambridge, MA.: The 

Shorenstein Center on Press, Politics and Public Policy, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, 1996). 

69 Report 2009 on Press Freedom: Rwanda, Committee to Protect Journalists, New 

York, October 2, 2009, available at <http://cpj.org/2009/02/attacks-on-the-press-in2008-rwanda.php>. 

70 Shanthi Kalathil and Taylor C. Boas, “The Internet and State Control in Authoritarian Regimes: China, Cuba, and the Counterrevolution,” Carnegie Endowment 

for International Peace, July 2001.

71 Yaroslav Trofimov, “Cell Carriers Bow to Taliban Threat,” The Wall Street Journal,

March 22, 2010. 

72 H.H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills, From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology (New 

York: Oxford University Press, 1958), 237.

73 Ibid., 215.

74 Bruce Bimber, Information and American Democracy: Technology in the Evolution of 

Political Power (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 47. 

75 Ibid., 48.
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76 Charles Heckscher and Lynda M. Applegate, “Introduction,” in Charles Heckscher and Anne Donnellon, eds., The Post-Bureaucratic Organization: New Perspectives in 

Organizational Change (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1994). 

77 Halperin et al., 15.

78 Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates, Secretary of Treasury Timothy F. 

Geithner, and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton jointly delivered remarks on 

development policy at the Global Leadership Coalition; Jim Garamone, “Gates Calls 

Development Integral to Security,” American Forces Press Service, September 28, 2010.

79 “Mzalendo: Eye on Kenyan Parliament,” at <www.mzalendo.com/>; Shashank Bengali, “Native Voices Blog Out of Africa,” McClatchy Washington Bureau, June 21, 2007.

80 “Women & Mobile: A Global Opportunity: A study on the mobile phone gender 

gap in low and middle-income countries,” a joint publication of the GSMA Development Fund and the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women, October 2010, 6, available at 

<www.gsmworld.com/documents/women_mobile.pdf>.

81 Kathleen A. Staudt and Jane S. Jaquette, eds., Women in Developing Countries: A 

Policy Focus (New York: The Haworth Press, 1983).

82 Rohit Singh, “Mobile Phones for Development and Profit: A Win-Win Scenario,” Overseas Development Institute, April 2009.

83 Heather E. Hudson, “Defining Universal Service Funds,” InterMedia 38, no. 1 

(March 2010), available at <www.iicom.org/intermedia/IM%20March%202010%20USF.

pdf>.

84 Singh.

85 Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, “Rural Radio: A Real 

Tool for Communication and Rural Development,” available at <www.fao.org/sd/ruralradio/en/23589/index.html>. 

86 William Orme first offered these recommendations regarding UN radio stations. 

William Orme, “UN Peacekeeping Radio’s Unexamined Past and Uncertain Future,” 

Communication, Media, and Development Policy, February 17, 2010, available at <www.

comminit.com/en/node/310843/bbc>.

87 Margaret Jorgensen and Chuck Boyer, “NGA and Mongolia Map New Horizons,” 

Pathfinder: The Geospatial Intelligence Magazine, March/April 2008, 8.

88 Guy Berger and Corinne Matras, “Criteria and Indicators for Quality Journalism 

Training Institutions: Identifying Potential Centres of Excellence in Journalism Training 

in Africa,” UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, 2007.

89 This observation is inspired by the author’s experiences working with Iraqi 

journalists in 2008 and 2009 at the U.S. press center in Baghdad. The author organized 

mock press conferences with Iraqi journalists and the U.S. Embassy spokesperson and 

coached the journalists on how to ask better questions and explained the strategy the 

spokesperson used in answering questions. He sought to train a foreign press corps to be 

tougher on Embassy spokespersons. The author pursued similar initiatives in Kandahar 

and Kabul, Afghanistan.

90 “Public policy joins Rwanda Initiative,” Pamorama Newsletter, January 4, 2009, 
Africa’s Evolving Infosystems

51

available at <www.pamorama.carleton.ca/2009-01/148.htm>. The author has visited 

with the Canadian and Rwandan faculty in Butare on several occasions since 2006 and 

has worked with Professor Allan Thompson, founding director of the initiative.

91 As of this writing, one of the more noteworthy efforts at systematic analysis is 

being done by Peter Van der Windt, a Ph.D. student at Columbia University’s Center for 

Development Studies. See <http://cu-csds.org/projects/event-mapping-in-congo/>.

Africa’s Evolving Infosystems

53

Acknowledgments

Although this study represents the efforts of dozens of people across 

three continents, several people stand out for special recognition. 

Joseph Siegle, director of research at the Africa Center for Strategic 

Studies, offered valuable insights and a critical editorial eye as the final 

report went through several drafts. Beyond sound editorial judgment, 

his insights into development and accountability mechanisms have 

been especially helpful. His support and dedicated assistance has been 

outstanding. I am also grateful for the helpful comments and criticisms 

offered by three anonymous reviewers. Thanks, too, to several GW 

colleagues who provided generous assistance, especially Kerric Harvey, 

who read and commented on an early draft, Mark Asquino, Robert 

Entman, Matthew Hindman, and Frank Sesno, who offered helpful 

criticisms. Catie Snow Bailard’s solid empirical work on information 

technology and governance in Africa inspired an important element 

of my argument. Thomas Risse and Gregor Walter-Drop at the Freie 

Universität-Berlin’s Collaborative Research Center 700: Governance 

in Areas of Limited Statehood, provided an important opportunity to 

share my ideas with researchers from several disciplines. Of course, I 

am responsible for all errors of fact or analysis that turn up with the 

welcome scrutiny of readers. 

Without Davin O’Regan’s professionalism and attention to a 

hundred different details involving my two trips to Africa—with 

Europe and Afghanistan thrown in the mix—I would have never 

managed to undertake the extensive field work that went into the 

preparation of this study. May we both never again wait for a visa 24 

hours prior to departure in the midst of a Washington, DC, snowstorm. 

Whereas Davin was instrumental in getting me to Africa, Claude Toze 

and his colleagues were instrumental in making the arrangements that 

got me around Africa, including the day when it seemed impossible to 

fly from Abuja, Nigeria, to Nairobi, Kenya. With a mobile phone call 
ACSS Research Paper, No. 2

54

back to Washington, I had a flight within 20 minutes. It was reassuring 

to have such solid professional support behind me and a mobile phone.

In Europe, Stephen Hricik and his colleagues offered a gold mine 

of contacts and ideas. Indeed, one of Stephen’s suggestions led to the 

development of the principal theme of this study. I could still be in 

Nigeria making my way through his list of contacts and suggestions. 

Thank you.

To the many people in Senegal, Nigeria, Kenya, the Democratic 

Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, and South Africa who took the 

time to speak with me, educate me, inspire me, and share your 

thoughts with me, I am in your debt. Many of my insights came from 

chance encounters with people on the streets of Dakar, Lagos, Abuja, 

Kigali, Kinshasa, Bukavu, Cyangugu, Goma, Nairobi, the several 

Maasai communities visited along the border of Kenya and Tanzania, 

Cape Town, Stellenbosch, and many other towns and settlements 

large and small.

In addition to offering insights, several people offered their homes, 

home-cooked meals while going out of their way to provide me with 

travel assistance, or put me in touch with other sources, and looked 

out for my well-being. In Dakar, Richard Moncrieff of the International 

Crisis Group was not only a gracious host, but also a valuable source of 

insight into the nature of accountability systems in Africa. In Lagos, 

Raphael Udeogu of Motorola-Nigeria was phenomenal. He offered 

me a breakthrough insight concerning mobile telephony while also 

welcoming me to his city in an extraordinarily gracious manner. In 

Abuja, Alex Cozma was a warm and generous host and invaluable 

source of insight into life in Nigeria. In Kinshasa, Thomas Fessy of the 

BBC took time to meet with me and share insights into the challenges 

associated with reporting from the Great Lakes region of Africa. 

Arnaud Zajtman and Marlène Rabaud of France 24 News offered 

similar insights. Sophie Diestelhorst, Senior Community Driven 

Reconstruction Coordinator, International Rescue Committee in the 
Africa’s Evolving Infosystems

55

Democratic Republic of the Congo, took me under wing long before 

I showed up bedraggled in Bukavu. In particular, she arranged the 

assistance of Charline Burton in Kinshasa. Without Charline’s amazing 

professionalism and attention to detail, not to mention her knowledge 

of the Democratic Republic of the Congo bureaucracy, I’d never have 

made it in or out of the country. Jacques Vagheni, the director of 

Radio Tayna and vice-president of Collectif des radios et télévisions 

communautaires du Nord-Kivu, spent hours helping me understand the 

significance of radio to rural African communities.

Nicholas Wasunna of World Vision in Nairobi allowed me to 

drop in on him without notice one afternoon and then spend 2 hours 

talking about the challenges of community service programming in 

rural Africa. Thanks to him, I had the opportunity to travel to distant 

Maasai communities. This provided me with new insights into the 

potential uses of mobile telephony and GIS in communities separated 

by great distances. Irungu Houghton of Oxfam-UK in Nairobi was 

helpful to me as I considered the use of mobile phones as a means of 

conflict amelioration. 

Eric Hersman, one of the founders of Ushahidi, took time to meet 

with me in the midst of the celebration of the opening of iHub, the new 

technology innovation center in Nairobi. Eric and his colleagues at 

Ushahidi sparked a revolution in collective action and accountability 

the world over. He and other social entrepreneurs in Kenya, South 

Africa, Uganda, and elsewhere in Africa offer inspiration and vision in 

an African voice. Uwazi—Uwajibikaji—Mafanikio. Thanks to you all.

Africa’s Evolving Infosystems

57

About the Author

Steven Livingston is professor of media and public affairs and 

international affairs with appointments in the School of Media and 

Public Affairs and the Elliott School of International Affairs at George 

Washington University. His research appears in leading scholarly 

journals; his last book was published in 2007: When the Press Fails: 

Political Power and the News Media from Iraq to Katrina (with W. Lance 

Bennett and Regina Lawrence). He can be contacted at sliv@gwu.edu.



AFRICA CENTER FOR STRATEGIC STUDIES

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