WOUGNET Networking and Partnerships

Introduction

WOUGNET is engaged in a number of projects with a variety of partners. These projects are undertaken in support of WOUGNET's overall objective to strengthen the use of ICTs among women and women organizations, to build capacities in ICT use and application, and to expand activities to reach out to women in the rural areas. WOUGNET activities are categorised under four major programs: Information sharing and networking, Technical support, Gender and ICT Policy Advocacy, and Rural access.

For more information on the projects highlighted below, send email to info@wougnet.org.

Project highlights

Africa Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) – Uganda

The African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) is an instrument voluntarily acceded to by Member States of the African Union as an African self-monitoring mechanism. The mandate of the African Peer Review Mechanism is to ensure that the policies and practices of participating states conform to the agreed political, economic and corporate governance values, codes and standards contained in the Declaration on Democracy, Political, Economic and Corporate Governance. The APRM is the mutually agreed instrument for self-monitoring by the participating member governments.

The primary purpose of the APRM is to foster the adoption of policies, standards and practices that lead to political stability, high economic growth, sustainable development and accelerated sub-regional and continental economic integration through sharing of experiences and reinforcement of successful and best practice, including identifying deficiencies and assessing the needs for capacity building. In October 2005, WOUGNET was invited to be part of the APRM process in Uganda, as a specialist technical partner institution, in recognition of its expertise in Gender and ICTs. WOUGNET has participated in the number of meetings in setting up the APRM process in Uganda. WOUGNET will also participate in the assessment exercise as a specialist technical institution. WOUGNET is particularly tasked with addressing Objective Four of the Social-economic Development pillar that, among other elements, seeks to measure the state of affordable access to water, energy, finance (including microfinance), markets and ICT to all citizens, especially the poor.

The APRM process is being led by the NEPAD secretariat in Uganda, which is the National Planning Authority.

Citizen Journalism in Africa

The Citizen Journalism in Africa project is a new three-year initiative funded by both Hivos and the EU. Hivos is working with SANGONet (South Africa) on this project. The aim of the project is to increase civil society organisations’ use of and interaction with various forms of media. This will help them maximise their communication strategies and reach. It is hoped that this will strengthen the organisations’ use of media and increase quality information dissemination capacity using multiple platforms. The project is targeting six countries i.e. South Africa, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Zambia and Tanzania. In each of these countries, two Country Focal Points (CFPs) will act as country hubs, working with 15 local organisations. The focus of the interaction with local organisations will be knowledge sharing, learning journalism skills, media, publication skills and information dissemination. It is hoped that these organisations will also learn how to use these skills and resources effectively.

In Uganda, the CFPs are WOUGNET and Busoga Rural Open Source Development Initiatives (BROSDI). To inaugurate the project, Hivos organised a Get – to – know workshop that was held in Pretoria, South Africa from 3 - 6 July 2007. This workshop is the inception of a three tier-approach:

Build the capacity of two forerunner organisations in each country to act as a country learning hub, or in other words – the country focal point. These organisations are the focal points for 15 participating organisations in their countries. The vision behind this is that with the creation of a firm training and knowledge sharing base and network in a country, strong(er) organisations can act as a catalyst for weaker organisations.
Provide, encourage and facilitate pro-active online learning activities. The project will have its’ own e-learning platform.
Encourage peer-to-peer review and on-the-job learning.

Learning activities will focus on digital media skills, journalistic professionalism and publishing skills.

The expected results of the Hivos/SANGONet programme are:

Improved capacity of Selected African CSOs including community media organisation to use media tools (edge-of the net applications, traditional and digital media tools) effectively and in a journalistically sound manner
Increased collaborative networking, learning and knowledge sharing between participants and training partners on the regional and the country level facilitating improved access to and higher quality of media contributions.
Increased presence of and access to diverse and journalistically sound content on the situation of women and other marginalized groups (as defined in this proposal) in the media of the target countries

Organisations targeted are mainly organisations working in HIV/AIDS, women (gender), youth and children and rural communities (sustainable production/microcredit). For more information on the Uganda program, contact info@wougnet.org.

CTA/Dimitra Electronic Discussion for Rural Women Networks (RWN)

From January - June 2006, WOUGNET hosted an online discussion under the theme 'Strengthening Rural Women's Networks with regards to Information and Communication and to combating HIV/AIDS in rural areas'. The six months’ discussion was jointly organized with and supported by the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation ACP-EU (CTA) and the Dimitra/FAO Project, and in collaboration with ENDA Pronat, Senegal, and the Pacific Islands Energy Gender Network. It was hosted at http://www.dgroups.org/groups/cta/rwn/ in both English and French, and was held in two parts – Sustainability of the CTA/Dimitra networks and Impact of HIV/AIDS.

The electronic discussion was a result of a joint work meeting held from 13th to 17th June 2005 in Brussels, Belgium by Dimitra-FAO and CTA, with the goal to strengthen and energize networks working for rural women in the South. This electronic discussion was agreed on as a way to bring together the Dimitra/CTA networks involved in the June meeting as well as other networks interested and involved in supporting the rural networks. The main objectives of the electronic discussion were:

To gather input for the World Congress of Rural Women, to be held in South Africa, in support of the request from the conference organisers.
To share information on fundraising for the networks and to increase networks pro-activity in making funding requests as well as to improve capacities to monitor and spend donor’s funds.
To facilitate cooperation between the networks, in particular with and communication strategies.

The final report is available in English and French. Click on language to download a copy of the report.

One of the recommendations from the six-month RWN e-discussion was that in subsequent e-discussions, more rural women networks – including those without internet access – should meet through face to face opportunities. In support of this recommendation, national meetings have been held in Uganda and Senegal with financial support from CTA. The Uganda National Meeting which was held from 23-24 February 2007 drew participants from RWNs and organizations working with rural women in 13 districts across Uganda, including Apac, Arua, Busia, Gulu, Kampala, Kasese, Kayunga, Lira, Luwero, Mpigi, Mukono, Nebbi, and Pader.

The Uganda national meeting provided an opportunity for the rural women’s networks to share their views and challenges met in networking and dealing with the impact of HIV/AIDS. The meeting report gives the workshop proceedings during the two day meeting. During the first day of the meeting, participants were introduced to the background of the workshop, its structure, a summary of the online discussion report and a presentation of strengthening information sharing and networking among rural women’s networks. The second day of the meeting began with presentations on the impact of HIV/AIDS in Uganda with a focus on food security and rural communities livelihoods. The second day also included a presentation on reinforcing networking among the rural women’s networks and recommendations on how best the organizations represented at the meeting can network on a continuous basis.

Dimitra Project in Eastern Africa

The Dimitra Project is an information and communication project implemented by the Gender and Population Division of Food and Agriculture Organisation with the aim of empowering rural populations by building capacities and facilitating access to Information. The project works with local partners in Africa and the near East and is a tool to enable rural women through their associations and grassroots organisations to make their voices heard at the national and international level. Dimitra's main goal is to empower rural women and to improve their living conditions and status by highlighting the extent and value of their contributions. Modern and traditional information and communication technologies are used to encourage networking and share information.

In the East African sub-region, the Dimitra project covers the five countries of Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Somalia and Ethiopia. To coordinate the Dimitra project and its activities in the region, early in 2006, Dimitra established a partnership with Women of Uganda Network (WOUGNET). As the regional focal point in the sub region, WOUGNET will coordinate Dimitra activities in Eastern Africa, establish local partnerships and collect, encode and disseminate information on NGOs, research institutes and information activities pertaining to rural women or rural development with a gender approach.

Gender Research in Africa into ICTs for Empowerment (GRACE)

The Gender Research in Africa into ICTs for Empowerment (GRACE) project, funded by IDRC and coordinated by Research for the Future aims to explore the ways in which women in Africa use ICTs to empower themselves, the external, structural barriers as well as the internal factors which prevent them from using ICTs to their advantage, and the strategies they employ to overcome these impediments. The research is highly original on two levels: the subject matter and the research coordination approach. The project comprises 14 sub-projects, reflecting 14 research sites in 12 countries. While coherent with the general aim of the overall research initiative, the sub-projects differ from each other greatly in terms of target group and research focus. Furthermore, the concepts of gender and empowerment which frame the project’s general direction and commitment do not have unequivocal meaning within the sub-projects. The project aims to contribute to debates focusing on women’s empowerment and ICTs through finding its own understandings of what “empowerment” and “gender” may mean in multiple African ICT contexts. The lessons learnt will be shared with policy makers and educators in the form of contextualized and local-specific recommendations.

WOUGNET is one of the organisations participating in the GRACE project, and the research project is “Uptake and Impact of the CD-ROM Rural Women in Africa: Ideas for Earning Money on Grassroots Women Entrepreneurs in Uganda”. The goal is to assess the uptake and impact of the CD-ROM on rural women entrepreneurs in Uganda, with a focus on three telecenters that have made use of the CD-ROM - Buwama, Nabweru and Nakaseke. There is also need to gain a clear understanding of the implications for appropriate ICTs for rural entrepreneurship, accounting for gender concerns.
For more information, visit: http://uganda-wougnet.livejournal.com/ or download: Introduction to GRACE (PDF format)

Harambee: Reinforcing African Voices Through Collaborative Processes

The Harambee project is a project intended to support the development of capacity among African networks and communities to make collaboration efforts more effective and in doing so, reinforcing African voices in the creation and implementation of their own development agenda. The project is also intended to support specific networks and communities and help them increase their respective capacities to support their existing partners and communities. WOUGNET is one of the focus networks identified by the Harambee project.

Harambee is supported by Bellanet, Association for Progressive Communications (APC), Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), Hivos and Connectivity Africa, and seeks to work with a number of networks across Africa. The overall goal of the Harambee project is to enhance capacity development in Africa around use of knowledge and ICTs for collaboration, such that Africa based organisations are better equipped to play a lead role in the development dialogues and action affecting them.

More and Better Women’s ICT-based Enterprises in Uganda

The Women’s ICT-Based Enterprises (WIE) project in Uganda is part of a global Women's ICT Enterprises Project, which is coordinated by Dr. Richard Heeks of the University of Manchester and funded by the UK Department for International Development (DFID). The Ugandan WIE project is coordinated by Women of Uganda Network (WOUGNET), supported by an advisory group composed of Ugandan participants to an India August 2005 workshop in which the English-language version of a handbook on supporting women’s ICT-based enterprises was reviewed.

In Uganda, there are two aspects to the WIE project. The first aspect of the Ugandan project involves localization and use of the guidance handbook on creating and supporting women’s ICT based enterprises. The second aspect of the Ugandan project was to run a workshop that motivates key stakeholders (government, NGO, private sector, community organisations, donors, banks, and training institutions among others) to initiate and promote women ICT-based enterprises. The Uganda WIE project has generated a variety of materials in support of more and better WIEs in Uganda.

Open Knowledge Network (OKN)

The Open Knowledge Network (OKN) aims at generation, collection and dissemination of local content. In Uganda, SchoolNet Uganda is the OKN hub and WOUGNET is one of the OKN-Uganda Access Points engaged in collecting and disseminating information via the OKN Network. WOUGNET in return obtains information from the hub and disseminates it to its members in form of stories in newsletters and leaflets.

The OKN project falls under the ‘Information Sharing and Networking’ program that is aimed at facilitating access to relevant information by WOUGNET members’ organisations. A Knowledge Worker is situated at the WOUGNET access point and a Community Reporter situated in Apac, with the WOUGNET Apac project. The reporter generates stories, which are sent to the knowledge worker, and the knowledge worker sends them to the hub at SchoolNet Uganda. The reporter and knowledge worker also source information from OKN. While the OKN Uganda project with WOUGNET ended in September 2006, WOUGNET has mainstreamed the skills and functions within the Information Sharing and Networking program.

Last update: November-20, 2007