Civic Tech: What we are reading
By: Melissa Tsungai Zisengwe
Tags: Civic Tech Network, Internet, News, Internet Shutdowns, Open Data

Civic Tech: What we are reading

This week we share content worth reading on open data in Africa, internet shutdowns and civic tech innovation

PICTURE: PEXELS

CIPESA | New report explores African leaders and Internet shutdowns in Africa

About 22 African governments have ordered network disruptions in the last four years. Since the start of 2019, six African countries including Algeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Chad, Gabon, Sudan and Zimbabwe have experienced internet shutdowns.

The Collaboration on International ICT Policy for East and Southern Africa’s (CIPESA) report observed and linked the level of authoritarianism in a country and how long a president has been in power and the likelihood of experiencing a network shutdown in the country.

“In fact, of the 22 African countries where internet disruptions were recorded over the last five years, 77% are authoritarian, while 23% are categorised as hybrid regimes,” states the report.

“Internet Freedom Predators Are Also Press Freedom Predators: The countries that have ordered internet disruptions are among the lowliest ranked in Africa on the 2018 World Press Freedom Index including Algeria, Congo-Brazzaville, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, DR Congo, Ethiopia, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Gambia, Mali, Uganda, and Zimbabwe.”

Internet disruptions were registered in five countries in Africa within the first three weeks of 2019 and the report suggests we may see more internet shutdowns due to at least 20 African countries holding elections this year.

Web Foundation Org | The Africa Data Revolution Report 2018

The Africa Data Revolution Report 2018 analysed the current

state and recent evolution of open data in the African data communities. It explored key countries across the continent, researched a wide range of open data initiatives and benefits from global thematic expertise.

“Open data in Africa needs a vibrant, dynamic, open and multi-tier data ecosystem if the datasets are to make a real impact.” The Africa Data Revolution Report 2018 studied the status and emerging impact of open data in 30 African countries including Kenya and South Africa.

According to the report, the data revolution offers Africa a more realistic chance at measuring and tracking its progress towards the Africa Union’s Agenda 2063 targets and the 2030 Agenda’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). “Africa cannot afford to be left behind; sticking to business-as-usual implies that Africa’s economies would miss the wave and the gap with the economies that successfully exploit the value of data would keep widening,” says the report.

Code for America | Process vs. Product: Civic innovation beyond open data and civic apps

Why is it important to innovate beyond civic tech apps and go beyond tech? Carl V. Lewis, founder and Director of American civic tech platform, Open Savannah, says civic tech is about connecting people, organising relationships and building the grassroots and a sustainable movement beyond tech.

“Civic-tech isn’t at all just about building civic apps or scraping interesting datasets. Rather, at its core, civic-tech is about building a community, a movement, a sustainable, scalable, long-term citizen-driven network of actual humans to support bottom-up innovation and experimentation in government services and technology,” says Lewis.

The Guardian | What if you lost all your civic tech work in one click?

The Guardian’s United Kingdom technology editor, Alex Hern’s “Myspace loses all content uploaded before 2016” made us think, some civic tech communities, platforms or groups rely on platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp and other social media platforms for their work. What if there is a glitch in the system or an accident and all the evidence from your organisation and work is deleted off the internet?

Civic tech platforms such as the South African citizen engagement platform GovChat, relies on WhatsApp to function and create dialogue between citizens and government using the messaging platform. Many of such platforms exist but anything can happen to online social media and social networking services. This is something to ponder on especially for civic tech and social organisations in countries where internet shutdowns are a regular occurrence.