The 30-minute film has received a combined 20 million views on Vimeo and YouTube in the past two days and has caught the attention of celebrities including Rihanna, Zooey Deschanel, Ryan Seacrest, and Ellen DeGeneres, as well as thousands of others:

@thaRadBrad: I've been on YouTube for a few years now but I've never seen a video go as viral as Kony 2012. Absolutely insane. #stopkony

@WillGorsuch: I'm pretty sure over 5 million people learned who Kony was today #StopKONY

The film, directed and narrated by Invisible Children co-founder Jason Russell, uses popular YouTube videos, clips from Invisible Children's earlier films (partially shot in Uganda), appeals to the power of social media, and footage of Russell's young son to encourage viewers to “make Joseph Kony famous, not to celebrate him, but to raise support for his arrest and set a precedent for international justice.”

Russell directs viewers to “go after” celebrities and policymakers to help spread awareness and encourage the United States government to ensure Kony's arrest in 2012. Viewers are asked to purchase an “action kit” containing bracelets and posters and to “Cover the Night” on April 20 by hanging these posters up in their communities. Russell warns:

In order for Kony to be arrested this year, the Ugandan military has to find him. In order to find him, they need the technology and training to track him in the vast jungle. That's where the American advisors come in. But in order for American advisors to be there, the US government has to deploy them. They've done that, but if the government doesn't believe that the people care about arresting Kony, the mission will be canceled. In order for the people to care, they have to know. And they will only know if Kony's name is everywhere.

The film has met with sharp criticism from netizens in Uganda and further afield, many of whom are skeptical of Invisible Children's understanding of the long-running Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) insurgency and the film's focus on arresting Kony as the way to end the fighting. Ugandan journalist and Global Voices author Rosebell Kagumire tweets:

@RosebellK: this simplification of a story of millions of people of N. #Uganda is not acceptable #KONY2012

Rosebell also posted a video of her own, sharing her thoughts about the film:

Ethiopian diaspora blogger and activist Solome Lemma also questions what she sees as the film's “lack of context and nuance”:

[I]n the video, the founder of Invisible Children tells his young son that Kony is a bad guy and he must go. Daddy will work on making sure he is caught. He states, “if we succeed, we change the course of human history.” Such a humble undertaking! Simply, a long socioeconomic and political conflict that has lasted 25+ years and engaged multiple states and actors has been reduced to a story of the good vs bad guy. And if a three-year-old can understand it, so can you. You don’t have to learn anything about the children, Uganda, or Africa. You just have to make calls, put up flyers, sings songs, and you will liberate a poor, forgotten, and invisible people.

Ugandan poet and musician Musa Okwonga points out that the film fails to mention two key actors in the conflict and its possible resolution—Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni and the Ugandan activists already working to address the problem:

Joseph Kony has been doing this for a very, very, very long time. He emerged about a quarter of a century, which is about the same time that Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni came to power. As a result the fates of these two leaders must, I think, be viewed together. Yet, though President Museveni must be integral to any solution to this problem, I didn’t hear him mentioned once in the 30-minute video. I thought that this was a crucial omission. Invisible Children asked viewers to seek the engagement of American policymakers and celebrities, but – and this is a major red flag – it didn’t introduce them to the many Northern Ugandans already doing fantastic work both in their local communities and in the diaspora. It didn’t ask its viewers to seek diplomatic pressure on President Museveni’s administration.

Joseph Kony – head of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). Photo released by Flickr user Chris Shultz under Creative Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0).

Multiple people familiar with the conflict have pointed out that the film deals almost exclusively with Uganda, despite the fact that the LRA has not been active in the country for several years. Writes Ugandan journalist Angelo Izama:

To call the campaign a misrepresentation is an understatement. While it draws attention to the fact that Kony, indicted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court in 2005, is still on the loose, it’s portrayal of his alleged crimes in Northern Uganda are from a bygone era. At the height of the war between especially 1999 and 2004, large hordes of children took refuge on the streets of Gulu town to escape the horrors of abduction and brutal conscription to the ranks of the LRA. Today most of these children are semi-adults.

Human rights activist and former development worker Siena Antsis points out:

Gulu – and Uganda – has gone through some incredible changes. The economy is booming. The region is re-stabilizing. While Kony’s men continue to kill, rape and slaughter elsewhere, Gulu is not a static, unchanging place. Neither is Uganda, neither is the continent. Portraying a region like Gulu as such, and sending the mass message that the whole continent reflects this, is damaging. It undermines possibilities of investment. It clouds story of entrepreneurship, success and innovation. This goes hand in hand with saying “I work in Africa.” Lumping the continent as one messy area.

Ugandan blogger Julian Mwine tweets:

@Jaymwine: In all fairness #stopkony couldnt have trended when #kony was terrorising #uganda coz there was no twitter then.

Blogger TMS Ruge questions Invisible Children's “fund-raising stunt” and argues that the organization's primary mission is not “selling justice, democracy, or restoration of anyone’s dignity” but rather selfishly ensuring its own survival:

This is a self-aware machine that must continually find a reason to be relevant. They are, in actuality, selling themselves as the issue, as the subject, as the panacea for everything that ails me as the agency-devoid African. All I have to do is show up in my broken English, look pathetic and wanting. You, my dear social media savvy click-activist, will shed a tear, exhaust Facebook’s like button, mobilize your cadre of equally ill-uninformed netizens to throw money at the problem.

TMS Ruge started the #StopIC hashtag on Twitter in response to the film. A growing number of #StopKony skeptics are clustering around the tag:

@tmsruge: Time & time again I have been quiet on this capacity sucking organization that is @Invisible. Stop robbing us of our dignity! #stopIC

@simbamaxxed: If one more person pastes this overdramatic #kony2012 video on my wall…#stopIC

@andykristian: Invisible Children is doing a disservice to #Uganda. Before you support IC, get the facts straight. http://bit.ly/Anf4Sd #StopIC #StopKony

For some Ugandan bloggers, the controversy over the film has also sparked a broader debate about media hype and international awareness of violent conflict. In response to a call I put out on Twitter for Ugandan viewpoints on the film, blogger Ernest Bazanye tweets:

@bazanye: @Opiaiya @rebekahredux @bazanye: …other world events? We could be reading the world just as wrongly as the world is reading us

This post is part of our special coverage Kony 2012.

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The temporary absence of Ugandan opposition leader Kizza Besigye, who was flown to Nairobi for medical treatment after being sprayed directly in the eyes with tear gas during Walk to Work protests on April 28, 2011, appears to have spurred even more citizens to action.

As the protests enter their second month, the original group of opposition politicians has now been joined by women's organizations and lawyers who are angered not only by high fuel and food prices, but also by the brutality of the government's response to the protests.

Edward of the Echwalu Photography blog describes the women's demands:

Express solidarity with women, men and children suffering from the high food and fuel prices, no more use of live ammunition, indiscriminate physical assault on civilians, promote fundamental rights of citizens enshrined in Chap 4 of the constitution, address social and economic issues, address food security, unemployment, health and education.

Edward also posts a number of photos of the women's organizations protests, including one of women near a fuel station sign advertising premium fuel for 3,490 Ugandan shillings per liter, or approximately $5.50 per gallon:

Ugandan women's organizations join protests against rising fuel and food costs. Photo by Echwalu Photography

Timothy Hatcher of Araa Linuga blog compares the women's protest to the British suffragette movement a century ago:

I read on the internet today that the spirit that the suffragettes in the UK possessed in the early 20th century was lost in our world. Uganda at times seems a world away from the UK, but some sentiments are universal and do not depend on locale. I hope that Monday's display of solidarity of women for a cause important for all within their society, even when there was the potential for personal harm and/or arrest, is a sign that the spirit is reviving.

Last week Uganda's lawyers went on strike to protest the violence with which police have cracked down on demonstrators. This is the not the first time Uganda's lawyers have gone on strike to protest the government's treatment of Kizza Besigye, who has been arrested and jailed numerous times in the past few years. In 2005, Brian of the blog Black Star Journal described an earlier strike:

Today, the Ugandan Law Society held a one day strike in favor of the independence of the judiciary, which the lawyers feel is threatened.

They are particularly incensed by an event that I wrote about earlier. Dozens of military commandos showed up to surround the court building, during legal proceedings launched against opposition leader Dr Kizza Besigye.

If Dr Besigye is truly guilty of the crimes the regime accuses him of, then surely they don't need military intimidation of the civilian courts.

Though Besigye appears to be at the center of the protests, Iwaya of Mad and Crazy cautions observers to remember that the true heart of the demonstrations is not support for the opposition but outrage over the country's current economic situation:

W-2-W is not about Dr. Besigye though the government propaganda machine has worked its damn hardest to try and reduce it to the person of Besigye. It is about the appalling economic situation Ugandans find themselves in today led by an unresponsive government that folds its hands and declares, “There's nothing we can do,” to alleviate your suffering, but you have got to keep paying those taxes on time.

This post is part of our special coverage Uganda: Walk to Work Protests.

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Ugandan police have responded to the past month's ongoing Walk to Work protests by spraying protesters with tear gas and live bullets. During a demonstration on Tuesday, they took a different tack, firing water cannons filled with pink liquid at demonstrators who were attempting to walk to Constitution Square in the center of Kampala.

Uganda's New Vision Newspaper tweeted a photo of opposition leaders covered in the paint. yfrog Photo user flashdancer11 shared the photo below:

Some bloggers pointed out the irony of the government spraying protesters pink — a color often associated with the gay and lesbian community — given the anti-homosexuality bill currently making its way through Uganda's Parliament. Blogger Afrogay writes:

…might this also be a subliminal response to the leader of the opposition, Kizza Besigye, for pledging four months ago to decriminalize homosexuality if elected?

To which AfroGay would say to the head of the military guys drenching opposition in pink: thanks guys but the pink color is really just a metaphor. There is no need to take it too literally.

The hashtag #pinkstuff is also popular topic in the Ugandan Twittersphere:

@Rosejackson3: So illegal to #walk2work in UG w/o permit. If you drive, windows smashed & tear gas to face. If you fly, blocked. If you stand-#pinkstuff

@ishtank: On the other hand, think of the stories we'll tell our great-grandchildren. “Kaaka, where were you the day #pinkStuff #trended on #Twitter?”

While many found the “pink stuff” humorous, others are still upset at the government's treatment of protesters. Blogger KellyUganda writes:

Why does this seem incredibly Hitler/Nazi-esque to me? As if people don't have the right to demonstrate! I don't know how Museveni can even pretend to be running a democracy. No doubt these people are being sprayed pink so that police can harrass and interrogate them and abuse them in the effort to crush their spirit of civic duty and freedom of expression!

In a post titled “Turning Pink,” another blogger, Rhino, laments the government's actions:

I'm starting to dislike my government very much, it shows so much fear, infantile logic and an alarming willingness to resort to violence. That is not what I want from it. I want it to be just, to inspire me to be a better person and to help me create a better place for my kin and I to live in. I don't want it to threaten me with death should I choose to differ in opinion and practice, if that is the society it wishes to create, then I would rather not be party to it.

This post is part of our special coverage Uganda: Walk to Work Protests.

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As opposition politicians and others angry over rising fuel and food prices in Uganda continue to stage “walk to work” protests against the current regime, the government is asking Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to shut down access to Facebook and Twitter.

According to the World Bank, a lengthy drought and a spike in fuel prices are wreaking havoc across East Africa. In Uganda, Timothy Hatcher at aaralinuga describes the situation:

Inflation has pretty much doubled over the past month to 11.1 percent, and fuel prices have risen by over 50 percent; prices are approaching $7.00 per gallon. Major impact: prices of some staple foods have tripled since December.

Angela Kintu explains how higher prices are affecting families:

…this protest is about reality, frustration and desperate times. I am buying a litre of Ugandan made and grown cooking oil for sh6,500 [$2.73]. I am paying sh3,600 [$1.51] for a litre of fuel. A tomato has gone up to sh300 [$0.12] at the very least. I don’t know about you, but that is breaking my budget. No one is paying me any more money for my work – in fact, I am chasing debtors left, right and centre. In one short week, Easter and school holidays will be upon me. Three short weeks after that, I must rustle up school fees and requirements.

Forum for Democratic Change leader Kizza Besigye is arrested during a Walk to Work protest on April 18. Photo via “Walk to Work III” by Echwalu Photography.

Opposition foothold

These economic issues have provided a foothold for opposition leaders who have struggled to garner support since losing the February 2011 presidential election to long-time incumbent Yoweri Museveni. Andrew Mwenda explains:

After a long period without any public issue around which to galvanise popular discontent in their favour, the opposition in Uganda has finally found one in the escalating food and transport costs. For the first time, the opposition is rallying the public on a grievance that touches the stomachs and wallets of millions and not one where it is merely fighting for power. Therefore the cat and mouse fight between them and the police has only begun and has potential to open the road to Tunisia and Egypt.

Opposition leaders from multiple parties, including Kizza Besigye (Museveni's former personal physician and Head of the Forum for Democratic Change); Nobert Mao, Head of the Democratic Party; and Olara Otunnu, Head of the Uganda Peoples Congress; have banded together to stage multiple “Walk To Work” protests over the past week and a half.

Besiye and Mao were arrested following the initial protest on April 11, 2011. During a second protest on April 14, Besigye was shot in the hand with a rubber bullet. Nearly 100 protesters were arrested at a third demonstration on April 18; another protest is planned for this Thursday, April 21.

Protests spread

The protests are also beginning to spread from the capital to other cities: 30 demonstrators were arrested in Gulu, in northern Uganda; police were also deployed in Mbale and Sironko, in eastern Uganda, to prevent demonstrations.

As the protests continue, police reactions have become more intense, with tear gas and rubber bullets making more frequent appearances. Anne Mugisha, an official for the Forum for Democratic Change party who was detained for participating in the protests, notes:

I had intended to walk to Church with my two daughters until I witnessed police brutality in Kasangati. On Thursday I was at Kasangati as the Red Cross evacuated pregnant women and children from the tear-gas filled hospital. The scene was alarming and heartbreaking. If I had doubts about the decision to leave my girls at home, they were wiped away by my visit to victims of Thursday’s violence in 6A and 3C at Mulago hospital. The police does not hesitate to throw tear gas canisters into schools and hospitals or to open fire with live ammunition on unsuspecting civilians.

On Friday, blogs and newspapers began reporting that the Ugandan Communications Commission had issued a letter to several of the country's major telecoms, asking them to block access to Facebook and Twitter. A copy of the letter was posted to Twitter by user @kasujja:

A copy of the Uganda Communications Commission letter demanding that ISPs block Facebook and Twitter was posted to Twitter.

The letter reads in part, “You are therefore required to block the use of Facebook and Tweeter [sic] for 24 hours as of now, that is: 14th April 2011 at 3.30 p.m. to eliminate the connection and sharing of information that incides the public.”

Reports vary as to whether the block was enforced. On April 15, Echwalu Edward of Echwalu Photography wrote:

Two giant mobile and Internet Service Providers, Warid Uganda Ltd and Uganda Telecom Ltd (UTL) have both blocked two of the world’s largest social networks- facebook and twitter…. Twitter is slowly coming back but facebook still remains blocked.

On April 15, he posted an update stating that access to both sites was back.

My Song in the Trench reported that the block was increasing access speeds for other websites:

So the Internet, even on my very slow connection, is going so much faster because nobody is surfing Facebook and Twitter right now.

MTN Uganda (@MTNUGANDACARE), one of the country's largest ISPs, announced on Twitter on April 15 that it would not enforce the block:

@MTNUGANDACARE: @StoneAtwine Our stand is clear. We are not closing down FB or Twitter. Thanks.

According to multiple media reports, the Uganda Communications Commission also issued a ban on live broadcasts concerning the protests. Blogger Steven Youngblood responds:

Whether it's banning live coverage (proven) or blocking the Internet (rumored), this kind of censorship usually backfires. The Internet blackout in Egypt helped public opinion to coalesce against Mubarak's government. This is 2011, and even in Uganda, international media proliferate. If Ugandan media is muzzled, the population here will simply turn to radio stations from neighboring countries or from international sources like BBC radio or Voice of America. Heavy-handed attempts to control information do not reflect the reality of today's media rich world, but instead reveal desperation and antiquated Soviet-style notions about how to manipulate the public.

This post is part of our special coverage Uganda: Walk to Work Protests.

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Rather than backing down after the arrest of two Ugandan opposition leaders for staging a “Walk to Work” protest against high fuel and food prices on Monday, Ugandan activists have responded by announcing a hunger strike and planning more demonstrations.

According to the Uganda Talks Blog:

Mukono North MP Betty Nambooze told journalists today that the leaders have decided not to eat anything as they go about their duties at Parliament. She said that there was no point for them (leaders) to eat when the public can hardly afford food.

News of the protests is widespread on Twitter, where #walk2work continues to trend in the Ugandan Twittersphere.

@uchaguziug:

Opposition insists on Walk to Work protests every Monday and Thursday #walk2work

@vote4africa:

#Uganda Walking Schedule: Mon & Thu #walk2work / Fri, Sat, Sun #walk2church @AJEstream @bbc_global @cnn @hrw #africa #protest

Some in the Twittersphere, however, are concerned that tweets won't translate into action:

@nsw_DC:

Hopefully opp can keep this momentum up…but where is civil society? http://bit.ly/dPFQMm & http://bit.ly/dKfoDD #Uganda #walk2work

@AndrewMwenda:

Uganda's opposition this morning surrendered their strategic initiative by not re-attempting their “walk-2-work campaign

@oletan:

@AndrewMwenda Agreed. Walk one day and it is a protest. Walk for days on end and it becomes a movement. #walk2work

Others are choosing to view the incident in a more humorous light. On satire blog Urban Legend Kampala, Erique writes:

Yesterday was walk to work day.

For those who still don’t know what that was all about, it means girls were supposed to walk to work naked and boys were just supposed to buy popcorn and sit by the roadside while updating their Facebook status messages with LOLs, OMGs and mssstttcchhews, where appropriate.

Just joking. It was just a public holiday for government to celebrate its annual arrest of Kizza Besigye. It happens once every year.

@Elirri:

Ugandans being arrested for walking “under the influence of legs”-interesting country

@tmsruge:

I am hopping & skipping my way across town RT @aoyako @tmsruge do u have a date in afternoon. Will you walk or… But you may get arrested

@emmanuwamanya:

Where can I get a walking permit? #walk2work #fb

This post is part of our special coverage Uganda: Walk to Work Protests.

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Ugandans go to the polls on Friday 18 February, 2011 for the country's second round of multiparty elections since current president Yoweri Museveni took power in 1986. The mood among both Ugandans on Twitter and the blogosphere is apprehensive.

Ugandans line up to cast their votes for President and members of parliament. Lira, Uganda. Photo by Hudson Apunyo copyright © Demotix (18/02/2011).

At Mad and Crazy, Iwaya wonders:

What will happen when Uganda's Electoral Commission led by Dr. Badru Kiggundu, on Sunday 20th February, announces the winner of the Presidential elections as Mr. Yoweri K. Museveni? (Do I hear a scoff about that? Do you actually believe that IPC's Dr. Kizza Besigye might win the contest? He might, but I cannot fathom Dr. Kiggundu announcing anyone other than Mr. Museveni as the winner. It is just beyond the realm of possibility, even science fiction.) But we all have a sneaking suspicion that if this was a free and fair election, conducted strictly according to the rules, Dr. Besigye might have had a fighting chance in it. It is this suspicion that makes many a Ugandan wonder, what next after Friday, February 18, 2011?

While Rosebell Kagumire is fairly certain nothing will change:

I have seen enough with lack of institutions in my country, a place where you have to bribe someone at every stage to get things done. President Museveni has successfully presided over the largest government and his ministers seek to loot the country any chance they get. He largely gives Ugandans what they want in form of districts, expanding his administrative positions to take care of people's tribal sentiments but he will not give them one thing, a democratic Uganda.

Angela Kintu believes that Ugandan political rhetoric and campaigning are to blame for Museveni's 25 years in office:

Tough questions should be asked, with time and space provided for answers. The atmosphere should not be a do or die affair, but recognition that it is just a difference in opinions about how to deliver services to the people. Deputy Speaker Rebecca Kadaga and Salaam Musumba must be commended for recently addressing the same crowd without inflaming their supporters; it seems the women are leading the way in mature politics! A close observation of the voters actually shows that they have grown up and are willing to try and listen to issues if only the politicians will let them. The old rhetoric about the devil you know must stop: we are tired of devils, period.

As the elections near, bribery has become a hot topic among voters. News broke recently that each member of parliament had received 20 million Ugandan shillings (about 8400 USD) in what many Ugandans believe was an attempt by the ruling party to buy votes. Ernest Bazanye writes:

The other side has many explanations including “it's a token of appreciation,” it's meant for “monitoring government programmes”, it's typical. MPs get a huge wad of cash at the end of their terms all the time etc.

But the reason I hear from most of those who harp furiously on about this sh20m is that it is bribery. It is an attempt to bribe parliament before the elections.

They say I should be as incensed: a brazen and blatant attempt to compromise the peoples’ representatives in a barefaced bid to subvert the nation's future for the interests of a corrupt etc. But mostly the first thing that hit me was, “Dude. Sh20m! Whoa.”

…I wonder how much an iPad costs. I should stand for parliament one day.

While Angela Kintu is less impressed:

I will not vote anyone who gave me anything material for my vote — yes, you with the exercise books, do you think my vote is worth a 32-page book? And when the elections are done and I need school fees, will I ever hear from you again? Your mandate is not to solve my financial problems; it is to cause change in Uganda that will allow me to solve my own financial problems.

Less than an hour ago, at 5:43am Kampala time, Tumwijuke at Ugandan Insomniac announced that she would be tweeting the elections:

Follow my twitter feed on the Uganda 2011 elections @uginsomniac.

Have a wonderful, peaceful day.

You can follow her tweets and other election-related tweets throughout the day using the hashtag #ugandavotes.

This post is part of our special coverage Uganda: Walk to Work Protests.

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Kato was an advocacy officer for gay rights group Sexual Minorities Uganda, which published a press release reading:

David was brutally beaten to death in his home today, 26 January 2011, around 2pm. Across the entire country, straight, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex Ugandans mourn the loss of David, a dear friend, colleague, teacher, family member, and human rights defender.

David has been receiving death threats since his face was put on the front page of Rolling Stone Magazine, which called for his death and the death of all homosexuals. David’s death comes directly after the Supreme Court of Uganda ruled that people must stop inciting violence against homosexuals and must respect the right to privacy and human dignity.

Uganda has been in the news for gay rights issues since October 2009, when Member of Parliament David Bahati tabled a bill that would provide for life imprisonment or the death penalty for not only homosexuals but also anyone found to be supporting or promoting gay rights.

The proposed bill has stirred up considerable anti-gay sentiments in Uganda, including the publication by local newspaper Rolling Stone [no relation to Rolling Stone Magazine] of a list of 100 suspected homosexuals and their addresses. Kato was on the list, and his face was on the paper's front page.

Photo via Gay Uganda.

Bloggers across Africa are mourning Kato's death and speaking up in support of Uganda's gay community. Sokari of Black Looks writes:

The lives of all Ugandan Kuchus [a term Ugandan gays use to refer to themselves] are now at risk – how will they be protected? Who will protect them? How will there be justice for David? One way is to ensure there is a sincere investigation into his murder including the role played by the homophobia of MPs and religious leaders and what must be done to protect others. Another is to speak about this as widely and as much as possible.

Queeattitude names Kato a “fallen hero” and calls for an end to anti-gay violence:

While this issue has been addressed many a time by a number of bloggers, I think it is time the cloak and dagger games came to a stop. An innocent life has been lost in a grotesque manner. This goes to show how deep-seated the hate for LGBTI persons has become. It is indeed a grave issue that if not addressed might end up justifying the bloodshed of innocent people all because someone holds a different idea on whom they (not you) choose to express their love towards. To kill a fellow human with such savage I think ends up contradicting the same doctrines the anti-gay crusaders purport to stick to. Shame on all of you.

Gay Uganda, who was friends with Kato, writes:

I am in shock.

Literal shock. Just heard that one of our members, a prominent gay activist, an out and out man, who has been at the forefront of the gay rights movement in Uganda, David Kato Kisule was murdered. Dead, a blunt instrument to the skull.

Dead. In Lugazi Hospital at the moment.

What to do? Shock. Shock, shock.

Ugandan news magazine Kampala Dispatch reports that the Ugandan police have denied that Kato's murder was related to his sexuality. The report includes a quote from Giles Muhame, the editor of Rolling Stone:

“If he has been murdered, that’s bad and we pray for his soul,” Muhame said.

“There has been a lot of crime, it may not be because he is gay. We want the government to hang people who promote homosexuality, not for the public to attack them. We said they should be hanged, not stoned or attacked.”

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We're also excited to announce a new feature on the Technology for Transparency site: over the summer, we've revised the way we categorize our case studies to make exploring the site and browsing the interviews more engaging. The projects we interviewed are complex and multifacted: for example, Dinero y Política (Money and Politics) in Argentina focuses on campaign finance; however, because of the type of technological tools it uses and its approach to financial data, it could also be considered an example of budget monitoring.

Our new categorization system lets visitors to the site explore the case studies through four different lenses:

1. The actor(s) whose actions the projects target (for example, the legislative branch of government).
   • Donors
   • Executive Branch
   • Judicial Branch
   • Legislative Branch
   • Media
   • Political Parties
   • Private Sector
2. The function(s) said actors perform (for example, elections, budgets, or government service delivery).
   • Budgets
   • Elections
   • Extractive Industries/Natural Resource Governance
   • Government Services
3. The type of technology tools they use (for example, mobile tools or data collection tools).
   • Data collection
   • Data visualization
   • Connect and engage (social media)
   • Mobile
   • Traditional (print and broadcast)
4. The project's scale (national, municipal, etc.).
   • Neighborhood
   • Municipal
   • Sub-national
   • National
   • International

The “Quick Look” section at the top of each case study lists the categories for that case — have fun clicking around to see what other projects fall into those categories!

The Quick Look feature at the top of each case study lets you browse our case studies by multiple categories.

We welcome your feedback on these cases, and the cases we'll be publishing throughout the month. Please feel free to leave comments on individual interviews, to message us on Twitter (in @techtransparent in English; @transparentech in Spanish/Portuguese), or to drop us a line on our Facebook page. We look forward to hearing from you!

Next week: new cases from India, Russia, the Philippines, and East Africa!

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Download the presentation: Technology for Transparency Network: Five Lessons Learned

As part of this process, we recently gave a short presentation to a group of transparency researchers on the five lessons we've learned so far about using online and mobile tools to promote transparency and accountability. The tech for transparency field is a rapidly changing one — between the time we presented and now, crowdsourced mapping tool Ushahidi launched Crowdmap, which lets anyone with Internet access set up an Ushahidi instance without having to install Ushahidi on their own server. What that means is that the lessons and technologies we outline below are a work in progress, and we welcome your comments and questions. After we publish our next round of case studies, we plan to revisit these lessons and see what has changed.

Lesson #1: Technology helps projects collect data

In places where governments and corporations can't or aren’t willing to share information (or don’t maintain it in easily accessible formats), citizens are sometimes the best source of data about government and private sector activities. A number of tools exist to facilitate the collection of this data, either from open crowdsourcing, from a specific group of people such as trained volunteers or workers (this is often called “bounded crowdsourcing”), or from a combination of both. The information gathered from people online or via mobile phones can be used in addition to existing data (for example by supplementing more traditional election monitoring efforts) or to shed new light on processes or power structures (for example by monitoring the results of development projects).

Data collection can take place on multiple devices and systems, depending on the desired outcomes and the operating environment. Some services, such as Frontline SMS, operate largely via simple text messages, while others, such as Ushahidi, employ multiple methods, including SMS, Twitter, e-mail and web forms.

Example: Network of Mobile Election Monitors of Nigeria

The Network of Mobile Election Monitors of Nigeria (NMEM)was established to monitor the country’s 2007 presidential elections. Official election monitors are often limited by time and geography, as well as by their official status — their visible presence at polling places may reduce the likelihood of irregularities at that particular place, skewing the results of the observation. NMEM partnered with Frontline SMS to create an election monitoring system that would help citizens engage with the political process while overcoming some of the problems associated with traditional election monitoring efforts. Registered, trained associates in each of Nigeria’s states monitored the election while spreading word of their efforts to voters, who were encouraged to send in reports as well. Over 10,000 messages were received and cross-checked for accuracy. The final report echoed the results of international observations but gave Nigerians more agency in the political process. For more information, see NMEM's final report (PDF).

Lesson #2: Technology helps citizens navigate & understand data

Many governments and companies that put their data online do so by scanning hard copies of giant documents and publishing them as hard-to-analyze PDFs. In other cases, the data that exists is too much and too complicated for the average citizen to understand. A multitude of tools exist to help put data online in easy to use, easy to navigate ways so that citizens can see what facts and figures are most important. Citizens who have access to and understand the facts of a situation are better able to hold governments and private sector organizations accountable.

Example: Haiti Aid Map

The Haiti Aid Map provides detailed information on the current humanitarian and aid efforts in Haiti. Visitors to the site can sort through the information by aid organization, by aid cluster or sector, and by location. The map takes over a billion dollars worth of aid activity and makes it easy to see who is doing what where.

Lesson #3: To reach the most people, you need to go mobile

Worldwide, three times as many people have access to mobile phones as to the Internet (PDF). In developing countries — whose populations make up 64 percent of the world's mobile phone users — the ratio grows as high as five to one. Tools that operate exclusively on the Internet ignore a huge group of potential users, but luckily, tons of mobile platforms and applications exist that help organizations reach this group. Even the simplest text-and-talk-only phone can let citizens report problems and obtain information.

Example: Kenya's Budget Tracking Tool

Kenya has only 4 million Internet users, but over 19 million mobile phone users (source: World Bank). The Budget Tracking Tool lets citizens find information about the money that has been allocated for development projects in their region using a simple text message. The site gets between 4000 and 4500 SMS queries per month, and citizens have used the information they’ve obtained to expose corruption at local and national levels of government.

Lesson #4: Don't reinvent the wheel

In order to use technology effectively, you need to meet people where they are. If people are already using a Facebook group to protest a particular government action, it may not be worth it to build a new platform with the same features and spend time trying to draw people over. Though Facebook, YouTube and Twitter weren’t build with transparency and accountability efforts in mind, they can be effective tools, and they come with built-in audiences.

When building a program based on existing tools it’s important to keep in mind the fact that tools available in one area or language may be inaccessible in another. For example, Orkut is one of the most popular websites in Brazil and India and may reach more users than Facebook in those countries.

Example: Tracking the Tunisian Presidential Plane

In 2007, the number of trips the Tunisian presidential plane was taking attracted attention from bloggers who wondered why, when the president was in Tunisia, his plane was in Paris. One blogger browsed photos on aviation enthusiast websites and found photos of the presidential plane in a number of European capitals. He tracked the plane around Europe and discovered that the president’s wife was using the plane to support her shopping trips — a clear misuse of state funds. He used Google Earth to map the plane’s trips, photos to back up the map, and YouTube and Vimeo to publish a video of what was happening.

Lesson #5: Be flexible

When working with digital tools, be careful not to “fall in love with your creation.” You can spend time and money creating the best digital platform in the world, but if your target audience is more used to radios than to computers, the impact will be small. Some of the most successful projects are combining digital and traditional tools to reach people no matter what level of technology they prefer. These organizations recognize that the best tool to promote transparency and accountability is the one citizens will use. Radio, print, television, call centers and public meetings may not be as flashy or exciting as digital platforms, but in some situations, they may have a greater chance of success.

Example: Freedom Fone

Freedom Fone is an almost entirely voice-based system. Organizations can download the software for free and purchase the necessary hardware for under 100 Euro/126 USD. End users don’t need a computer and don’t have to use SMS — they simply call in. Freedom Fone points out that “delivering information through the audio platform overcomes barriers associated with literacy and language and enables users to move past the 160 character limitation of an SMS.” Organizations can use the system to disseminate information, conduct polls, or collect citizen reports that can then be tagged and processed using Freedom Fone's software.

Example: Guatemala Visible

Guatemala Visible tracks the selection processes for judges, the General Prosecutor, the Accountant General, the Public Defender and the national Ombudsman in Guatemala, shedding light on process that has previously been conducted behind a wall of secrecy. In addition to making information available online, the project used printed posters, ads on bus stops, local language community radio broadcasts and television to raise awareness.

Conclusion: Context is key, and magic bullets are a myth

How to best use a technological tool depends on the desired outcome, the location, the language, and the technological environment, among other factors. For example, governments and NGOs may openly publish their budgets, making visualization and data navigation more important than crowdsourcing for projects that focus on budgets and donor aid. But if the goal is to compare what has been promised with what is being delivered, crowdsourcing reports of what’s happening on the ground may be the most effective way to promote accountability. In some contexts, the best way to put easy-to-understand information in the hands of citizens may mean developing an iPhone app with flashy graphics and the ability to share information with Facebook. In others, it will involve simple SMS queries and a radio program.

Even if you choose the right technological tool for a particular context, however, online and mobile technologies are not a magic bullet. Ushahidi’s founders stress that it’s a platform, not a methodology. Implementing it — or any technological tool — successfully requires a support team that is intimately familiar with the context in which it will be used and capable of handling outreach, training, information verification and a multitude of other tasks. It’s easy to get swept up in the newness of the tech, but technology alone won’t solve anything. Philip Thigo of the Budget Tracking Tool in Kenya points out that if the community you’re attempting to serve doesn’t see the value of your tool or can’t interact with it in a way that’s easy for them, then the amazing, high-tech platform you’ve built will be “wowed, wowed and then go dead.”

In a diverse world, it is important to start by looking at the tools available to the people you want to engage. The most advanced technology might fail if people are not familiar with it, if they cannot afford it, or if they can’t adapt it for their purposes. This means being willing to give up on complex technologies if what the community needs is SMS and radio-based efforts. It means building simple, text-only websites if bandwidth is limited. Overall, it means paying close attention to the context of a project and implementing technology only where it really fits.

This post was co-written by Renata Avila.

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Ugandan media are reporting over 40 deaths so far, with dozens more injured in the explosions. Ugandan police have suggested that Somali militant group al-Shabab was behind the attacks. One of the group's commanders recently called for attacks against Uganda, which contributes troops to the African Union peacekeeping force in Somalia. The group has praised the attacks but has not claimed responsibility.

Victims of two deadly bomb blasts in Kampala wait for treatment at Mulago Hospital. Photo by Trevor Snapp. Used with the photographer's permission.

Ugandan blogger Gay Uganda writes:

Uganda attacked. Really, it is humanity attacked. Who has the gall to be happy at such atrocity? Apparently, Somali insurgents are happy. Because they are fighting African Union troops in Somalia, who have stopped them from establishing an Islamic state under Sharia law.

….What I see are country mates, human beings who were doing nothing worse than watching a football match who were killed and maimed, in the name of ideals that they may have no real thought about, actions that they cannot control in the least.

Ernest Bazanye cautions against jumping to conclusions about who set off the bombs too soon:

It’s too early to say who is responsible or why, and even though it is whispered abroad that it was a pair of suicide bombings staged by Al-Shahab, the Somali terrorist organization. We should know by now that the truth doesn’t get here that soon and that any conclusions now would be premature.

Trevor Snapp, a documentary photographer living in Kampala, was at Mulago Hospital, where many of the victims were taken, after the bombings. He writes:

Family members milled around the front reception area while doctors and bodies covered in blood were rushed in and out of surgery. In the surgery hallway a man’s body lay in the floor bleeding by his head, it was impossible to know if he was dead or alive. A few feet away in a small storage locker, staff had created a makeshift morgue, 6 bodies lay on the tiles, some had their clothes blown off. They were all young.

Many bloggers are shocked that the bombings happened in Kampala, widely known as one of Africa's safest capital cities. Joshua Goldstein, a former Global Voices author who used to live in Kampala, describes the locations where the bombings took place:

Kampala's Rugby Club is a sprawling bar, adjacent to the pitch, where many of Kampala's college students come to hang with their buddies. If Uganda had fraternities, this is where they would throw their parties. Here the smart set drink Nile Special with reggae and hip hop blasting in the background. On weekend days the same crew watch rugby, collars popped to block the sun.

….Across town Ethiopian Village, down the street from the American Embassy, is in the dead center of Kabalagala, the Las Vegas of Kampala. The restaurant, the most high end of the half dozen or so Ethiopian restaurants within 500 meters, sits at the intersection of Ggaba Road and Tank Hill Road. In the afternoon, Ethiopian dissident journalists pass their exile by chewing miraa and discussing the day's news. At night, the neighborhood lights up with bars and dance parties.

Sleek writes:

To give this a little perspective, I’ll point out that up-til now, Kampala has been one of those places where at 03:00 AM, one can walk from one end of the city to the other. And that we are the kind of people to complain about rising fuel prices, high Pay As You Earn taxes, impossible airtime charges…basically a very high cost of living. But in all this, we’ll still go to that new hangout place and pay UGX 5,000 for a beer. And we fill the place to the point that you literally have to fight your way to the bar to get a drink. And that’s the average hangout.

And then you hear about bomb blasts…

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The Technology for Transparency Network, a Rising Voices project to document and map projects around the world that use online technology to promote transparency and accountability, enters its second phase this month, thanks to continued sponsorship from the Transparency and Accountability Initiative. The Transparency and Accountability Initiative is a donor collaborative that includes the Ford Foundation, Hivos, the International Budget Partnership, the Omidyar Network, the Open Society Institute, the Revenue Watch Institute, the United Kingdom Department for International Development (DFID) and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.

Between January and May 2010, the network's team of global researchers mapped nearly 40 case studies in Central & Eastern Europe, China, Latin America, South Asia, Southeast Asia and anglophone Sub-Saharan Africa. These case studies are all available on our website, along with regional overviews of the technology for transparency movement and additional chapters on the main thematic issues that emerged across the projects. We've also compiled and presented the information in our final report from phase one.

Researchers from the Technology for Transparency Network present at the 2010 Global Voices Summit in Santiago, Chile. Photo courtesy of FabsY_ on Flickr.

While we were able to analyze a wide variety of projects during the first phase of our research, more work is needed if we are to draw confident conclusions about these organizations, how they operate and which of their aspects might be successfully applied to future technology for transparency initiatives. By collecting a sufficiently large sample of projects from a variety of regions and a variety of thematic categories, we can begin to make statements about their strengths and weaknesses and their role in the larger accountability ecosystem. We believe that doing so will inform future research on how these projects can be evaluated for their impact on government and private sector accountability and transparency and how they affect the communities they were created to serve.

The Technology for Transparency Network maps projects around the world that use online technology to promote transparency and accountability.

New research and new partners

During the next phase of the project, we will expand our research to include projects from the Middle East & North Africa, the former Soviet Union and francophone Africa. We are thrilled to welcome Hazel Feigenblatt, the Media Projects Director at Global Integrity, as our Editorial Advisor. Hazel will be working with us to help choose the most innovative and exciting projects to document.

We will also be partnering with a team of researchers from Harvard University, led by Transparency Policy Project co-director Archon Fung, who will be documenting six of our case studies in depth to explore the technological and organizational design of each case and to attempt to gauge the effect of each project.

How to help: give us a hand!

As David Sasaki wrote when he introduced the first phase of the Technology for Transparency Network, this is a collaborative research project, and we welcome your participation. If you have an idea for a case study, let us know! We currently welcome suggestions in English, Spanish and Portuguese.

You can subscribe to our RSS feed for newly published case studies and to our podcast for interviews with leading doers and thinkers in the field. Please follow us on Twitter (in English or Spanish) to receive extra news and information related to technology for transparency. Finally, if you would like to engage in debate and discussion about the application of technology to improve governance in countries outside of North America and Western Europe, please subscribe to the Transparency for Technology mailing list.

This post was co-written by Renata Avila.

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Map via Transparency International. A score of 0 (darkest blue) indicates high corruption; a score of 10 (lightest blue) indicates low corruption.

With the exception of Botswana, Mauritius and Cape Verde, none of the countries in sub-Saharan Africa fall above the midway point of the 2009 Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index, which measures how citizens perceive the level of government corruption. In its profile on the region (PDF), the organization writes that corruption can “undermin[e] political stability and well as the governments’ capacity to provide effective basic services…. In such a context, corruption levels can mean the difference between life and death.”

Civil society throughout the continent has been pushing for greater public sector transparency, and some governments are beginning to respond. Ghana's Ministry of Information recently announced the “Ghana Policy Fair 2010,” a showcase of government projects and policies open to public comment. In Cape Verde, the Núclea Operacional da Sociedade de Informação (NOSI), or Operational Nucleus of the Information Society, makes information on the government's financial activities accessible to citizens while allowing them to apply for a variety of civil services — birth and marriage certificates, for example — online. The Portal do Governo da República de Angola, performs similar services in Angola.

Civil society has also begun to move its transparency and accountability efforts online. These efforts are supported by a growing tech community in sub-Saharan Africa, though a widespread lack of access to information and communications technology (ICT) and a consequent lack of understanding of and interest in these tools constitute a significant challenge to their success.

How Africans are using technology

Despite low rates of Internet and mobile phone penetration compared to the rest of the world, sub-Saharan Africa is home to a vibrant community of entrepreneurs, web companies and software developers who are responsible for mobile social networking applications, local blog aggregators and much more. Technology incubators like Appfrica Labs in Kampala and iHub in Nairobi are fostering new developments in this space.

ICT4D
Much of the attention on ICT in Africa has been focused on the use of these tools for economic development, or ICT4D. Mobile banking, which brings financial services to rural and extremely poor customers who lack access to traditional banks, is rapidly spreading throughout the continent. One of the better known examples is Kenya's M-PESA, which in just three years has grown from serving 50,000 customers to serving nearly 6.5 million. Question Box, a mobile phone-based tool developed with support from the Grameen Foundation, allows Ugandans to call or message operators who have access to a database full of information on health, agriculture and education — it's a little like Google for people without Internet access. Mobile phones are also being used to help rural health workers diagnose minor illnesses and counsel HIV/AIDS patients.

Ushahidi
It has become nearly impossible to discuss citizen technology efforts in Africa without mentioning Ushahidi, the crowdsourced reporting tool first developed to track post-election violence in Kenya in 2007. Ushahidi has sparked a wave of election monitoring projects that utilize the tool, both in Africa and in other regions. Sudan Vote Monitor, which tracked the country's presidential elections in April, is one example. The crowdsourced reporting tool has also been deployed in Togo, and a project is being planned in time for the 2011 elections in Liberia. In addition to election-related projects, Ushahidi has also been deployed to track medical supply shortages in eastern Africa, xenophobic attacks in South Africa, and conflict in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Technical issues

Though Africa's tech community is growing, popular lack of access to ICT is still a major obstacle to the use of technology for government accountability projects. In all but a few African countries, less than ten percent of the population has Internet access. Mobile phones — some with data services, but most with only simple texting abilities — have fared much better, with penetration rates reaching around 30 percent continent-wide.

Map via Online Africa.

This lack of access affects governments as well, which can often be less familiar with emerging technologies than their citizens. The Ghana Policy Fair mentioned above has its own Facebook page, indicating the government's desire to reach out through ICT, but some Ghanaians wish an even greater effort had been made to put information online. One blogger wrote:

So they can't simply put all this information onto a website for anyone who is interested to go and look it up? Instead people have to take time and spend lorry fair to attend a policy fair, for some information that will only be available temporarily? What a waste of time.

The lack of government capacity to effectively use ICT is one of the factors that prompted the founders of the Kenyan Budget Tracking Tool to work with various ministries to put budgetary data online in a way that would be useful for citizens. Philip Thigo, one of the project's co-founders, says the government was more or less willing to make its data accessible — and in fact was attempting to put information online — but that the ministries lacked the necessary technical skills to make their databases easily navigable by average Kenyans. In addition to building a searchable web site, the Budget Tracking Tool also developed a script to handle simple SMS queries, so that anyone with a mobile phone can text in and find out how much money has been allocated for various projects in their area. The system currently gets between 4000 and 4500 queries per month.

Also in Kenya, the founders of community mapping project Map Kibera are attempting to combat low access to technology by moving part of their project offline so they can get community members who are not able to use the Internet involved. They have decided to print paper copies of the maps they've generated online and hand them out to the community, hoping to spark a discussion. “Paper's cool, so we are going to print posters, several hundred at least, and distribute those to every school, every church, every clinic, every sort of public institution in Kibera so that people can see for themselves what's collected and start to have a particular interest on there which would suggest where this is going,” says co-founder Mikel Maron.

Resistance to technology for transparency projects

In some countries, access is also threatened by governments wary of citizens using new communications tools. According to an OpenNet Initiative report on Internet filtering in the region, while many governments are actively attempting to increase ICT penetration, some are blocking online content or monitoring citizens’ Internet use. The Sudanese government recently blocked election monitoring site Sudan Vote Monitor and YouTube during the country's presidential elections. In a number of countries, including Ghana, Ethiopia, Nigeria and Zimbabwe, Internet service providers and Internet cafés are required to hand over data on customers’ online activities to the government if asked. This kind of government intervention may discourage those who might otherwise engage in transparency efforts online.

Resistance may also come from citizens who do not see value in new technologies. Goretti Amuriat, the ICT Program Manager for the Women of Uganda Network (WOUGNET), says that when the organization was initially surveying women to see how best to develop ICT initiatives, many women in rural communities were uninterested in using technology, preferring to focus their time and energy on more widely available and accessible tools. Earlier this year, reports on an e-governance program in Southern Sudan revealed that a lack of enthusiasm for technology on the part of government officials led to the program's failure.

Philip Thigo of the Budget Tracking Tool cautions against spending too much time working on neat ICT tools that don't sufficiently engage the community: “I think a thing about technology is uptake. If there's no need then you'll just have a tool that will be wowed, wowed, and then just go dead.” To make sure Kenyans would use the tool, Philip and his partner asked citizens and civil society organizations what they needed the most, then developed the tool to meet those needs.

Successes

Despite these challenges, tech for transparency projects in Africa are making an impact. Map Kibera is building partnership with local organizations focused on water, health, education and safety to use mapping technology to monitor the provision of basic services. Also in Kenya, data mining made possible by the Budget Tracking Tool uncovered a major corruption scandal at the Ministry of Water that led to the firing of a number of public officials involved. WOUGNET has held the Ugandan government accountable to women, successfully working to insert gender-sensitive language into the country's national ICT and development policies. And during this month's presidential elections, Sudan Vote Monitor received hundreds of reports, despite having their site blocked in the country for several days.

One of the most important elements of these projects’ success is the involvement of the communities in which they operate. All four have built partnerships with local organizations and consulted civil society groups. WOUGNET regularly conducts surveys of its members, shaping its own initiatives and its advocacy programs in response. Sudan Vote Monitor works with a large network of civil society organizations throughout Sudan. The founders of the Budget Tracking Tool spent time traveling throughout the country asking citizens what kinds of information would be useful to them before returning to Nairobi to develop the technical aspects of the project.

Another key aspect of many of these projects is their willingness to incorporate multiple forms of communication, using the Internet and mobile phones where possible but also extending their outreach to community meetings, radio and printed materials when necessary. WOUGNET circulates a print version of its e-mail newsletter for women who are not able to get online, Map Kibera has reached out to community members via radio.

What's next?

Aid transparency
One area the Technology for Transparency Network has not yet spent much time on is the issue of aid transparency. A substantial amount of donor money pours into sub-Saharan Africa each year — approximately $50 billion, in fact — but the effects are difficult to discern, and a growing number of academics and activists are calling for a halt to the flow. Zambian economist Dambisa Moyo has called foreign aid “an unmitigated political, economic and humanitarian disaster,” and Ugandan journalist Andrew Mwenda delivered a talk at TEDGlobal 2007 in which he argued that aid is preventing Africa from developing. Several aid transparency initiatives are using technology to open aid data to the public, including the International Aid Transparency Initiative, Aid Info, and the Ujima Project, which focuses specifically on Africa. There may be room for greater partnership between these types of organizations and country-specific projects like Kenya's Budget Tracking Tool that would help track aid flows from the international level all the way down to local project implementation.

Greater adoption by local populations
The tech for transparency community in sub-Saharan Africa is currently driven by a few strong visionaries, most of whom have outside support. While they have been able to encourage greater government accountability in some cases, their projects are still often underutilized. In his review of the second round of Technology for Transparency Network case studies, David Sasaki writes that the Budget Tracking Tool presents Kenyan budgetary data online, “where users can leave comments about the progress, impact, and efficiency of the projects. (So far, few have.)” Sudan Vote Monitor received a considerable amount of attention from both the international media and the Sudanese government during April's elections, but only a few hundred reports (an estimated 16 million people were registered to vote). A large part of this lack of adoption is the technical difficulties noted above, but in many African countries transparency activists must work hard to convince citizens that pushing for government accountability is more important than other development issues. Mikel Maron says of Kibera: “It's very much a day to day place, people are concerned with getting dinner tonight, and when you're working on a project which requires a long term individual commitment without immediate rewards, well that's understandably counter to the usual way of thinking.” As both technology and economic development spread in Africa, this may change, but for now, it is still something transparency activists must consider.

Keep an eye on the tech community
Many of Africa's tech for transparency projects so far have grown out of the tech side of things. Building technological skills in Africa is good in many ways: it helps the economy, fosters innovation, and ensures that when the need for an election monitoring project or the idea to track a country's budget arises, there is a substantial group of developers who can support the project. If stronger connections between existing civil society groups and talented techies can be built, I believe we'll see more widespread use of technology to advocate for better governance.

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An official from Sudan's National Elections Commission (left) assists a voter at a polling station in Juba, Sudan. Photo courtesy of United Nations Photo on Flickr.

Overall, how did things go?
It exceeded my expectations. I had such doubt that we were going to be able to pull it off given all the hurdles and challenges, right to the last minute. So to have everything worked out and to have the response that we received from the general public — and mind you we had no idea how the public was going to respond — it's just been great.

What were the biggest successes?
The quality of the reporting, the quality of the reports people were sending in, both in Arabic and in English, from all over the country. It was just really fascinating to see how quickly the public picked up the technology and was able to embrace it. They really were dying to have an avenue to express their views.

Were there any disappointments?
In terms of things that I wish had gone better, I would have liked to get more reporting from the south, as well as from Darfur. We got some, but not as much as we were hoping to. We got quite a bit from the central part of the country all the way up to the north and from the east as well, but from the west and from the south I wish we'd have gotten more. That probably has to do with the access people have to be able to send reports over the Internet or via SMS.

Another thing is the fact that I was not able to be there physically on the ground with the team that was working heroically to upload and verify the reports. It was my desire to be on the ground with them in Khartoum and in Juba, but I unfortunately wasn't able to join them. We had to do this over Skype and over the phone.

If you had another shot at monitoring the elections, what would you do differently?
We probably would try to work out the technology on the ground sooner. I would have wanted to be on the ground working out the SMS part of it, which took a lot of work. Our partner organization did a fabulous job in terms of trying to represent us with the telecom companies, but that would be something that I would have wanted to do.

We had to work down to the wire, to the last minute to get the technical pieces working. We got the short code running literally the night before, just enough time to do some basic testing. That's one thing I would have wanted to work out earlier, to do some SMS reporting both in the north and the south, so those are some of the lessons we learned.

One of the biggest stories coming out about Sudan Vote Monitor is that the site was blocked for several days during the elections. Was this a surprise, or was it something you were expecting?
I was expecting some disruption. I wasn't expecting complete a shut down, but we knew there were risks going in, so I wasn't totally surprised. I was pleased that it was allowed to operate after two days. Even during those days where it was blocked we still continued to receive reports. We were able to work, although in a reduced capacity. We were determined to work and operate in spite of the challenges — we weren't totally unprepared.

As of April 28, your site has received 257 reports. How many of these were you able to verify?
That number will probably go even higher if we add up the SMS reports. We didn't completely finish because we didn't have a way to reach the people that are doing the reporting to verify that. It's probably somewhere between 300 and 500 when you add it all together. Most of the web-based ones we were able to verify, and I would say less than half of the SMS ones.

Was there any public response to the reports on your site?
It was more of an avenue for people to get more information, which is precisely what we wanted to do. In previous elections it was all a closed door affair — nobody knew exactly what went on on the ground. The intention of this was to be able to get the information out to the public, internally and externally, about what's going on. Just being able to get the word out was enough for us. We didn't set out to try to urge anybody to take any specific action. Our mission was to get the information out and then let people judge and act for themselves.

Now that the elections are over, what's next for Sudan Vote Monitor?
We are evaluating several options. We're definitely interested in leveraging the experience. We're compiling a “lessons learned,” and we'll be publishing those. We think we're onto something here, and we believe that there is a very strong case for doing the same thing for the referendum [on independence for Southern Sudan, scheduled for January 2011]. Between now and the referendum there is a lot of need to get the public engaged, and we feel this platform is a valid and strong platform to do that. We're talking to some potential groups that are interested in collaborating with us, so definitely look for more. We will be tabulating and bringing this phase to closure and then publishing our final findings for this event, then setting the next phase very shortly.

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