After Africa

Please, come along to my new blog (and I'll take you to Tanzania)

New country, new missions, new blog.

Tomorrow is my last work day of my one-year contract as Communication Consultant for the Project Advice & Training Centre, and next week I am taking 3 months off to visit Africa.

This is - in brief - what my new blog is about. So, move on to www.pernille.typepad.com/duniaduara, and I'll take you to Tanzania.

Or find me on Twitter and Facebook.

'The FP Twitterati 100' - where are the Africans?

The magazine Foreign Policy has put together something they call 'The FP Twitterati 100' - A who's who of the foreign-policy Twitterverse in 2011. Check it out here.

Neat it is, but what puzzled me instantly was the very few Africans on the list.

Paul Kagame is put in the category 'Politicians and Diplomats', and titled 'President of Rwanda and Twitter fanatic' (!)

However, in the 'Africa' category only one out of five, namely Andrew Mwenda from Uganda, is an African.

And the reason can't be that Africans are not tweeting.

However, having followed the Tanzanian twittersphere since it developed I suspect that one reason for not reaching out to a European or American ordience may be that tweeps tend to be very much in love with internal issues (where foreigners either need lots of insight or patience), and that language is Kiswahili mixed with English? 

Time to rewrite travel guides to Africa, sio?!

I have got Lonely Planet Tanzania opened, going through a page or two when sidetracking.

I am wondering of the use of words and the values behind:

Scrappy (Kigoma), spotless (hotels), pleasant-enough, sleepy, semi-colonial, safe, faded charm (Tanga), little-reason-to-come-to (Dodoma).

Time to rewrite travel guides to Africa, sio?!

BarCampDar 77

 
BarCampDar is on. July 7 in Dar es Salaam.

Check out the website here (still needs updates).

Check out my personal experience here from June 2008 where I went to BarCamp Nairobi in Kenya.

This probably wouldn't work in Rwanda...

I was in a shop the other day in Århus where they were selling scarves with motives of sculls (similar to the photo).

I couldn't help noting that this probably wouldn't sell in Rwanda.

The sculls are repeatedly used as a motive in finger- and earrings and for print. All in the name of fashion.

Odd, isn't it?!

What does it say about the Danes?

Call me. You don't love me!

 
I just came across this delicate piece of South African design in a shop in the centre of Copenhagen.

I just love this way of putting an (universal?) emotion straight: Waiting for the man to call.

The fact that he doesn't call me, makes me feel that he doesn't love me.

South Africa or Denmark. Same thing.

Why not put it in print and wear it for the world to see what I find hard to say?

Mobile phones - part of the technological development in Africa.

Passion. Different tastes

Free delivery kits to all pregnant women in Tanzania

'IN a move to reduce reproductive and maternal deaths, the government will effective next financial year, provide all pregnant women with delivery kits. The move was announced in Dar es Salaam on Monday by President Jakaya Kikwete when launching a Campaign on Accelerated Reduction of Maternal and Newborns Mortality.'

So, the Tanzanian Daily News reports in an article on June 6.

In july 2009 I visited Itulahumba Hospital near Njombe in the Southern Highlands in Tanzania (photo). The hospital had the basic buildings in place, but little equipment apart from some outdated and samples of beds that had recently arrived in a container from Denmark. During my brief visit I was told that women would give birth on mats on the cement floor if the few beds were taken.

When I lived in West Nile in northen Uganda from 2005-2007 I knew exactly where the bigger hospitals were situated along my work route: Adjumani, Moyo, Koboko, Yumbe, Maracha, Arua, Kuluwa and eventually Mulago. I also knew where pregnant women would prefer to go if they could afford it.

Being pregnant in a first world country and with all the comfort and security it offers, makes it hard to imagine the conditions many African women must suffer when pregnant. Priviledged myself, having had a car and a health insurance when I worked in Africa, I could only observe the strenght of these women - and give lifts to the nearest hospital.

Reading the article I am therefore also wondering what exactly is a delivery kit? And how a kit can improve a pregnant woman's chances of surviving giving birth? Obviously a hospital bed, clean water and a qualified doctor would be preferable to a kit, isn't it?

However, the positive thing is in fact that President Kikwete is standing up tall, talking on women's behalf:

'President Kikwete pointed out some of the challenges in the government programmes to reduce these deaths as lack of support from the community members, especially husbands of the pregnant women and thus leading to many women delivering at home.'

It strikes me how concise Kikwete is with numbers all the way down to the 421 motorcycle ambulances ordered. (About two weeks ago the development of the fibre optic cable were given specific numbers.) It seems like a free gift to monitors and others with a passion for accountability? Maybe to check The Guardian's article 'Mobile healths offers hope to patients in Africa' for inspiration?

Follow what East Africans have to say about governments handling of national budgets #UGbudget11 #kebudget2011 #budgettz2011

Can't even track my own budget - but find it rather interesting that during these days you can follow national budget debates in East Africa on Twitter via citizens, media and MPs - check:

Uganda: #UGbudget11

Kenya: #kebudget2011

Tanzania: #budgettz2011

Rather curious how the three countries distinct themselves on Twitter, opinions and budgets. Should be an interesting phenomenon for a donor of budget support.

If bored, it does tend to get rather internal and full of abbreviations, do check Alfred Mutua.

MP tweeting from custody in Tanzania. The easy part and the real challenge.

I’ve been communicating quite a bit with different people relating to Tanzania about the use of social media over the past few days.

Then suddenly, Zitto Kabwe, MP for Chadema, tweets from custody in Singida:

'Have just been arrested by police in Singida for ' holding a rally after 6pm'

It is awfully hard not to retweet a tweet like this, as it contains the most elementary ingredients of what news are made of.

The tweets go forth and back quickly, and soon the news from the event in a district town in central Tanzania have spread to the rest of the world in no time. Just check the Facebook comments here.

Lots of pole sana. It has even become the subject of debate between people across continents. Alafu - about an hour later the MP is out on self-bail:

'RCO just got an order from his RPC to let me off and report tomorrow. Self-bail.'

Back to my interest in how social media is applied in Tanzania, and how this is perceived in i.e. Europe, I have to conclude that to me this is no longer about the fascination of the raw facts that a Tanzanian MP tweets and facebooks straight from custody.

That is in fact the surprisingly easy part.

To me the real challenge lies in adressing the issues of why he ended up there, what will happen after and how the instant communication affects politics in a longer term perspective. Another, may be to keep focus on how the government goes about its cyberspace policies in the long term.

If interested in the Tanzanian government's take on the Internet, read along here. 

Braided scarf of kitenge from Sierre Leone. Danish design

Scarves are among the most popular acessories in Denmark at the moment (and for the past couple of years). The Danish initiative, Kono Business which support young women in Sierre Leone, couples with Danish designers - and the braided scarf above is among one of my favorite items.

After having comtemplated for a day that I could do one myself, I regress, and will now order one at the webshop here.

What can technology do for transparency and accountability?

If you are interested in what technology can do for transparency and accountability I suggest you read this report (left) from Transparency & Accountability Initiative in Cambridge.

The authors have reviewed more than 100 projects where new technologies as a means to promote transparency and accountability have been applied.

Seven key findings are presented on page 5-6, and here I just want to focus on what I found particularly interesting from reading the report:

The cool factor:

'However, one lesson from the Ushahidi/Uchaguzi experience
is that the success of a tool in one context can inspire others
to quickly launch projects using the same tool without a clear
strategy or a solid methodology capable of yielding credible
results. We identified a number of these cases during our
research; while they are not profiled here, they reinforce the
point that the ‘cool factor‘ of technology tools can at times
exacerbate the lack of rigor found in some initiatives. This
poses a risk of diminishing the role that technology can play
in the transparency and accountability field.' (page 16).

Traditional organisations continueing to think that using tech tools refer to tweeting and having a website:

'Some efforts are just starting, and some are more solid and
thought out than others, but selected initial efforts already
seem to be moving ahead of traditional transparency
and accountability organisations and their models, many
of which continue to think that using ‘tech‘ tools refers
to tweeting and having a website. These traditional
organisations often fail to take advantage of more powerful
technology tools, even though they are experts on the
transparency and accountability subject matter.' (page 19)

Lack of knowledge of the subject to be monitored:

 In addition to the lack of knowledge on an academic
level, we also sometimes observed a lack of knowledge
about the specific issues that project organisers intend to
monitor or evaluate, such as electoral protocols or complex
mechanisms of corruption in public procurement, all of
which hurts the good intentions the creators of many
projects have.

Don't throw away the old-fashioned tools for all that glitters: 

'Technology for transparency and accountability
tools do not necessarily have to be sophisticated
to succeed, but they need to be designed
intelligently and with an eye towards local
context.' (page 23)

Finally, I think the long list of short descriptions of case studies and the section on commonly used tools are useful for people to get an idea of what technology applied for transparency and accountability really is all about - short, but google on yourself. One example is for instance the description of how the Tanzanian-based NGO, Daraja works with 'Maji Matone' (page 16 and 31).

Tanzanian Government's take on the Internet

 

On May 25, 2011 the Tanzanian newspaper Daily News quotes President Kikwete for promising that 'the national fibre-optic network currently under construction is set to cover all districts in the country by June, next year'.

The article goes from praising Microsoft to the benefits of the implementation of the fibre-optic network. For instance, it mentions 'e-learning at different levels of education', and quotes President Kikwete:

'We will from next financial year set aside a budget for the implementation of the Tanzania Beyond Tomorrow (TBT) project in which through ICT a teacher can teach many students in various regions at a time. This will, to a large extent, reduce the problem of teachers' shortage'

Neatly the article adds clear numbers in term of the assumed progress: According to the article the fibre-optic network has reached 19 regions and 59 districts out of Tanzania's 30 regions. Nice numbers for press conferences. However, the style of the article makes me think of territory of microphone holders, and this article, too, leaves me with a strong wish that the reporter had investigated further:

Is it really true that over half of Tanzania's regions by now are covered by the fibre-optic cable?

According to the blog Bora Kujenga Daraja, it hasn't yet reached Njombe in the Southern Highlands, and the map illustrating the progress leaves space for interpretation (for one, it is in Chinese):

It may be relatively easy to monitor the amount of kilometres of fibre-optic cables digged into Tanzanian soil, but what do the numbers actually mean for the 42 million people living in Tanzania? 

Internet is obviously nothing without electricity, computers, money to buy an Internet subscription and the skills to utilize it for meaningful purposes. So, I'd also like to know more about the numbers of people for whom this makes a difference, and what kind of difference it makes practically. 

The government's 'Tanzania Beyond Tomorrow', as mentioned above, may be a part of the answer, but the President's vision of solving the problems in regard of the lack of teachers eventually depend on the answers to the questions above.

Earlier this week the blog Swahili Street noted another relevant perspective of this development by referring to the government's training of the police force to do on-line patroling. Swahili Street also poses questions: 'And what will it mean practically? How does an “online patrol” take place? Where exactly will be patrolled? And who?'

Certainly, the Tanzanian government has embarked on an intensified process of adressing the use of the Internet, and having the President promoting it up front is definitely interesting. One may however hope that media and others interested in the impact of the Internet, freedom of speech and education also will manage to intensify their observance, too.

The illustration was sent to me from a friend in Tanzania, and is cut from last Wednesday's Mwananchi. My Kiswhaili isn't perfect, but I believe the text can be translated to: 'Citizens, your government is now
on Facebook. You have to be on Facebook.' (Please, do correct me if not so).

Africa. In brief

The Beat Festival