Strengthening the pan African
movement for social justice
Challenges of using ICTs
Fahamu has a vision of the world
where people organize to emancipate
themselves from all forms of
oppression, recognize their social
responsibilities, respect each other’s
differences, and realize their full
potential.
Reputation
Reputation for being a technology
organisation …
We are not!
We only use technologies as tool for what
we want to achieve
Themes
• Strengthening capacity in human rights and
advocacy
• Pambazuka News: Platform for debate,
analysis and action for freedom and justice
• Reaching wider communities
• Experiences in mobile phone technologies
• Pambazuka Press:From digital to print (and
back again)
• Blogs, social networking, twitter, etc: building
Pambazuka 2.0 platform
Strengthening capacity in
human rights and advocacy
Learning for change program
Origins
• Thought ICTs could help human rights training
• Research on >100 organizations
in eight African countries (1998)
• Organizational needs and capacities
• Priorities and preoccupations
• Training needs and capacities
• Information and communications capacities
Context
• Widespread violations of human rights
• Volatile, and sometimes hostile,
political environment
Context
• Capable individuals but fragile
organisations
• Heavy case loads and stressful work
• Unable to release staff for training
• Dichotomy of values
Information and
communications infrastructure
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Computers with CDROM capability
Low specification machines (Win98+)
Email ubiquitous
Low bandwidth
WWW expensive, slow, frustrating
Poor telephone connections
Conventional courses
• Difficulty in releasing staff for extended
periods
• Fragility of organizations
• Cost
• Non-returners
• Relevance to ongoing operations
Workshops: advantages
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Face to face human ‘interface’
‘Interactive’
Exchange of experiences
Short absences from work
Networking
Cost
Workshops: disadvantages
• Heterogeneity of knowledge and
experience
• Little or no preparation by participants
• Limited depth and breadth
• Unknown long-term impact
• No post-workshop support
Challenges for design
• How to ensure substantive training
without long absences from work?
• How to overcome limits of workshop
based learning?
• How do we ensure that training results
in strengthening of organization and not
just of individual?
Learning for change model
Learning for change model
Learning for change model
Choice of method
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Ease of editing and updating
Faster production
Enables search
Automatic sitemap/ToC
Bookmarking
Incorporation of Flash
CDROM features
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Fully interactive
Feedback to user for exercises
Stand-alone learning
Reusable content
Extensive resource centre of documents
and other resources
CDROM features
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Strong designs
Emphasis on aesthetics
Simplicity
Usability
Focus on learning/content
Can be used as course or reference
Cross-platform Windows 98+; MacOS9+
Stand-alone learning
Institutions with whom we
have developed courses
University of Oxford
Office of UN High Commissioner for Human Rights
UN University for Peace
Institutions with whom we
have developed courses
UN Systems Staff College
Association for the Prevention of Torture
Article 19
Challenges
Universal preference for print - no
computers at home, internet café
problems at night, fieldwork etc
Only minority of relatively well-endowed
organisations have access
Great demand from grassroots CBOs can’t
be met through this approach
In the end …
Decided not to develop CDROM materials
further, but instead focus on producing
printed materials for learning
… and at some future date, when
bandwidth availability improves, maybe
go to web-based access
Pambazuka News
Platform for debate, analysis and action
for freedom and justice
www.pambazuka.org
Origins
• Origins: in response to demand
• Debate, discussion, analysis, commentary
• Tool for advocacy, lobbying, and campaigning
for social justice
• Platform for diverse views within framework of
struggle for social justice
• Origins as newsletter only. After 4 years, website
set up!
Results
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Readership
Subscribers
Use by other media
Awards
Text based email
Low bandwidth website
Example of use in advocacy
• AU Protocol on the Rights of Women in
Africa
• Speed of ratification
• Lobbying at AU Summits by SOAWR
• Distribution of printed special issues
• Red, yellow and green cards
• Online petition
• Use of text messaging / SMS
Success
Due to direct face-to-face
Internet great for disseminating to
activists, and raising public profile of
campaign
Print more important for key audiences
Widening the reach
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Podcasts and video
Documentary films
Radio programmes
Soap operas
Challenges
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<7% Africans have access to internet
Predominantly in urban areas
Nowhere near a mass phenomenon
80% subscribers say they print out
Pambazuka News for reading
Pressures
To produce printed magazine / newspaper
To make printed copies of thematic articles
available
To publish books
And
To make use of new media, social
networking and further use of ICTs
Experiences of using mobile
phone technologies
Texting for women’s rights
 Online petition, signing using SMS
 Contribution of text messaging minimal: of 5000 signatories, 454
from mobile phones (<10%)
 Yet impact huge owing to novelty
value - “sexy” thing to do
 But why so few text messages?
Experiences of using mobile
phone technologies
SMS for farmer support
 Short experiment
 Very limited use of text messaging
 Lots of messages sent out by project,
but very few responses from farmers
 Why?
Experiences of using mobile
phone technologies
Campaign on domestic violence - KZN
 30% prevalence
 Minimal reporting of cases
 Collaboration with paralegal network
 BulkSMS system set up and paid for
 83% households said they had
mobile phones
 80% knew how to send/receive SMS
Campaign on domestic
violence - KZN
After one year, doubling in number of cases
reported to paralegal offices
Celebrations that project was successful
But women sent less than 100 messages
throughout the whole year!
Why?
Evidence suggests it was the 12 workshops that
made the difference not the mobile phones
Mobile phones: constraints
Cost of text messaging $.20 -$.50 per
message cf $1-$2 / day income
Poor pay more per unit than rich because
poor use pay-as-you-go. Inequity of
user charges - cf Water, Electricity etc
Ownership of phones in rural areas
predominantly men, even though
women use them too
Experiences of others in Africa
Ushahidi - Election violence
Election monitoring
Organising protests etc
Rallying voters
Work because there is pre-existing
network of activists.
Mobile phone - the great
solution?
Penetration rate claimed to be 30% according to
mobile phone companies
But because multiple networks in most countries
with premium charges across networks,
tendency for middle classes to have at least 2, if
not 4 phones
Actual penetration rates may be about 10%
Could be transformative if charges dropped to
reflect actual costs (effectively zero)
From digital to print
From accidental publisher of books to
becoming a formal publisher of
progressive pan African books
Pambazuka Press
www.pambazukapress.org
… and back again
ebooks
Print on demand technologies
Concluding remarks
Technology as a complement, not substitute for
social interaction
Tendency for technologies to amplify and
exacerbate social differentiation
Technology is not neutral: it reflects the power of
those who use it - not always for ‘good’
ICTs powerful: those with economic power are
rendered more powerful because of their
access; conversely, those without access
rendered more powerless
Concluding remarks
Tendency for us to fetishize ICTs - i.e.
imbue inanimate objects with power and
abilities.
Need to recognise social nature of
technology: technology not a thing but
an expression of a social relation
Concluding remarks
Greatest power of ICTs lies in ability of
people to give voice to their own
experiences and to play a more
sigificant role in determining their own
destiny.
By allowing technology to amplify social
differentiation, those with access
increasingly determine the destiny of the
majority who don’t have access.
Concluding remarks
In a sense, ICTs have strong antidemocratic tendencies that need to be
consciously militated against.
Otherwise those with power will end up
more powerful