
YALI TechCamp Abidjan: Towards technology and tools for transparency
How the Young African Leaders Initiative is working to improve accountability.
Côte d’Ivoire has made some progress tackling corruption in recent years. It’s slowly climbing Transparency International’s corruption perceptions index and there are some initiatives to make government more accountable.
But much more needs to be done. Law enforcement, legislative and judiciary institutions are still weak; the wealthy buy their way out of conviction; government keeps account of public spending out of reach of citizens; procurement process and expenditures are hidden to prevent accountability; public office holders demands for bribes less they make processes difficult; public offices are abused such that ghost workers are infused into systems payrolls and a few high-ranking individuals cash in.
Nascent, weak and malleable institutions are a result of bad governance and lack of transparency. It’s part of the reason why so many countries like Côte d’Ivoire and many of its continental neighbours still wallow in despondent poverty and rank lowest in the Human Development Index. Despite their being blessed with numerous natural resources including oil, gold, cobalt, diamond, bauxite, copper, uranium and other rare metals that are essential to the global economy.
There are still stories of corruption from all over West Africa. Stories such as military security funds meant to battle insurgents being stolen by top ranking military officers, humanitarian and emergency funds are diverted into private pockets, electronic payment systems are manipulated to make double payments to vendors while funds are diverted to private companies, contracts are given to companies owned by friends, immediate and extended family and those without adequate requirements in exchange for kickbacks rather than based on merit. The cases of corruption are endless.
The result is poor enforcement of anti-corruption controls which allows corruption to fester, hence leaving behind trails of gross citizen mistrust, poor service delivery and circular poverty.
How can tech help?
There is desire for change. Across Africa, we’ve seen citizens voting into power regimes based on promises of battling corruption. The problem is that these promises are seldom fulfilled, either because the new regime never had real will for change in the first place, or because the underlying infrastructure is resistant to change and we lack the tools to monitor and enforce it.
We rely on media, NGOs and opposition parties to hold their government to account. But we, as technologists, can help to build the tools needed to do that. That’s why the US Embassy Abidjan and NGO WISE teamed up to host a Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI) TechCamp event in Abidjan in July, which was themed around technology and tools for transparency. YALI Network members from Cote D’Ivoire, Mali, Burkina Faso and Guinea attended, keen on learning digital skills and strategies to enhance transparency and hold their leaders accountable.

The participants divided in groups began by identifying shared challenges, they discussed and brainstormed the challenges they face in given thematic areas. Technology experts and trainers were on ground to join in on topics they were most interested in.
The view from the floor
Representing Code for Africa, I was amongst the trainers building bridges for the participants from different countries towards one common goal, holding government accountable while encouraging transparency through civic technology and tools.
As an initial introduction to the topics, a speeddating-style session saw delegates on their feet and learning. Each trainer gave a five minute presentation their technology to a group of participants. Every five minutes, the participants changed and moved to other trainers.

This was followed by an interactive training for the participants, still in groups on respective subjects, tools and technology, challenges and lessons learnt. The trainers also cited challenges they have had in their projects and solutions with aid that these knowledge collectively would aid the participants when developing their projects.
After this the participants then began to reflect on their unique challenges, forming groups based on the topics and challenges, they wished to address, they submitted statements. Next, they began identifying solutions still in groups based on selected challenges, with the aid of experts who worked as advisors to they began discovering and documenting solutions.

The presentations came next, it was the most important part as each leveraged dramatic and creative means to present their projects. Some of the solutions presented included existing platforms to verify election promises; a platform to raise awareness among citizens during elections; another aimed at improving political literacy and citizen engagement for rural communities; a platform for youth engagement and civic education; and another for transparency in government.
Also present at the non-governmental organizations, civil society advocates and event journalists. The twitter hashtag for the event was #TechCampAbidjan. It must be made known that citizens of Africa are no more waiting or sleeping but have rather become active and are making moves towards enhancing transparency and holding government accountable, which is key to a developed Africa today and tomorrow.
Code for Africa (CfA) is the continent’s largest federation of data journalism and civic technology laboratories, with labs in four countries and affiliates in a further six countries. CfA manages the $1m/year innovateAFRICA.fund and $500,000/year impactAFRICA.fund, as well as key digital democracy resources such as the openAFRICA.net data portal and the GotToVote.cc election toolkit. CfA’s labs also incubate a series of trendsetting initiatives, including the PesaCheck fact-checking initiative in East Africa, the continental africanDRONEnetwork, and the African Network of Centres for Investigative Reporting(ANCIR) that spearheaded Panama Papers probes across the continent.CfA is an initiative of the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ).

