Across the continent, civic tech initiatives have been actively using their innovations to respond to the pandemic — showing the potential and shortcomings of technology during a pandemic. Indeed, COVID-19 is an unprecedented opportunity to reimagine how technology can shape society. Although there are many civic tech initiatives stepping up to the fight against COVID-19, this blog post focuses on just eight initiatives. Here is how eight African civic tech initiatives are responding and helping during the COVID-19 crisis:

The independent, community advocacy organisation Amandla.mobi seeks to build a more just and people-powered South Africa and has been campaigning on COVID-19 related issues. With a membership of over 600,000 people, Amandla’s recent COVID-19 related campaigns include: Make schools safe before they re-open, Stop the late payment of social grants, families are struggling enough. Demand Minister of Social Development and Sassa CEO act, Coronavirus, here’s what mobile networks should do. All these campaigns focus on daily issues that South Africans are facing.

The campaigns are run based on Amandla.mobi’s founding principle — turning every mobile phone into a democracy building tool so that no matter where South Africans live; the language they speak or issues they care about, they can take action with others.

The South African Cities Network through its South African Council for City Data (SACCD) supported by National Treasury Cities Support Programme (CSP) recently hosted a webinar where a few city participants from the City of Johannesburg, City of eThekwini, City of Ekurhuleni and City of Cape Town shared their internal data responses to the pandemic with reference to their outcomes achieved, processes undertaken, and challenges experienced.
Here are some key takeaways from the webinar

Delyno Du Toit from the City of Cape Town (CoCT) says the CoCT has been using data to respond to COVID-19 through the collection of data related to the pandemic around business continuity, finance, the impact on HR as well as data around COVID-19 worldwide. CoCT has also been using data to try and understand the state of health in the city. “We have put this data on a dashboard for a broader audience in the city, CoCT is also part of a data team within the COVID-19 response Unit. To fully implement the use of data against COVID-19, CoCT has put together a data workgroup with the Western Cape province,” explains Du Toit.

The city of Cape Town has augmented current resources by reaching out to universities and other entities to access data. Du Toit says before COVID-19, the city had already started gathering data, but now it has focused around COVID-19 crisis. “The City of Cape Town is trying to use data to assist with operational processes, we have also requested for other data custodians to assist with the process.”

Monique Griffith from the City of Johannesburg (CoJ) says the city has been collating data on partnerships for example, for donating and manufacturing PPE required by workers. They are also collecting other data on the number of tests being conducted and the number of cases, hospitalizations and deaths to understand COVID-19 hotspots.

Griffith says CoJ does not intend to not penalize people when they are trying to access food, so the city is enabling food banks to deliver food house to house to reduce exposure to the virus. She further shares that CoJ is developing a future-oriented disaster management plan and creation of a long-term commitment that operates with a vastly faster turn around times to ensure faster service delivery during and after COVID-19.

The city also has a “war room” collecting data for short term response as well as long-term transformation. They need to establish a “war kit” within risk dept and revising the disaster plan based on Covid-19 data. The city’s data is coming from ward councillors, police, health services and water services because access to water is a key factor in mitigating the spread.
The city is also in the process of collating data into one system. City of Johannesburg permits needed for businesses are providing the city with business data on where the business spread is and the profile of businesses, this data can be used to understand what business relief is needed.

Tshegang Chipeya from the City of eThekwini says eThekwini has prepared a presentation on the impact on the economy that relied on COVID-19 data to understand the most vulnerable areas of the economy and society to develop a response plan. She says eThekwini is also developing COVID-19 economic recovery plan which was presented by the mayor and used data to support certain interventions. eThekwini is also using local and global dashboards to communicate information about assistance packages which are available to businesses and citizens as well as Covid-19 figures specifically in Durban context.

The city eThekwini has collected data through external sources mostly as well as internal data through the EDGE platform. eThekwini has also conducted a business survey to profile different businesses. eThekwini’s next step is to collate city data such as water, electricity, etc.

After years of stagnation in making the internet more affordable in South Africa, two pieces of good news came this year that offer some hope of changes to come. First, a new telecoms entrant — RAIN — is offering mobile data at R50 per GB on their 4G network. This is a lot cheaper than the prices offered by the major mobile operators but what makes their pricing a potential game changer is that they are charging a flat rate whether a customer uses 1MB or 10GB.

Then in August, Dark Fibre Africa announced that it will start building fibre to the home networks in new affordable housing schemes with rentals as low as R4,000 per month. This follows Vumatel’s plan to build fibre to the home in Alexandra. Vumatel has announced it will offer residents uncapped fast fibre connections for R89 per month.

ICASA also announced changes to how mobile operators can charge their customers for using data. And after challenges from operators, these changes will come into effect next year. The most important of these is that people will no longer automatically go to ‘out of bundle’ pricing.

Fifty-three percent of the South African population now use the internet. Fourteen million people use Facebook on their phones. Seven million use Twitter. Pre-paid mobile data has made the internet accessible to the majority in South Africa. The biggest problem now is that it is not affordable. This is not just because the majority of South Africans are poor. Its because there is a poverty premium for data — the poor pay more for data than the rich. Much much more. If the internet is to become something everyone can use effectively, strategies for reducing data costs must now focus on addressing this inequality.

If you have sufficient cash in your pocket, you’ve benefitted from significant reductions in data prices recently. You can now buy 10GB of data from Vodacom, the country’s leading mobile operator, for R599. That’s about R60 per GB. Cell C and Telkom offer even cheaper rates. But most people don’t have that kind of cash. They buy in small bundles. The smallest bundle you can buy from Vodacom costs R10 for 15MB. That’s R667 per GB, or more than eleven times more expensive.

So the rich pay a small fraction of what the poor pay for data.

It’s not unusual that the poor pay more for the benefit of being able to buy in small quantities. If you purchase the leading brand of washing powder (Sunlight), you can buy a 5kg box for R99 or about R20 per kilo. If you buy in small sachets you’ll pay R10 for 250g or R40 per kilo. The sachet price is double the bulk price. So why is the difference so much greater for data?

The extra packaging and distribution costs of putting washing powder into small sachets does incur costs for the manufacturers. In comparison, mobile operators have very small additional costs in dealing with small bundles. They have to communicate via SMS more often. They have to store a little more data about their clients. Neither of these things is likely to add substantially to their costs.

South Africa has excellent mobile networks, amongst the very best on the continent. It has the highest penetration of mobile phones and the highest levels of internet use in sub-Saharan Africa. Almost all phones bought today are capable of using the internet and research suggests that almost everyone with a phone would like to use the internet. But it is also clear that the internet is unaffordable for many if not most South Africans.

For those of you about to set off driving to your holiday destinations, you will be feeling the pain of the year’s price increases. Cars need fuel. You will probably also be using your mobile devices as you drive — hands-free of course — whether you are map reading with your favourite GPS app in the front, or your kids are watching YouTube videos in the back (if you can afford it). Your phones also need fuel and that fuel is data.

There is a significant difference between buying petrol and buying data. Whatever the size of your tank, your salary or your engine, you pay the same price. This is not unusual. You and your neighbour probably pay the same price for your water and your electricity. But not for data. Amongst all basic services, data is the only one where the poorer you are, the more you pay. But data is much more like water or electricity than it is like soap powder. The unit cost is largely due to the costs of building and running the bulk network infrastructure. And domestic customers of these utilities pay the same rate whether they consume a little or a lot. This is often the result of regulation.

With colleagues Alette Schoon at Rhodes University and Marion Walton at the University of Cape Town, I have been investigating what the high cost of data means for those on average and below average incomes. We have found that although many people on low incomes are using the mobile internet, including those living on incomes below national poverty lines, they are much less connected than the readers of this publication. Their connections are fragile — mostly off, not ‘always on’. One of the diarists, a young hairdresser who works from home, explained that she spent R12 each month on data. She only uses the messaging application WhatsApp, She would like to look up hairstyles on the web or Facebook but for her that is unaffordable. And to keep to her budget she doesn’t leave WhatsApp on. “I only open my data when I want to check messages, or if maybe I want to send someone a message.”

Data is not a luxury. Our evidence shows that mobile phones and mobile data are now vital in maintaining incomes, in learning and in keeping in touch. In a country and region where migrancy is so common, communicating with families and communities of support is vital. We found many examples of WhatsApp church groups, savings clubs and distant family groups in the diaries. One diarist even received her grandchild’s isiZulu lessons on her phone.

The Competition Commission is conducting an inquiry into the high costs of mobile data. The Treasury’s mandate directs the Competition Commission, “…to make recommendations that would result in lower prices for data services.” The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) has introduced new rules on pricing which will extend the life of data bundles and eliminate ‘out of bundle’ bill shock from early in 2019. Based on our research, there are three things the Competition Commission and ICASA could still act on.

The regulators should focus on the costs of data for the poor, not the rich. It’s in the ‘out of bundle’ and small bundle prices that the market is failing.

The regulators should make operators disclose, on a quarterly basis, the amount of their revenues that comes from ‘out of bundle’ and small bundle data charges to pre-paid customers so it is possible to monitor the extent to which competition is working for low-income users.

Lastly, regulators should act to close the price gap between large and small bundles and evaluate operators’ justifications for the scale of this gap.

If governments valued and used the internet in the services they offer, they would focus on building an enabling and competitive environment for the digital market and respect digital rights and online rights. Speaking at the Collaboration on International ICT Policy for East and Southern Africa (CIPESA), the organisations executive director, Dr Wairagala Wakabi, said that African leaders should consider the impact and opportunities presented by the internet.

These include but not limited to, new employment and business opportunities, an inclusive, competitive and strong digital economy which can compete with international markets, public digital services and free citizens who can freely use the internet to exercise their rights such as freedom of expression. Wakabi further said that just about 20% of the African population uses the internet and this is an increase in both usage and access.

Cipesa recently hosted its annual Forum on Internet Freedom Africa (#FIFAfrica) in Ethiopia where some key issues on internet freedom and digital rights were raised. Wakabi was speaking on a panel about the importance of accepting that internet penetration and access is increasing across the continent and governments must expand and take advantage of this phenomenon. The panel also included Dr Getahun Mekuria, Ethiopia’s Minister of Innovation and Technology, Anriette Esterhusyen from the Association of Progressive Communications (APC), and Prof Peter Fussey from the University of Essex.

If African governments relied on the internet for government services such as government websites, the economy, government services and more they would understand the value and importance of the internet in today’s society, perhaps then we would have less than 22 internet shutdowns in a year. This was a suggestion brought up during this panel discussion.
CIPESA’s latest State of internet freedom in Africa report states that the period between 2016–2019 was the “golden era” of internet shutdowns. During this period, nearly half of the countries in Africa (at least 22 of them, including the host country, Ethiopia) experienced a government-ordered network disruption, with popular social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter being the main target. Some countries also ordered blockages of SMS, or of the entire internet. In Uganda’s case, mobile money services. Within the first three weeks of 2019, network disruptions had been registered in five countries (Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon, Sudan and Zimbabwe.

The conference showed testament that as internet penetration rises in Africa, stakeholders, policymakers, internet advocates and civil society organisations continue to fight for better internet governance and for the protection of online human rights and online. The conference covered digital rights, digital security, policy matters, access, affordability, free expression and non-discrimination, and the free flow of digital information on the continent.

Parliamentary monitoring websites are shaping democracy in Africa by providing free information about parliaments to citizens. These digital technologies are a way of keeping an eye on the people in power.

“Parliamentary monitoring sites improve citizen engagement in governance and reduce the distance between the representative and the represented,” according to mySociety’s research “Parliament and the People: How digital technologies are shaping democratic information flow in Sub-Saharan Africa”.

Parliamentary monitoring websites make it easy to find information about representatives, laws, parliament proceedings, debate topics, election news, and more. In some ways digital parliamentary monitoring platforms have become an important vehicle for democracy in the digital age.

We review five African parliament monitoring platforms.

So you have built a digital citizen participation platform, but how do you launch it and increase engagement and raise enough awareness to turn the platform into a successful citizen participation or civic tech platform? Brussels-based citizen participation platform Citizen lab has put together the best practices essential Communication Kit.

Having launched various cities and local government platforms, Citizen suggest that launching a civic tech platform or citizen participation platform should reflect the wide array of voices within communities. The report states that when launching a new platform, it must be guided by these three principles:

• Clarity — Your platform must have a clear message and you should focus on that important message.
• Continuity — Communication is an important part of any citizen platform, so communicate with the citizens on a regular basis.
• Diversity — Use different channels to spread the message about your platform to the citizens.

Citizen Lab suggests using these key channels to communicate and reach citizens: direct web traffic, emailing, website referrals and social media. These are channels you can use without the need for a lot of resources while still reaching and increasing more engagements on your platform. As a citizen-focused platform, it would work in your favour to use these channels to communicate, share and boost your platform. We expand a little more on this: