[Idlelo2] Micro-finance

Tue Jan 17 08:42:13 EAT 2006

Hello all,

Bill, thanks for inviting me to join this list. It is indeed fortuitous 
that I happened to be passing through Nairobi, and your office, this 
week. We at Kabissa have some catch-up to do as regards Idlelo2, and 
look forward to getting to know everyone on this list and contributing 
as much as we can.

More comments interspersed below.

Best wishes,

Tobias

--
Tobias Eigen
Co-Executive Director

Kabissa - Space for Change in Africa
http://www.kabissa.org

On Jan 16, 2006, at 6:54 AM, Bill Kagai wrote:

> Hi Philipp,
> Interesting you should mention that. Am seated with the Tobias Eigen
> from Kabissa in my office discussing the same thing.

<grin> timely indeed! I'm really glad to get into this discussion.

> What we have realised is that despite having the community websites
> available, there is actually very little use of FOSS based tools to
> support CS empowerment...from basics such as blogs, mailing lists etc.
> e.g. One website they host www.africademocracyforum.org uses a yahoo
> mailing list.

I agree that African CSOs are not as far along with adopting open 
source as much as they could be. However, the African Democracy Forum 
site is actually a stellar example of the opposite - we are working 
very closely with them to develop an online community for their network 
of democracy activists using open source tools. It is a delicate 
process to move a network from one platform to another, and limited as 
the Yahoo group is it is in fact a great tool for democracy activists 
already as it is now. We have begun the process of migrating by 
piloting an online forum which has unfortunately not been adopted with 
enthusiasm by ADF members - as opposed to the yahoo group which 
flourishes.

In my view the main barrier has been that there is no easily 
implemented open source tool available that properly links online 
discussion forum tools with traditional e-mail lists (such as this one 
hosted on mailman or yahoo groups). The way people (especially in 
Africa) interact online is primarily via their e-mail - and Yahoo 
responds to this very well. Even compared to Yahoo, traditional e-mail 
list servers like mailman are sadly lacking in functionality, in 
particular in the web interface and message archiving. Forums, on the 
other hand, are impressive on the web side but do not interface with 
email very well. There are cultural reasons for this - the open source 
forums are being developed by geeks who are more concerned about 
security than usability. We are making some progress on integrating 
them and it will happen but it's been a process convincing developers 
that it is needed or beneficial, and we don't want to create something 
new or a fork of an existing widely used tool. Let me know if you are 
interested and I'll tell you more about my experiences and point you to 
some links so you can get involved.

> What we wish to do is integrate tools that can enhance
> project monitoring, access of news and information from outside their
> confined networks and online spaces that can support evaluation and
> monitoring...say for people who join a project when it has already
> started.

Sounds great!

This brings me to the next barrier: organizations don't tend to be as 
committed to the nifty open source tools as we techies are. They are 
pragmatic and use the tools that are most readily available. Often, 
even organizations that are provided with very powerful and 
feature-rich content management systems don't update their websites 
frequently enough, don't take relatively easy steps to make sure their 
websites are actually navigable, and otherwise don't use them 
effectively to support their day to day work. This can often be 
explained simply by the pressures organizations and the people in them 
are facing, and slow or hard to access internet connections. But 
sometimes the problem is also that the people in an organization that, 
for example, are running conferences are not involved with the website 
and don't know how powerful the website can be to help them in 
organizing their event.

There are two sides to this problem.

The first is of course training. CSOs often don't prioritize their 
website or other innovative technology simply because they don't fully 
"get it" yet. It is important to give them opportunities to take time 
out to look at the various tools available and learn how they can be 
harnessed to implement their agenda and present themselves online. For 
many functions, open source tools are inexpensive and quick to 
implement, and can quickly revolutionize how an organization operates - 
but only if the people that work there are empowered to actually do it 
and are compelled to move it up on their priority list. It's not 
automatic. This is in large part what Kabissa's Time To Get Online 
training program (http://www.timetogetonline.org) is all about, though 
ultimately it is a question of the ability (and commitment) of 
organizations to integrate new technologies into their activities and 
programs.

The second is the Yahoo factor. Everyone understands Yahoo (and 
increasingly Google) because its services are user-friendly and 
packaged in a slick, integrated interface that people are motivated to 
use. It and other US-market focussed tools are really easy to start 
using, although they do in the end limit your options (i.e. exporting 
Yahoo archives is tricky or next to impossible). Open source tools on 
the other hand offer more freedom, but the interfaces tend to be less 
user friendly, confusing and require lots of different passwords and 
interfaces. We geeks put up with this but African CSO executive 
directors will not, or shouldn't be asked to. In response to this we 
are developing Kabissa's Online Platform, which will take advantage of 
an impressive array of existing open source tools and integrate them to 
the greatest extent possible into a single platform using a single 
signon and interface.

> Our intention during Idlelo2 is to chart ways of ensuring civil voices
> are heard despite having static websites by building new FOSS tools on
> to existing websites and creating internet presence for those who do
> not have already.

Sounds great - we'll have to see if we can work out a way to be there, 
or at least to be able to input to the process. These are great ideas. 
Fantsuam (mentioned below though I didn't see the whole thread) is a 
long-time Kabissa member hosting their Web site on Kabissa and we would 
be most interested in learning about their requirements and how they 
are seeking to use FOSS.

Best wishes,

Tobias

--

> On 1/16/06, Philipp Schmidt <schmidt at merit.unu.edu> wrote:
>> The information and collaboration focused services you mention sound
>> like they would be very beneficial to CSOs interested in using FOSS.
>>
>> With respect to technology and tools: Kabissa (and others) alread
>> offer free site hosting including email and mailing lists for small
>> organisations -- maybe that could be tied into the fossfa portal?
>> (And, of course, google/yahoo/etc offer free email, mailing lists,
>> and blogs)
>>
>> P
>>
>> On 16 Jan 2006, at 15:06, Bill Kagai wrote:
>>
>>> Hi Nnenna,
>>>
>>> Inline with HIVOS vision of empowering citizens in developing
>>> countries, especially the poor and the marginalized and their
>>> organisations, to express their voices and make them heard, the 
>>> FOSSFA
>>> Secretariat (with the support of HIVOS) is taking some actions to
>>> support this worth while cause.
>>>
>>> HIVOS has contributed greatly towards the establishment of the FOSSFA
>>> online presence. This portal has progressively grown to become an
>>> integral part of the FOSS community in Africa. We believe that with
>>> additional investment in the portal, FOSSFA will be in a position to
>>> freely offer accessible and secure internet services to the Civil
>>> Society Organisations in Africa. These services will include the
>>> website hosting (i.e the Civil Society Organisations should easily
>>> create and host their websites within the portal), free email
>>> accounts, mailing lists, blogs and RSS feeds to the international
>>> community.This will greatly reduce the costs of Civil Society
>>> Organisations (CSOs) in accessing internet services and thus greatly
>>> improve their coverage and exposure especially in countries of 
>>> extreme
>>> poverty, political unrest and marginalisation.The portal will also
>>> support the strengthening of ties between Civil Society Organisations
>>> and through the provision of a contact directory, bulletin boards,
>>> discussions forums and mailing lists. This new FOSSFA platform will
>>> make networking and knowledge sharing easier for the African Civil
>>> Society. More exciting is that the organisations will learn the
>>> technology and be ableto control their content development without
>>> referring to FOSSFA for managing their sites.
>>>
>>> Please visit
>>> http://www.fossfa.net/tiki-index.php?page=FOSSFA+Plans+for+Portal
>>> +Expansion
>>>
>>> for more info.
>>>
>>> Specifically, during Idlelo2, we will hold a session to discuss this
>>> project further and draft working plan.
>>>
>>> --
>>> With Kind Regards,
>>> Bildad Kagai
>>> CEO - Circuits & Packets Communications Ltd
>>> Outgoing Coordinator - Free Software & Open Source Foundation for
>>> Africa (FOSSFA)
>>> Suite B2, Tetu Apartments, State House Avenue
>>> P. O. Box 20311 - 00200
>>> Nairobi, Kenya
>>> Tel. 254 20 2728332
>>> Fax. 254 20 2726965
>>> Cell. 254 722 379409
>>> E. fossfa at gmail.com
>>> URL. www.fossfa.net
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On 1/16/06, Nnenna <nne75 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Dear all
>>>>
>>>> In my last mail I was wanting to know the content of the HIVOS
>>>> Civil Voices
>>>> meeting during IDLELO.  Many CSOs are presently in the same
>>>> condition like
>>>> Fantsuam.  Will be glad to hear out on that.
>>>>
>>>> Nnenna
>>>>
>>>> ________________________________
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>>>>
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>>>>
>>>
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>>
>>