Civic Tech in Africa with Nathi Mcetywa Civic Tech Innovation Network

In this episode, Nathi interviews Paul Plantinga, a senior research manager at the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) in South Africa, about e-participation in governance. They discuss the landscape of participatory governance in South Africa and Africa, the use of digital platforms for public participation, and the challenges of online participation. Paul also shares insights from his work with municipalities and the importance of user-driven approaches and capabilities in e-participation. Their conversation ends with a mention of the HSRC's e-participation and policy modeling platform and the upcoming Civic Tech Innovation Forum.

In the second segment of the episode, Nathi speaks to Jono Bosman. Jono, a program manager at OpenUp, defines user-centered design and discusses its importance in the civic tech space. User-centered design is an approach to product development that focuses on the needs, preferences, and behaviors of users. It involves understanding the user through research and empathy, designing intuitive and useful tools, and constantly iterating based on user feedback. The concept of user-centered design can be applied in various ways, such as using language that is accessible to the target users and conducting interviews with diverse user groups. Co-creation and creating a feedback loop are also important aspects of user-centered design.

Keywords
e-participation, governance, digital platforms, public participation, challenges, municipalities, user-driven approaches, capabilities, HSRC, Civic Tech Innovation Forum

Takeaways
E-participation in governance is a complex and evolving field, with a mix of traditional and digital processes being used.

While there is a growing trend of government agencies using technology to engage with citizens, the majority of participation still happens through traditional methods.

Challenges in public participation include process literacy, access to information, and the over-politicization of processes.

The HSRC is working on a project to support e-participation in municipalities, focusing on user-driven approaches and specific capabilities.

The project aims to provide a toolkit for municipalities to assemble different ideas and capabilities based on their specific needs.

The upcoming Civic Tech Innovation Forum will be an opportunity for municipalities and the civic tech community to share experiences and learn from each other.

User-centered design is an approach to product development that focuses on the needs, preferences, and behaviors of users.

Understanding the user through research and empathy is crucial in user-centered design.

User-centered design can be applied by using language that is accessible to the target users, conducting interviews with diverse user

Titles
Challenges in Public Participation
Exploring E-Participation in Governance

Sound Bites
"We're talking about e-participation in matters of governance across the African continent, and more specifically about what happens when government agencies embrace digital technologies as a way to connect with their constituents."

"What's possibly more interesting in recent times is your kind of governance experimentation, your engagement experimentation more from the bottom up. So your civil society-led initiatives, those kinds of things that a number of organizations are doing in the country and that are part of the civic tech network."

"To what extent the digital processes and platforms are supporting any form of meaningful engagement. And I'm not sure there's clear evidence for that at a significant scale yet, even in any kind of specific population groups."

Chapters
00:00 Introduction and Overview
01:20 E-Participation in Governance
08:30 Challenges in Digital Participation
11:31 Chaotic and Organized Participation Processes
26:07 E-Participation and Policy Modeling Platform

In this episode, the host, Nathi Mcetywa introduces the new feature of the podcast, What in the Civic Tech?, and discusses the possibility of moving Africa's election process from a paper-based voting system to an electronic voting system. The guest, Dr. Maxwell Masago, talks about the readiness of South Africa and the African continent for e-voting. They explore the benefits and challenges of e-voting, including issues of trust, digital divide, infrastructure, and political will. While South Africa is seen as ready for e-voting, the readiness of the rest of the African continent varies.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has made significant strides in various fields such as agriculture, technology, and digital health, and it has now made a grand entrance into government systems. Considering the current state of democracy in Africa, African governments cannot afford to lag behind in adopting this innovation. The introduction of AI in government systems stems from the growing demand for participatory and deliberative forms of democracy, including budget tracking, social audits, and transparent online voting systems.
In today’s episode, we spoke about something that’s not necessarily new but has been grabbing the headlines for a great part of this year. We will be looking at how Artificial intelligence can be used as a tool for good governance on the African continent.
This season we spoke briefly about initiatives that have used technology to keep governments accountable, and today I want us to get into some specifics around how Artificial Intelligence can be useful as a tool for accountability and transparency in government.
Olasupo Abideen has written about how this can be done and today we talk to him about a recent article he wrote for the Civic Tech Innovation Network. The article is titled ‘Exploring Artificial Intelligence Technologies for Enhanced Deliberative Democracy’.

Yosr Jouini is an interdisciplinary researcher studying emerging technologies and their social implications in the global South. She is the director of Technoloxia, a technology & innovation centre based in Tunis. She is also the host of the 'Digitally Yours podcast', which specialises in digital rights. Technoloxia is a North African-based collective with a mission to provide community-centered perspectives on the region from the region.
Technoloxia is the newest member of the Regional Ambassador Programme (RAP). The Regional Ambassadors Programme (RAP) founded in 2022, is a programme aimed at strengthening regional connection and participation in the civic tech space.
Yosr joins Nathi Mcetywa to talk about the growth of civic tech in Tunisia and more generally in North Africa. She reflects on the impact that collaboration has had for North African civic tech organisations in Tunisia. She also reflects on another level of accessibility that innovators need to think about and what that means for innovators. Read more about accessibility from this 'Accessibility ABCs guide'. Technoloxia Website · Digitally Yours Podcast

Financing and funding civic technology activities take up a significant portion of most organisations’ worry hours. Often, when there are shortages of funds, this is viewed as an organisational failure. But instead of looking at funding and financing as a reflection of innate value, it should rather be viewed as one of the tools that allow us to reach our social impact. It is a strategic tool that should be considered alongside all of an organisation’s other strategies as well.
In this episode we spoke to Razzano and Amy Mutua about some of the best ways civic tech organisations can go about financing their initiatives.
Gabriella is the Executive Director and Co-Founder of OpenUp, a civic tech lab based in Cape Town. She is also a board member of the Civic Tech Innovation Network. Senior Atlantic Fellow in Social and Income Equality; and an Expert on AI and Democracy for the African AI Observatory.
Amy Mutua is the Research Assistant for the Tayarisha Centre for Digital Governance.
This project is the culmination of ongoing dialogues and research conducted by the Civic Tech Innovation Network (CTIN) which have aimed at exploring financing issues, strategies and models appropriate and applicable for the African civic tech innovation ecosystem.
African civic tech plays a significant role on the continent, but many innovators in the space still struggle with their funding and financing options. In some ways this mirrors challenges in other non-profit and social innovation work, but we think that there are also new, unique challenges.
They created this project to provide a platform for civic tech innovators and organisations across Africa with access to resources, information, and the co-learning networks they may need to help grow and sustain their practice and impact. This site is intended as an interactive, ever-growing space and we encourage you to own, engage and interact with its resources and tools.
And of course (as co-owners!), also let us know how we can improve it so that it is as useful as possible to you and your civic tech peers.
This work contributes to CTIN’s core mission by connecting people and organisations with diverse knowledge, skills, experience and expertise and providing relevant information and insights on civic tech from the African continent and elsewhere. In this way, the innovation network aims to contribute to growing the civic tech community, improving practices and outcomes.
This project was initially funded by CIVICUS – supported by the CHARM project. The microsite ...

The Ushahidi Platform helps communities turn information into action with an intuitive and accessible crowdsourcing and mapping tool. By enabling the rapid collection, management and analysis of crowdsourced information, Ushahidi empowers everyone—individuals, community groups, governments, activists, organizations—to create meaningful change.
In this episode, we spoke to Daniel Odongo from Ushahidi. Daniel is the director of implementation at Ushahidi. We spoke to Daniel about their development and growth in civic tech in Africa and across the world