ToroDev’s Open Data Analytics is a social enterprise prioritizing the use of large volumes of data generated by both public and private institutions to accelerate economic, social and political transformation in Uganda and beyond. New and traditional technologies (ICT tools) are used to transform available big datasets into ready to access and use data and information for policy makers, business managers and leaders, investors, researchers, academics and consumers. This is key to powering evidence-based decision and policy making processes for both public and private institutions to achieve maximum value from resources employed for engagement and advocacy.
Civic and voter education is at the heart of participatory governance process that is intended to deliver sustainable growth and development. Agenda 2063 of the African Union seeks to promote strong cultural identity, values and ethics among the African peoples as well as participatory governance and development. At a global level, Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) number sixteen (16) seeks to promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels. It is therefore incumbent upon governments, civil society and communities to work together to ensure inclusive and meaningful participation at all times. This is why ToroDev partners with other civil society organizations in Rwenzori region to Collaborate, coordination and networking in identifying the health of CSO’s as well as looking at how best to improve on bringing up issues from communities for government action and improved service delivery.
Through other networks like Rwenzori Governance Cluster and Civic & Voter Education cluster, CSO’s come together to focus among other issues on what we have been doing as a network amidst covid-19 and how best we can increase our reporting on the work we do in communities but also protecting public (government) resources from being misused like the 19th September,2020 Governance cluster quarterly meeting that sat at the host organization, Rwenzori Anti-Corruption Coalition (RAC). It meeting further focused on the campaigns now that Uganda is preparing for general elections come 2021. The Civic and Voter Education stakeholders meeting held on 26th September at KRC board room reviewed the civic and voter education activities and engagements that stakeholders are involved in, training in photography as we prepare for the forthcoming general election monitoring early February 2021 in Uganda and sharing work experiences and activity plans for the next quarter (October-December) 2020 where ToroDev shared progress of the Open Data Analytics project.
Representatives of CSO’s from Rwenzori Region during their Quarterly Meeting in Fort Portal
Partnerships have become increasingly prevalent across a wide range of sectors for the delivery of services and implementation of policy. Partnerships are seen as a more effective way of delivering policy interventions than state-led or ‘top-down’ approaches. Partnership working is characterized by a coming together of organizations and individuals to resolve conflict or address specific issues which cannot be resolved by the organizations or individuals acting alone. Such approaches are also increasingly seen as a way of empowering individuals to take an active role in identifying and delivering their own needs, and in improving the effectiveness of policy interventions.
As CSO’s, we realize that a revitalized national civic education system significantly benefits all Ugandans. It will raise the impact of citizens on public affairs, and it will harness the creativity, energy, and dreams of Ugandans to boost governance and business. An effective civic system is essential to prepare citizens to peacefully and constructively participate in nation building.
CSO’s and other Partners in a group exercise identifying Advocacy issues in the region
The confusion created over the years has made voter education synonymous with civic education – the problem of concurrently conducting Civic Education and campaigns. This is because in every electoral period, significant efforts are made by stakeholders led by the Electoral Commission to deliver “civic education” which is mainly limited to voter education and which always ends with the elections. This proximity to elections means that only voter education messages, which are just a narrow component of civic education, generally dominate at the expense of broader and longer term civic education efforts aimed at citizen transformation and empowerment. Even then, voter education itself has been deficient as evidenced, for example, by the high rate of invalid ballots, bribery of voters, voter apathy and low participation in most election activities. These among other issues are being focused on by CSO’s operating at regional and national level in their engagements.
Representatives of CSO’s from Rwenzori region after their Quarterly meeting in September 2020
The CSO’s in these partnerships will support ToroDev’s work especially the Open Data Project (opendata-analytics.org) to increase data availability, increase citizen awareness on existing data and information but also make their leaders accountable through their advocacy work using existing data all aimed at improving services delivery especially the key service delivery sectors of Health, Education and Economic development.
