The Kenya ICT Action Network (KICTANet) in collaboration with the Association for Progressive Communications (APC) organized a CICEWA East Africa research and advocacy workshop that was held on 25^th - 28^th May 2009 at Lenana Conference Centre in Nairobi, Kenya. 

The workshop was part of the Communication for influence; Linking advocacy, dissemination and research by building ICTD networks in Central, East and West Africa (CICEWA) project supported by the International Development and Research Centre (IDRC). Seven CICEWA East Africa national networks in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda had conducted research to identify obstacles to universal affordable access to broadband ICT and this was an opportunity for the network researchers to submit their findings, which paved way for discussions on linking these findings to support advocacy activities.

The workshop also provided an opportunity to increase policy advocacy knowledge and capacity as well as develop advocacy plans and activities national, regional and international levels.

 The CICEWA Project promotes affordable universal broadband in the East and West Coast of Africa by advocating for more competition and innovation in the telecom sector, development of national and international backbone fibre, demanding national governments to build useful local applications, improve electric power availability and set indicators for measuring progress.  

CICEWA Networks have the role of supporting research on access to ICT infrastructure and ICTD, discussing and disseminating research findings based on the situation on the ground and linking them with ongoing initiatives. Networks are also charged with exploring ways of using research findings to inform policy advocacy initiatives, linking research findings on practices of governance and freedom with advocacy using civil society participatory processes and gender evaluation methodology; to undertake policy advocacy initiatives at the sub-regional level and to support policy initiatives at the national level.

National country reports on researches undertaken on telecommunications reforms in Rwanda, Uganda, Tanzania and Kenya were discussed during the workshop. Country reports from the Global Information Society Watch project undertaken in partnership with APC were also presented. Issues arising from the various country researches include; 

• ·       Whereas there are efforts by the various countries liberalize the telecommunications    market and to set up e-infrastructure the cost of connectivity is still and this is due to the pricing models by operators.
• ·       Consumers hardly know their rights and are not aware of the benefits/ potential of current efforts such as establishing national backbones, the EAC African submarine cable and e- governance strategies. This calls for the need for awareness creation.
• ·       Building the capacity of staff in various government institutions to make use of e- government services is paramount.
•  ·      The issue of appropriate content and affordable applications that are of value to even the rural communities is still limited
• ·       There is need to map what the different public institutions are doing in different countries (regional public institutional ICT mandate mapping).
• ·       Need to advocate for institutional policy frameworks and ICT bills such as e- governance laws, cyber laws.
• ·       Other issues arising included the need look at the use of ccTLDs, e- Waste, ICT Standards and gender mainstreaming on ICT policy formulation process.  

Participants were introduced to a framework for analyzing factors influencing policy development, content and implementation. Strategy development using Oxfam model that looks at the setting objectives, identify the audiences, diagnosing the problem and finding out what is possible, setting up an action plan and evaluating to see if the plan is working and other models. Issue areas that need to be looked in the various countries were identified by network members who mapped out potential audiences/stakeholders that need to be targeted and the possible activities/ actions to take in order to get the desired transformation. It was stressed that packaging information needs to be based on the need for the different stakeholders. To ensure effective communication, each stakeholder requires different communication strategies and formats. These may include databases, data summaries, descriptive reports, policy briefs etc. 

Participating networks developed action plans for implementation by country and these activities will feed into national Internet Governance Forums and the East African Internet Governance Forum that will discuss among other issues the formulation of regional forum; The East African Communications Policy and Internet Governance Forum.