In the civic-driven approach, civic actors can identify and develop solutions for development gaps in their own communities and sectors of interest.

In 2021, the Civic Tech Innovation Forum ‘21 chose as its headline theme – #DIYAfrica. This theme explored questions of what a hyper-democratised society may have to look like in an age where governments seemed to be flailing, exacerbated by the impacts of Covid-19.

What if Africans on the ground had to get on with building their own futures, where technology might enable empowerment, participation, critique, and even resistance? This theme seemed to resonate with the spirit of the times, and leveraged a similar narrative from the European Union (EU) Future of Government 2030+ scenarios (EU, 2019), which had posited a scenario entitled “DIY Democracy”. This DIY scenario was characterised by decentralising power and self-organised communities, with the civic rising as a key governance actor. It was a story of the co-creation of public services enabled by grassroots participation, digitalisation and the democratisation of tech. Could this be the emerging African story, the conference was asking?

If a bit dramatic, this #DIYAfrica scenario does raise an interesting question about the capability of African states and the necessary and/or desirable roles of civil society.

Citizen-driven technology used to improve public governance

In the recent publication Civic Tech in Southern Africa: Alternative Democracy and Governance Futures?, data showed that civic tech in Southern Africa is growing.

Today, there are several initiatives across sub-Saharan Africa in which citizen-driven technology is used to improve public governance. It is not necessarily evenly distributed – the Civic Tech Innovation Network (CTIN)’s civic tech database shows that the majority of civic tech initiatives (around 70%) in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) are located in South Africa or originated from South Africa. This begins to signal there are already alternative loci of public action and delivery beyond the traditional government control.

There are, however, several issues that beg consideration which is why the idea of #DIYAfrica is not an easy solution or panacea, despite growing discontentment with government delivery.

Firstly, there is a state-citizen contract that delineates a relationship with roles, and the state is mandated to perform certain public functions. It is a role-based upon which for example, public taxation and control is agreed upon. Accepting a diffusion of these functions begins to put into question these state-society relationships.

Secondly, governments and communities may not trust civic tech approaches and their agendas, whether for fear of loss of control, of undue political or private influence or of the difficulty of managing quality standards in the context of massive decentralisation. Sometimes this is exacerbated by poor understanding and a lack of preparedness of the state in engaging with new technologies and new regulatory roles. 

At the same time, however, it cannot be denied that the state cannot go it alone; most African countries continue to face underdevelopment, undergirded by what South Africa has termed the “trilemma” of poverty, inequality and unemployment. Civic tech has come to the fore in providing solutions in critical sectors such as education, health, the environment, gender and justice.

Solutions such as VillageReach in Malawi (which use drone-delivery to get medication to remote areas), Community Tablet in Mozambique (which empower rural communities with digital education), and Gender Links Lesotho (which developed the Nokaneng app which supports women who are experiencing gender-based violence) – are filling delivery gaps and making a real impact in the lives of communities.

Two roles

We argue that civic tech potentially has two critical roles to play. One role – where there are civic-driven digital solutions for development – could be seen as advocacy for #DIYAfrica. However, the second which has to do with civic-government interfacing on or for digital innovation – may offer more nuance.

In the civic-driven approach – where for example, Tipster as a news-sharing platform empowers any ordinary person with a smartphone to be an amateur journalist, or Living Wage which enables domestic workers to ensure that they are not being exploited – civic actors can identify and develop solutions for development gaps in their own communities and sectors of interest.

They can resource such initiatives in various ways, including through philanthropy, social investments or innovative financing models. They do not need permission from the state, only enabling infrastructure and environments. And even where the state can or will not provide those conditions, they can innovate around that too. At scale, this dispersion of service actors could underpin a #DIYAfrica society and likely require new democratic and governance relationships.

In the civic-government approach, civic tech has been seen to support and augment the capabilities of government to improve service delivery and the citizen experience. Examples of this include PENSA (a Ministry of Health-approved platform that provides Mozambican citizens with vital health information); Namola (an app developed with government support that enables South Africans to report when they are in danger); and MuniMoney and Vulekamali (civic tech built initiatives that enhance public finance transparency).

In these arrangements, we see government partnering, funding and sometimes even contracting the skills of civic tech innovators to design and deliver solutions that optimise mutual roles and capabilities.

It would seem to us that some hybridity between the two might be where the appropriate balance is. An abdication of the state’s role to hold accountability for certain public functions raises some fundamental challenges in modern democratic states, typically enshrined in our constitutions.

Unless we make radical shifts in how we would like to see our countries work, relieving governments of their primary roles may not be sensible – even where they are not performing them well.

Furthermore, it would raise new questions about what the new financing models are to sustain civically driven solutions, which is already the Achilles heel of civic tech organisations. Where governments completely fail, however, or where trust in their role is totally lost – civic tech may well be a strong leg for #DIYAfrica to stand on, even while these questions still beg to be addressed.

Research by Prof Geci Karuri-Sebina, Amy Mutua

The views expressed in this publication/article are those of the author/s and do not necessarily reflect the views of the South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA).