E-Governance & Africa - The Time Has Arrived…
I suppose we can now officially thank government policies in African countries for their failure to expand fixed lines, leading to a projected 22% increase in mobile phone subscribers. 330 million people will own a phone in Africa, in 2008.
E-Governance is a term that has been loosely floating around, slightly misunderstood and highly underestimated. It refers to the use of internet technology as a platform for exchanging information, providing services and transacting with citizens, businesses, and other arms of government (Wikipedia). Basically, we would be facilitating 2-way communication between a government and its citizens using technology, a new philosophy that threatens to reinstitute a government by the people for the people (Like it was supposed to be).
E-Governance cannot exist without internet access - or can it? The same government forces that inadvertently choked land-lines, also cast their noose around internet access bottle-necking it into a snarled jam. For most Africans, getting online is just not worth all the trouble.
All hope was almost lost, when Mobile devices caught on like a wild-fire. These devices will enable new growth markets to leap-frog obstacles developed countries have had to overcome. While multi-media has always perceived to be the future, the real power lies in Text Messaging… 160 characters that will change everything and have major ramifications on public policy.
Here are just a few things for you to think about:
This will be a little abstract for a short while.In my humble opinion, at times, especially we as Africans can really get caught up in the tools instead of on the end. Internet, mobile phones, word of mouth and at the end of the day even language are nothing more than tools to communicate ideas between each other. I think we need to really focus on the message first and chose the tool as a result.
One of the uber cool things about Ushahidi is that it did just that, its end was to reduce the violence by increasing awareness and accountability within the civil society.
I think with enough of us having clear objectives in mind for the country, ala Mama Mikes with value transfers, the tools definitely exist.
My philosophical 0.02 for the day
Mwangi, there’s no doubt that I’m expressing an idealistic perspective. The way things work on the ground is totally different - however, I still feel that the currently available tools are stupidly simple enough for anyone to use. As you say, focusing on the message first then using these tools will be necessary though…
Don’t get me wrong, the idealist is definitely needed first before the pragmatist in my P.O.V. It is amazing that we aren’t taking more advantage of all these free tools isn’t it?….one can actually get the equivalent of 10 University lectures every day just by checking out the different branches of web 2.0…I think if we haven’t in the past, we definitely need to start developing visions and using these free and dirt cheap communication tools now!
[...] Kobia discusses e-governance in Africa: “I suppose we can now officially thank government policies in African countries for their [...]
Governments (such as Kenya) can do much more, but they seem to be comfortable being just a tax collectors on mobile phone calls, operator licenses, SMS’s, M-Pesa etc, and don’t need see the need to innovate right now in such an already lucrative field.
As it is now, even quasi-state operators like KPLC send electricity bill alerts to customers mobile phones via SMS at 10/= per message (normal SMS is 5/= ~ $0.08) but a KPLC customer can get the same information for free via e-mail.
One of the nice suggestions you had, i.e. vaccination reminders, say from the Ministry of Health would probably be best done free– so the government would have to forego the revenue of sending 100,000 SMS’s for the greater good of a healthy population, who would pay millions more in taxes over their lives
SMS combined with other media like Radio can have a serious reverberating effect. Sadly, it’ll be a while before institutions really start to harness that powerful tool that is on everyone’s hip. India is a pioneer that we can emulate.
What is India doing? Perhaps you can post on what India is doing that is so great.
By the way, you guys should read a very good article by Kiwanja titled ‘Mobiles in Africa: A Travellers Perspective’. This will give you a very good perspective of just how innovative people have been so far with mobile phones.
Hi,
I just would like to congratulate for this post. It’s very interesting. With your permission I think I am going to talk about it on http://www.Africanews.it
This is quite interesting.
Many people in Africa have devices that they rarely use. Consider 3G phones that people carry around, and yet they cannot afford the 3G data tariffs. All they do is make calls, period. You only need to consider what one of the local cell phone companies charges for a 700 MB monthly limit - what one would download in less than a day!
Thank God however, that a competitor has introduced an unlimited data access tariff that is charged at a very affordable rate per month. I need not say that this operator doesn’t experience congestion. Hopefully, these will go down once other operators come on board.
Now think about electricity. I’m seriously considering renewable energy. Not one day goes by without several irritating power outages that last about two minutes longer than my UPS. What if someone successfully sued KPLC for a lot of damages? Would they become more efficient?
All in all, the fact that I can now surf all day long without leaving my house is a welcome and inspiring thing. I can hardly wait for WiMAX enabled laptops that Intel keeps preaching about. Problem is, this technology may be way above reach for the general population. Plus, who is willing to offer countrywide WiMAX in Kenya?
Technology is the way to go, Africa. But when do we implement things? A little to late?….
Hi Peter,
Thank you very much.
I’d like to report on your website, your blog and your career in Kenya.
Is there anyway to contact you directly.
If you can please send me an email through Africanews.it/english and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible.
Thanks