Researching African Civic Tech
Reflections from the Evidence Mapping Project
In 2022, the Civic Tech Innovation Network (CTIN) embarked on an exploratory research study that aimed to pull together existing research on civic tech initiatives (and their applications) within Africa. In this regard, we formed a partnership with the South Africa Centre for Evidence (SACE) who demonstrably use evidence-based research methods to improve social development outcomes in the African context. One of the key research methods SACE adopts is Evidence Mapping.
Evidence Mapping refers to the systematic and rigorous process of creating Evidence Maps. Evidence Maps represent a visualization of collected and categorised research on a specific topic, “mapped” on a matrix — allowing users to understand the nature, size and scope of existing research. Evidence Maps are fun and interactive tools that allow one to investigate the contents of evidence. For example, users can see where research saturation on a topic is, while also picking up where research gaps are.
Why research African Civic Tech?
Civic technology, commonly called “civic tech” has different definitions but in our context it is defined as the “appropriate and effective use of digital innovation in connecting government and citizens, in public participation, in transparency and accountability in delivering public services”. Civic Tech in Africa is relatively new concept. However, the scope and potential for growth in Africa has increased in the past decade. Based on these insights, CTIN has documented civic tech initiatives and case studies across the continent, hosting and tracking organisations and their projects in the African Civic Tech Atlas (Database). Our database currently consists of over 240 civic tech initiatives and case studies across Africa.
Two key observations deserve a mention: 1) the concentration of initiatives in more developed African economies (such as South Africa, Kenya, Uganda and Nigeria) and 2) the dominant sector or thematic focus of civic tech initiatives is (overwhelmingly) democracy and governance. Our research motivation for creating the Civic Tech Evidence Map focused on testing, challenging or confirming assumptions from CTIN’s previous research in the space. Therefore, the project aimed to create a common, up-to-date evidence/ knowledge base about civic tech in the African context, to improve support, decision-making and advocacy in relation to civic tech (including more broadly civil society innovation, tech for good and digital governance).
The project process
Creating Evidence Maps are labour-intensive and time-consuming methodologies but provide empirical rigour to systematically sourcing, collecting organising and visualising bodies of knowledge. The Civic Tech Evidence Map was created using Eppi-Reviewer 4, a research synthesis software that allows researchers to collect, screen, categorise and organise literature. With evidence mapping, the goal is always to search and scan as wide as possible before filtering results down based on relevance and what we call inclusion criteria*. Typically, evidence sources in evidence maps consist of academic and non-academic sources (grey literature), specifically where grey literature refers to reports or other types of papers that adopt a scientific approach (i.e follow a research research process). In the case of our Evidence Map, we decided to include blog articles, specifically those that reflected on project or personal reflections in the form of case studies and interviews. We took this approach mainly because of the practice-oriented nature of civic tech and thought it would be valuable to capture real-life and context-specific insights of civic tech stakeholders within a dynamic, creative and emerging digital innovation ecosystem.
An initial 5249 studies were screened at abstract, resulting in 979 studies that were screened at full-text. The rigorous screening process led to our map with 295 studies that met our inclusion criteria and from which data were extracted. A majority of the evidence falls within the democracy and governance sector (73%), particularly relating to the use and application of civic tech and associated methodologies to enhance transparency and accountability. Other key outcomes include empowerment, advocating for marginalised communities, and improving service delivery in sectors such as health, education and settlement planning/management.
Key Findings
- Academic literature comprises 65% of the evidence base (n=188), with grey literature at 35% (n=104).
- The dominant type of evidence is journal articles (n=155), representing 52% of the total evidence base. Reports made up 17% of the total evidence base (n=52). Blog articles account for 11% of the total evidence base (n=39).
- Regarding study design, qualitative research methods dominated with 37% of the evidence base (n=109); studies using secondary research and reviews represent 22% (n=65); with quantitative studies making up 20% (n=59).
- In terms of research distribution, the majority of studies within the evidence base focus on contexts within Southern Africa and East Africa.
- The top 5 countries in which civic tech is being researched (i.e the research context) are South Africa (96 studies); Kenya (76 studies); Uganda (54 studies); Nigeria (37 studies); and Ghana (33 studies)
- Regarding the types of civic tech distribution, the evidence base shows the top 5 categories as open source software/platforms (n=95); USSD/SMS (n=84); social media (n=72); and websites (n=69).
Research gaps are identified among the total included studies, namely:
- A surprising finding — A research gap focusing on digital rights and e-voting, business models and e-voting (including elections monitoring) and budgeting and e-voting (including elections monitoring). Findings are contrary to what we expected to find considering the popularity of digital rights and e-voting policy narratives
- Another surprising finding — A paucity of research focusing on issues regarding ‘threats to democracy’, a very real, topical political issue which refers to limiting or prohibiting digital rights as regards free speech, freedom of information, and freedom of association (see Nicolson, 2021);. There were only 17 studies coded in this category, with very few studies (two) examining censorship and internet shutdowns. In a context where civic tech is increasingly being acknowledged and celebrated as a tool for deepening democracy Songa and Dabo, 2021), this is another surprising finding that we hope to interrogate further.
- A research gap in studies focusing on using assistive technology to enhance equitable participation, empowerment and access to services and resources to differently-abled residents in African democracies.
- A Very low number of studies exploring or discussing civic tech and youth populations in Africa — for example topics on youth empowerment and development (hoped to see more studies here)
- Acknowledgement of the urban bias — African civic tech research is overwhelmingly focussed in cities/towns/urban regions. It’s important to extend the reach of future research in rural and peri-urban contexts.
Lessons
This Evidence Map can be used as a living repository, a tool to build upon both for research within CTIN as well as for knowledge sharing and partnership building with CTIN members. Overall, based on the geographical concentration of civic tech research in East and Southern Africa, it will be important to track changes in the evidence map over time to see if future research on civic tech can be expanded to other parts of Africa. The project highlighted the intersectional nature of civic tech research and its future potential in Africa. We learned the value of Case Study research in documenting civic tech. These insights, qualitative depth and rigour, and personal storytelling are invaluable for promoting awareness and education of civic tech and for potentially swaying policy or funding support in the long-run. The research revealed a variety of civic tech tools being used/applied across Africa but emphasised how lower-tech options are better serving communities (USSD/SMS, radio, websites, social media). There were many examples of participatory approaches within the evidence base, specifically the popularity and utility of open source software, tools and platforms, a well as crowdsourcing as both a method and process in civic tech research and projects.
The Civic Tech Evidence Map is available at: https://civictech.africa/databases/civic-tech-evidence-map/
For more information on the project, contact: info@civictech.africa
*Noting the limitations inherent in our methodology regarding our search strategy, namely: choice of keywords used in searchers; use of specific search engines for grey literature searches; and the decision to include evidence published in English due to capacity constraints in translating literature across different African languages that are native at a country or regional level.
