Introduction

Sharing her experiences in ICTs, at the Third Lango Forum organized by Women of Uganda Network (WOUGNET) in February 2010, Ms Beatrice Aceng a rural women farmer, observed that many women were afraid to get out of their “comfort zones”. She said “Had I not got on my bicycle and come to Kubere Information Centre, I would have not been exposed to the various opportunities that mobile phones and radios offer. We were two women when we started coming for the computer lessons, later my friend dropped out, but I persisted until I learnt how to use some basic computer packages.” She said ICT has helped her and her group access market using their mobile phones. Almost every member of her group can now use phones comfortably.

Ms Aceng said that in 2008, her group used their mobile phone to link to a buyer in Lira, a neighbouring district and they were able to sell their produce at a good price and got a hefty eight hundred thousand Uganda shillings (approximately USD 400). In that same year, she was asked to come and share her farming experiences on radio as one of the progressive farmers on rearing local goats with a wider audience. She said this was a great opportunity for her and a good experience in using ICTs to share information with other members of the community.

But where is the technology situated?

In most cases, however simple a technological setup is, it is located in an urban setting or in a township setting where the infrastructure can support its set up and use. This then brings in cultural and gender issues of access. The experience in Uganda for instance demonstrates that although telecentres were set by IDRC with gender consideration in mind (IDRC 1987), mainly men used the facilities and as a result, a CD-ROM project was proposed by the International Women’s Tribune Centre (IWTC) in partnership with the International Development Research Centre/Eastern and Southern Africa Office (IDRC/ESAO), Nairobi, and implemented in Uganda by the Uganda National Council of Science and Technology (UNCST) in partnership with non-governmental organizations including the Council for Economic Empower ment of Women in Africa – Uganda Chapter (CEEWA-U), Media One and Uganda Development Services (UDS). The CD-ROM was pioneered in 2001 at three telecentres in the rural areas of Nakaseke and Buwama, and Nabweru in the peri-urban area.

In a research carried out between September 2005 and February 2006, it was found out that with the advent of the CD-ROM project, women accessed new information and ideas on how to improve their businesses, identifying business opportunities and discovering their potential. “As women gathered at the telecentres, they formed new relationships with each other and became more acquainted with the trainers with whom they shared experiences and challenges. Before then, all these women had led individual lives mainly centred on their immediate and extended families. In areas like Nakaseke and Buwama (which are rural), households are as far as 5 kilometres apart. Before and after the training sessions, women could find time to chat and share experiences among themselves. Consequently, new groups (both formal and informal) were formed to continue the relationships established at the telecentres. These included, for example, the Nabweru Revolving Fund, the Twekembe Women’s Group and the Nakaseke Women’s Development Association (NAWODA). These groups were based on self-help principles whereby a pool of resources would be collected to raise money for start-up capital and to boost the existing businesses.”

By providing grassroots women entrepreneurs with information, the CD-ROM project aimed at enhancing their enterprises, thereby empowering them economically. The study revealed that although the women used the information to improve and expand their businesses, most of them could not make significant progress as they spent much of the proceeds on household needs and their children’s welfare. The widowed women, however, illustrated a situation of self-discovery, moving from the status of dependency to that of independent and economically em powered individuals. They used the acquired information to make significant improvements in their businesses, made profits to take care of their families and also contributed positively to the development of their communities.

For the case of Kubere Information Centre in Northern Uganda, it was located strategically at the central market place, so that women could be able to easily access it, whenever they came to the market on market days. However it was still a small number that came directly the centre. Most preferred the information going to them at their localities.Of the range of ICTs available, the computer is least used in rural communities. Instead the mobile telephone and radio have picked up in a very surprising fashion.

Conclusion

One of the greatest areas of concern in development is livelihoods. Most rural women in Africa base their entire livelihood on agriculture. In order to improve their livelihoods, it is important to understand the challenges they face in their farming activities. Although the radio was identified as a very informative medium in regard to agricultural activities, the underlying question is: How effective is the information received on air translated into the ground? How has technology helped in translating this information into improved livelihoods? Do women own radios?

References

Patricia K. Litho : ICTs, empowerment and Women in rural Uganda: A SCOT Perspective. A paper presented at the “to think is to experiment”; SSMAC, Centre for Narrative Research, UEL, 22nd April 2005

WOUGNET 2005: Enhancing Access to Agricultural Information using ICTs – Baseline survey report.

Rural Women’s Voices Project : a Research report on Information needs, Information sources and Health, education, Livelihoods, Good Governance and Gender concerns of Rural women in Apac District. April 2008.

Susan Bakesha, Angela Nakafeero and Dorothy Okello, 2009: ICTs as agents of change: a case of grassroots women entrepreneurs in Uganda IN AFRICAN WOMEN AND ICTs edied by neke Buskens and Anne Webb

Africa News - Uganda: Ugandan journalist, Angeli Izama, was arrested and charged Wednesday for defamation. Political columnist for the independent Daily Monitor newspaper, he likened the regime of President Yoweri Museveni dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines in an article published December 20, 2009.

Explanations of Ugandan journalist

"It was a commentary, an analysis was hypothetical," said the lawyer, Anne Abeja-Muhwezi. The arrest "due to the preparation of presidential and parliamentary elections" of 2011. "The government wants to silence critical journalists," she also said, reports Le Monde.

• Uganda - Journalism: Journalist arrested and charged with defamation (.afrik.com)

It was absolutely justified if the traders in the new Ashaiman-Ghana market refuse to pay their tolls.This is because the illegal hawkers and vendors around the market sell their items to buyers before the buyers get into the designated market area.But it is quite commendable that this menace is being tackled.It really depicting the real Ghana.FREEDOM AND JUSTICE

Africa News - Uganda: The top United Nations human rights official today urged the Ugandan Government to do away with a "draconian" draft bill that would prohibit homosexual relations and contains provisions for punishing people alleged to be lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgendered.

• Uganda: Top UN Rights Official Urges Country to Do Away With 'Anti-Homosexuality Bill' (Allafrica.com)

Africa News APA-Kampala (Uganda) Secretariat of the African Community of'Est (EAC) will host the 18 to 20 January in the Ugandan capital, Kampala, a validation workshop on the preliminary report on the implementation of of a monetary union among the partner states of East Africa's, said Friday the communications director, Richard Owora.

• Uganda: Workshop on European Monetary Community of East Africa (afriqueavenir.org)

Pastor Warren has released a video condemning the Ugandan anti-gay legislation. (The video was released December 10th, the day after I posted this piece, and after Reverend Kaoma’s press conference.) I’m very grateful that he’s made this statement, and hope that his unambiguous statement will be heard in Uganda, influencing policy on the ground. More on Warren’s statement.

Could Rick Warren stop Uganda’s anti-gay legislation? (ethanzuckerman.com)

For a number of years, Uganda has been an interesting case for those studying the political dynamics of the continent, especially the wave of democratisation that swept the continent in the 1990s. Yoweri Museveni accessed power in 1986 - after leading the National Resistance Movement (NRM) from the bush to the toppling of Milton Obote the year before that. Since then Museveni has been hostile to attempts to establish a multi-party democracy in the country. Instead he favoured his "movement" and a no-party democracy. Since the first elections took place in 1996, Museveni has been elected three times as president (1996, 2001 and 2006), the last one changing the constitutional two-term limit, in order to be allowed to stand. rn

Museveni in 1993 - Photograph by Dave Blume (Flickr)

All doubts regarding his democratic credentials however, have not resulted in international condemnation - rather the oposite: Uganda has received great deal of international support and development aid. Two main reasons explain this: first, the crucial position of Uganda on a very complicated regional context. Uganda has remained as a stable Western ally during the turbulent years of the Rwandan genocide and of the Congolese Civil Wars. Uganda has thus received support in order to resist both regional destabilisation and the interna threat posed by Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). A second reason which explains why Museveni's democratic shortcomings have been placed on a second plane, has been Uganda's success in fighting HIV/AIDS. The country has often been put forward as an example of effective government policy, based on the ABC (Abstinence, Be Faithbul, Condomise) policy, which saw prevalence rates decline during the 1990s. Doubts however, have been expressed regarding the real impact of these policies.rnrnRecent developments however, seem to be testing the international support which the country has received for the past twenty years, casting doubts over a potential renewal of Museveni's tenure in the 2011 elections. First, Museveni refused to hand in Kony to the ICC, saying that he would receive a domestic trial, even though he himself reffered the case to the ICC in the first place!rnThen, in September this year, riots erupted for three days in Kampala - leaving at least 15 deaths. Violence was the result of confrontation between the police and supporters of the King of Buganda (the Kabaka) Ronald Muwenda Mutebi, after the government decided to block him from touring Kayunga district, where he was due to preside over Buganda Youth Day celebrations. rn

An image of the riots in Kampala last September (Reuters)

But Uganda has most recently been the object of fierce criciticism from the country's civil society and the international comunity, over an altogether different matter, the drafing of an anti-homosexuality bill , proposed by David Bahati, MP for the Ndorwa West constituency. If approved, something which looks likely (at least before the public opinion backlash), this bill would mean life imprisonment for any Ugandan who engages in what the bill calls “same gender sexual activity”, and the prescription of the death sentence if the offender is a person living with HIV, a person with authority over a sexual partner, or if the partner is under 18. All these has been severely criticised by the Ugandan civil society: a prominent Ugandan church leader,Canon Gideon Byamugisha, has labelled the bill as "close to genocide", and last Thursday the "Civil Society Coalition on Human Rights and Constitutional Law", released a statement criticising the bill (read it here).rnAs it is often the case among African leaders - like Museveni or Mugabe - the criticism and prosecution of homosexuality ties into an anti-imperial rhetoric which seees the West as "exporting" the practice (something similar was hinted by Iranian president Mahmud Ahmadineyad, when he claimed - to international disbelief - that there were no gays in Iran). The case of the Uganda anti-homosexuality however, appears to have particularly interesting international dimensions - but not supporting the thesis of homosexuality being a Western import to Africa. rnrnOn a recent article on Ethan Zuckerman's blog My Heart's in Accra, he explores the connections existing between the drafting of the Ugandan bill and American Christian fundamentalists groups. The most interesting point made here is the reference to an article by Kapya Kaoma, an Anglican priest from Zambia and project director of Political Research Associates, who explores how anti-homosexual activist and holocaust revisionist Scott Lively, visited Uganda in March 2009 and played an important role in shaping public opinion in favour of the bill - he even spoke with Ugandan lawmakers and government officials. Zuckerman also mentions how Rick Warren, the leading American evangelist pastor, has condemned the bill in an attempt to separate this extreme proposition from the increasing influence of evangelican gruoups across Africa. A condemnation which has come (to the disbelief of many) more or less at the same time as the one expressed by the leader of the Anglican Church (itself split in different factions regarding homosexuality), Rowan Williams.rnrnNot all news coming from Uganda are bad news, though; on Friday, the country's parliament passed a new law that outlaws and criminalises female genital mutilation. However, some of these news and propositions may contribute to wearing off the shine of Museveni's command of Uganda, as perceived from the outside, and may cause increasing opposition to his re-election in the 2011 elections - although he still remains favourite. If Museveni wants to prevent public opinion from turning even more against him, he should commit himself to make his governmnent more responsive to the citizens' needs - including a fair and efficient management of the newly found oil reserves (which for some may signal the oposite, a "resource curse" being about to fall on Uganda) - and not just trying simple publicity stunts like flying economy class to the Copenhagen summit.

Obiang wins again!

Not really much of a surprise there, but apparently Equatorial Guinea's Teodor Obiang Nguema wants to do better than the 97% "win" he had in the last election. His perfectionism is a bit out of control. Those who don't suffer from attempting to do better are the BBC as they had their correspondent in Ghana chiming in about this election in Equatorial Guinea. Not only are these in two different countries in two different regions of Africa, but I'm curious if Caspar Leighton even speaks Spanish or just assumed that they speak English in Guinea after phoning in commentary he probably gleaned from Wikipedia.

Windows 7 - 10 African Languages

Rebecca talks about Microsoft's plans to have their latest operating system available in multiple local African languages. Pretty cool overall, but we'll have to pass judgment in awhile on this as it's not slated to happen until the year after next.

Programming Language Popularity

Jon breaks down what seem to be the most popular programming languages in Africa, according to some Google Insights stats. Thankfully he qualifies at the very beginning that these are just a starting place and not absolutely definitive. Good to state as Google stats for Africa are sketchy at best. It's really hard to tell who all those queries are and things could be skewed a great degree one way or another given that a lot of IPs for African users show up as somewhere in Europe due to where the VSAT connections touch down to terra firma.

In the media today, many Africans, Europeans, and Americans rave about the increased Chinese presence in Africa. According to the Tehran Times, which like the BBC, reported Ugandan President Paul Kagame’s speech on Chinese investment in Africa, in 2003 investment from China in Africa stood at $491million and rose to $7.8billion last year. Many Africans fear that increased interest in Africa is a new kind of colonialism where our resources are being sold for unequal value in order to fuel China’s rapidly growing economy. The general European reaction can be interpreted as having fear of Chinese competition for Africa’s immense resources as they don’t like having their historical playground disturbed. The Americans feel similar to the Europeans but they are angrier about Chinese influence in Africa and more recently in Latin America and the Middle East because it is seen as a direct challenge to US hegemony and they are not amused. All these perspectives have merit but from I have a very different viewpoint on how Africans can look at Chinese actions.

What the Chinese are doing is purchasing natural resources from African countries in exchange for either cash or large constructions of infrastructure. Plain and simple. The Chinese do not care if our governments are democratically elected or whether those governments care for their people or whether they ask for fair value for their commodities. I as an African have no problem with this. The Chinese are not like the Americans and Europeans who try to play God with us and decide to withhold “aid” or investment if we don’t show them that we are worthy of it by practicing “good” government. Why do the Americans criminalize Zimbabwe or Sudan for having bad undemocratic governments when they trade freely with Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait and the other various oil producing giants in the Middle East who are as far from democracy as Pluto is from the Sun? The Chinese don’t get on our case because they are in no morale position to talk about good democratic government as they are not a democracy and have never tried to say they were or hide their lack of democracy. They are in Africa to get what they want and if we Africans sell them these materials then there is no problem.

Furthermore, in my opinion, there are many positives that stem from this investment in Africa by the Chinese. In the case of Angola, the two countries signed a large oil deal in 2006 that can be worth an estimated 9 billion of dollars if certain targets for production in the treaty can be reached (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/5080626.stm). According to the same BBC report, this is money that Angola can use to build better roads, improve a lagging school system, and upgrade and expand a broken infrastructural system. This country desperately needs this type of investment as it is just six years removed from a crippling civil war that destroyed its production and development potential.

However, in the same report, people have questioned whether this money will actually be used the way the Angolan government has been said it will be used. Will it get to the people and institutions that need it the most? There is no question that there is rampant corruption in the Angolan government and the divide between the rich and poor is large. But, this is not the problem of the Chinese. It is the problem of the Angolan government and its people who they are suppose to represent. Should the Chinese government demand that this money make it to the people who need it before it flows into the country? Maybe. Should the Angolan government have charged a higher price for its oil? Probably. But since neither party did that, a fair deal was signed and the world needs to respect that.

Now, I do believe that African countries who sell these natural resources should get higher value for them. I do believe we could charge more for our resources and obtain more financial help from China if two things happened. Firstly, if African countries were able to work together and form OPEC-like groups for our natural resources, that way we aren’t competing against each other in the market in the selling of our goods, we could obtain higher prices for our goods. Secondly, we need to take advantage of Chinese, European and American rivalries with each other and see if we can get better deals for our resources. It is clear that there is a demand for the rich mineral resources Africa has from the non-African countries; we must find ways to use this situation for our advantage and extract high prices for our goods.

Furthermore, more needs to be done in Africa to transform our economies from being a raw material based economy to being a manufacturing and tertiary economy. So instead of Namibia, Angola, and Botswana just selling raw diamonds from the ground, we should have our own polishing and cutting industries and have our own jewelers who we sell finished products to. This will increase our own revenues and provide employment to thousands of unemployed in our countries.

However, in conclusion, there is nothing wrong with what the Chinese are doing in Africa. Whenever reading the critiques of the Chinese it is important to understand where these comments are coming from and why. We need to ask ourselves why the issue is framed as a “problem” and in whose best interests is it for this to be framed as such. But no matter what these critics say, in my opinion, African governments and the Chinese are entering into agreements for our natural resources and if our leaders are too naïve to charge fair value for our goods then that is our problem. China is not responsible to ensure that we Africans set “fair” and “just” prices for our goods, this is our responsibility. Gone are the times when we Africans can blame others for our own bad decisions, the time has come for us to take responsibility for our actions and live with the decisions that we make.

A young woman knocks on the camera lense. "Hello? Hello?" This goes on for a couple of minutes, as her voice grows more and more impatient.

This is how Lara Rosenoff, a colleague at the University of British Columbia, introduces her photo essay on Beatrice, a girl living in an camp for Internally Displaced People (IDP) in Uganda. Through her pictures and texts, Beatrice and Lara's reflections on each image, moving between the personal and the public, Beatrice's private life and the political conflict that wraps her life, we are introduced into the everyday life of a young woman who

would be uncomfortable to be known only as a former child soldier. Or simply as a former abductee...or as an orphan...or as a child head of household.

Her name is Beatrice.

I could try to explain more about her photo essay, but she does a superd job at it and her words and pictures are just a click away from you, here. So I will just share a picture that I particularly like for personal reasons.

It is a picture of Beatrice in the river, washing a blue bucket. She is pregnant, and doesn't know how to tell Lara or face the consequences of her current position.

I feared looking into your eyes. I feared telling you of my child. I thought that you would quarrel with me.

I don't want to minimize the importance of this news on Beatrice's life, which we barely begin to learn about in the caption by Lara, or pretend that this picture is more important for any reason than the rest in the series. It's a personal choice. I have chosen it because it resonates with my experience: it shows one of those moments when, after months of being in a place where you don't belong, asking yourself if what you're doing is worth it, you find out the answer. This is one of those rare moments when you realize you're not on the outside anymore.