United Nations Economic Commision for Africa

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United Nations Economic Commision for Africa
African Development Forum IV Governance for
a Progressive Africa Breakout Session 8 ICTs
Governance Addis Ababa, 13 October 2004 Gia
nluca Misuraca Adviser, GPA CAFRAD
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Outline of the Presentation

• CAFRAD ICTs 4 Good Governance in Africa
• Research on ICTs for Local Governance in Africa
  Outline
  
• Research on ICTs for Local Governance in Africa
  Findings
  
• Proposal of a Local Governance and ICTs African
  Research Network LOG-IN Africa Research.

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CAFRADs Mandate
The African Training and Research Centre in
Administration for Development (CAFRAD) is a Pan
African intergovernmental organisation,
established in 1964 by African governments, with
the support of UNESCO making it the first
uniquely Pan-African training and research centre
in the continent for the improvement of public
administration and governance systems in Africa.
Membership is open to all African countries at
present, CAFRAD has a membership of 37 States.
www.cafrad.org
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CAFRADs Membership
CAFRAD
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UNPAN-ORC-CAFRAD
Since 2000, CAFRAD is one of the African On-line
Regional Centres of the United Nations On-line
Network in Public Administration and Finance -
UNPAN - www.unpan.org In the framework of UNPAN,
CAFRAD acts as regional focal point on
e-Information Management, promoting the sharing
of knowledge, experiences and good practices
throughout Africa and supporting
capacity-building and partnerships among the
Member States. www.unpan.org/africa.asp
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Panafrican Programme on PAG
Within the framework of the Pan African Programme
on Public Administration and Governance, approved
by African Ministers in charge of Civil Service
and placed under the banner of NEPAD, CAFRAD has
been assigned to take lead in three important
areas, namely

• Public Sector Leadership Capacity Development for
  good governance in Africa
  
• e-governance (e-Africa Initiative for good
  governance building e-governance capacity in
  African countries)
  
• Knowledge and Policy Exchange.

In addition to this, CAFRAD is to contribute to
the data collection and knowledge sharing, and
the Innovation and partnership support.
www.publicadminafrica.org
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Research on ICTs for Local Governance in Africa
Outline
Within the framework of the PICTA-Partnership on
ICTs for Africa, a research on ICTs and Local
Governance in Africa is being conducted for IDRC
UNECA as part of the ACACIA Dissemination
Activities. The outline of the research is as
follows

• Basic Concepts and Definitions
• Decentralization and local Governance benefits
  and limits
  
• e-Government and e-Governance benefits and
  limits
  
• Local e-Government and e-Governance benefits and
  limits
  
• Review of key experiences.

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Research on ICTs for Local Governance in Africa
Preliminary Findings

• The preliminary results of this study show that
  there is a potential for growth by integrating
  ICTs at the local government level, although
  building capacity would be a key aspect of the
  potential.
• There are still several unresolved issues in
  discussing the relation of ICTs and local
  governance, such as
  
• empowerment at the local level
• needs and priorities of citizens
• roles and responsibilities of stakeholders and
• nature and level of people-participation.

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Research on ICTs for Local Governance in Africa
Preliminary Findings (contd)

• The recognition of the potential of ICTs for
  Local Governance comes from a few successful
  pilot applications in a number of countries
  around the world.
• Attempts to critically evaluate some of these
  projects so that the real extent of their impact,
  and the factors inhibiting it can be identified,
  are underway.
• But still there isnt a common framework for
  evaluation, that can specifically address the
  overall objective to create an environment of
  lessons to be learned from each other and also to
  inform about the factors of success in relation
  to poverty alleviation and reinforcing democracy
  using ICTs.

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Research on ICTs for Local Governance in Africa
Preliminary Findings (contd)

• Some pilot applications demonstrate the great
  potential of ICTs to connect communities and
  provide a two-way communication channels between
  the communities and government bodies at both
  local and national levels and, in particular,
  ICTs is a critical tool in ensuring
  accountability and transparency of government
  operations at local level.
• ICTs is also a powerful tool in connecting
  communities and local governments officials,
  therefore enabling citizens participation in the
  decision-making process
• Other applications indicate that access to useful
  information can benefit the poor in improving the
  quality of their products or services, obtaining
  a better price and enabling them to market their
  products/services beyond the confines of their
  immediate neighborhood, in particular in rural
  and marginalized areas.

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Research on ICTs for Local Governance in Africa
Preliminary Findings (contd)
The lessons learned from case studies and
empirical analysis of specific project on using
ICTs for local governance in Africa, show the
following considerations

• there is no single way of introducing ICTs The
  process is dynamic and consists of several
  stages, especially in Africa
  
• Participation is a crucial problem in the process
  of introducing and promoting the use of ICTs for
  community development A specific aspect concern
  the role of women, youth and community leaders
• Due to installation costs and the recurrent
  expenses involved in the use of ICTs, alternative
  technologies have to be considered in order to
  better adapt innovation to the limited
  infrastructure available so to improve community
  access.

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Research on ICTs for Local Governance in Africa
Preliminary Findings (contd)

• Factors of risk
• Readiness and e-Readiness
• Contextualization Local Content Development
  (Culture/Traditions/Language/Illiteracy and
  e-Literacy)
  
• Costs (Direct/Indirect/Opportunity/Beneficiary/Po
  litical/Future)
  
• (Design-Reality-Gap and Emulation )
• Domestic Digital Divide (including
  intergenerational DD, and Digital Apartheid)
  
• Key enabling factors
• Political will, community leadership and
  ownership
  
• Accurate risk analysis, strategic planning,
  effective monitoring and critical evaluation.
  

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Research on ICTs for Local Governance in Africa
Preliminary Findings Challenges (contd)

• Challenges
• how the use of ICTs in local government can be
  beneficial to all the stakeholders, taking into
  consideration all the factors of risk what is
  difficult is not introducing technologies, but
  how people can use the technologies at best, in
  order to have a full citizens participation and
  creating an e-inclusive society!
• how to balance control and freedom networked
  ICTs may enable a transformation of the economic
  system faced by the poor, but at the same time
  they may enable ubiquitous control and give or
  enhance the power of few people. Instead of
  reinforcing participation and democracy, ICTs
  could reduce them.

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Research on ICTs for Local Governance in Africa
Preliminary Findings (contd)

• In conclusion, still some questions remain
  opened, such as
  
• What kind of actions should governments takes in
  order to develop local e-governance systems that
  produce real public value (e.g. respond to the
  needs and priorities of citizens what people
  want) ?
• Which are the processes and competences
  associated to ICTs that should be
  developed/enhanced in the local government/public
  service in order to have a positive impact on
  customer satisfaction (internal customercivil
  servant, external customercitizen businesses)
  ?
• How to protect, nurture and develop
  people-participation and information-exchange
  (the two main assets of the k-society) ?

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Research Network on ICTs Local Governance in
Africa Justification

• A way to respond to these questions could be the
  development and conduct of a research to analyze
  the impact of ICTs on Local governance, through
  evaluating projects and initiatives and producing
  case studies.
• This shall also involve the definition of a
  monitoring and evaluation system and the
  identification of guidelines (Road Map) for
  implementation of ICTs Projects at local
  government level.

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Research Network on ICTs Local Governance in
Africa Background

• PICTA Meeting, Tunis, 2003
• IDRC/UNECA/UNCDF International Workshop on
  Innovative Applications of ICT for Local
  Governance in Africa, (Addis Ababa, 7-9 June
  2004)
• Partner Meeting held alongside the Workshop on
  e-Government in Morocco, organized by the
  Alakhawayn University to launch the e-Fez Project
  funded by IDRC (Ifrane, Morocco, 14-16 June
  2004)
• PICTA Meeting, Mauritius, 2004
• ADF 2004 Focus Group on ICTs Governance.
• WSIS 2005.

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Research Network on ICTs Local Governance in
Africa Proposal
Objective Supporting and orientating African co
untries in their policies of application of ICTs
for local governance.
Activities

• Identification of key partner institutions and
  establishment of an open Network of Research
  
• Research on the impact of ICTs on Local
  Governance in Africa
  
• Development of a standard monitoring and
  evaluation system
  
• Design of a standard Road Map for ICTs and
  Local Governance Projects in Africa
  
• Dissemination of results.

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Research Network on ICTs Local Governance in
Africa Partners Coordination
Research Agenda for ICT and Local Governance in
Africa Identified Partners (including but not lim
ited to)

• CAFRAD
• Addis Ababa University
• Al Akhawayn University, Morocco
• Makerere University
• University of Ghana
• Link Center
• FOSSFA.
• Individual Researchers and NGOs.

In order to guarantee an effective coordination
and high-level political dissemination of
results, it was proposed that CAFRAD would lead
and coordinate the activities of the Network.
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Contact Questions misuraca_at_cafrad.org w
ww.cafrad.org
www.unpan.org/africa.asp