KUBATANA.NET REVIEW COMMENT

1. CLAIMS: Much work had gone into this project looking at the volume of data and information available in the directory of civil engagement activities and institutions, archives and the website as a whole.

From the model of this project it is most intended to create a platform for other civil society organizations to project their activities and making research finding and other valuable data from such institutions available to the public and other oversight organizations and pressure groups that need them in their activism.

To a large extent this has been achieved. However it is one thing to get the information available and another to use this information to influence policy, behavior, and governance process as a whole.

There has been claims that some of the project activities such as alerts about accountability problems relating to road toll collection in Zimbabwe led to investigations by Transparency International, Zimbabwe but the outcomes derived from the investigations were not so explicit.

Secondly the project mentioned how the platform created the needed connections for NGOs to get funding from donors but did not give examples or clear cases where it was well manifest.

2. IMPROVEMENT: The project can strengthen its tracking and feedback mechanism to measure how various activists and pressure groups are succeeding in use of data and other valuable resource obtained from the project.

The project can also create a strong link with the local Media Associations and other International Media groupings for regular releases of summaries of critical issues can be sent out and pressure brought to bear on those involved.

The project site also would need further promotion since the greater number of hits and traffic makes it better.They can do this by exchanging links with related sites.

3. DOING WELL: I think the flagship of this project is its aggregation of civil engagement activities and one of the tools I find so impressive is Freedom Fone which was implemented on a pilot basis and I hope it would become a mainstay. It highlighted one crucial aspect of New Media as an effective tool in civil activism against the backdrop that most communities who need to be reached and encouraged to participate do not have access to computers and internet.

It is there so crucial if not incumbent on developers to adopt technologies that reach a wider segment of the people such as the mobile phone technologies for outreach and feedback. The freedom phone is a free software tool that enables one to deliver and receive audio messages on a server platform.

This is not developed by Kubatana but its usage as audio magazine in the context of civil engagement is very innovative as far as Kubatana project is concerned and needs commendation. Kubatana launched Inzwa , a weekly audio magazine, using freedom fone as a pilot service to run for 3 months from July 2009.(Inzwa means listen)

4. GROUPS RECOMMENDED: It would be great if the project can work more closely with Media conglomerates since the political environment in Zimbabwe is such that much of the influence can only come from “talking pressure” that basically informs the powers that be both at the local and the International arena.

In all the project is very impressive and commendable in civic engagement.

Reply

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
  • Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.
  • Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd> <img> <h1> <h2> <h3> <h4> <h5> <pre>
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.

More information about formatting options