NGOConnect Africa is a social workspace for non-profit organisations and those that support and work with them. Its objectives are to encourage and develop collaborative socio-economic initiatives through the more effective use of technology.
NGOConnect Africa provides an online space where NGOs and their supporters can meet, discuss ideas, form communities and clubs, and share valuable resources. It offers individuals and organisations across Africa a place to engage, develop, and share knowledge and utilise lessons learned from beyond their physical borders.
NGOConnect Africa aims to respect people, cultures, and governments and to encourage the development of sustainable and appropriately scalable solutions through innovation and processes that will result in long-term socio-economic growth. It is open to members from the public, private, and civil society sectors.
The World Movement thanks Kimber Dodge, Executive Director of NGOConnect Africa, for taking the time to answer the following questions.
* What types of tools and resources does NGOConnect Africa provide to NGOs and organisations looking to promote democracy and peace-building on the African continent?
NGOConnect Africa is a social workspace. It is a tool that provides resources for non-profit organisations and their supporters across Africa. It is primarily a platform that brings together likeminded organisations using technology. It allows organisations to engage in their areas of interest, learn, share, and collaborate across borders. Inasmuch as democracy and peace-building are key issues across the African continent, NGOConnect Africa assists interested NGOs to share, collaborate, and raise awareness for their causes through its communities; creates individual, organisational, and community blogs; and launches microsites or mini-Web sites profiling organisations and their projects and initiatives.
* In such a rapidly growing and diversifying digital age, how do you manage the constant evolution of ICTs?
This is one of the key challenges we address through NGOConnect Africa. NGOs are able to raise questions and issues through the social workspace of NGOConnect Africa, and discuss these with other similar organisations and technology service providers, to find and develop solutions. Seeking out new technologies and innovations and making them relevant and available to NGOs across Africa is one of our primary objectives. We do this through social networking and community-based approaches implemented on the new site. As a managed network, we are able to highlight new ICT innovations and to work to expand their availability and usage.
* Are there ways in which you have been able to assist NGOs that otherwise may not have reliable access to the Internet or the ability to fully utilise the tools and resources you can provide?
NGOConnect Africa also aims to increase the relevant use of ICTs by a diverse range of NGOs. Because our NGO audience includes rural NGOs and community-based organisations, as well as NGOs from various countries across Africa, their access to and usage of technology varies greatly. We aim to make our Web site as accessible as possible, therefore, and supplement access through e-mail and SMS delivery.
However, this is not enough. One of the focus areas of community discussion is increasing access to relevant technology by communities and community-based organisations. We enable interested members of NGOConnect Africa to share suggestions online and to develop and deliver solutions. These may include sharing through more traditional methods, such as community radio or more broadly via satellite broadcasts.
Beyond these virtual engagements, we have programmes engaging with private and public entities to expand our reach into rural communities, engaging with civil society, and private-sector partners (technology service providers) to reach people and networks physically where we can.
* In light of providing primarily NGOs with efficient and effective ICT knowledge, what types of changes have you seen taking place on the ground? How successful do you think organisations have been in utilising ICTs?
We see NGOs across the world are taking advantage of ICTs for social marketing and awareness purposes. Although this is not as prevalent in Africa, the trend is increasing. Many organisations are distributing messages via YouTube, but results are mixed. In reality, a study in 2006 sponsored by Sangonet in South Africa indicated that ICTs are being utilised primarily for administrative purposes and e-mail. There is not a great deal of effective information or knowledge sharing utilising ICTs. However, with the uptake in usage of technology for social networking and e-mail, we believe there is a great potential for managed social networks that function as social workspaces for NGOs. This is why we believe NGOConnect Africa will break down some of these barriers. It will make social computing relevant and workable for NGOs that are often overwhelmed by solutions around the world.
* In your opinion, how do other online communities, such as YouTube, contribute to democracy work?
Online communities and ICTs have been hugely instrumental in the promotion of democracy. The elections in Zimbabwe could not have been monitored as effectively without ICTs, and abuses around the world are routinely documented and addressed via YouTube and other online video sharing tools. The challenge to online communities is to take this to the next step and move from discussion to action. This is what we provide through NGOConnect Africa - a place where you can not only discuss issues of concern, but also bring together relevant players from the public, private, and civil sections to create projects and solutions. YouTube and other online communities can then be used to further increase visibility of these solutions and reach audiences previously unreachable.
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