Anne Githuku-Shogwe, Founder and CEA, Afroes, Transforming Africa through digital media

Why do you think this meeting is important?

Indeed as the AfDB President said today, "It is time for us to move away from investing so much of our precious time in aid effectiveness, and instead focus on development effectiveness". This meeting would be most important if all the key African institutions and civil society organisations represented can establish a shared understanding and commit to a deliberate path to move us towards Aid-free development effectiveness.

You are involved in an ICT Business. Today, we learnt that Information and Communications Technology (ICT) can also be used for accountability. According to you, to what extent can (ICT) contribute to development effectiveness?

There is no blueprint for development effectiveness but certainly there is a lot of room for innovation through technology to enhance efficiency of systems and processes of institutions but also to facilitate citzens' engagement in accessing services and holding policy makers accountable. Today, my organization, Afroes, and many others are engaged in developing and implementing innovative technology tools that enable citizens engagement in development, particularly through mobile phones.

In this way, conversations and the architecture of development effectiveness can be broadened to include citizens who are the true beneficiaries of national efforts. Governments and policy makers can become more responsive and therefore engage in people-oriented development. African governments have already developed numerous policies that are very relevant but perhaps the greatest challenge is the implementation of these policies and the establishment of systems that ensure monitoring of, and accountability on real development results. Technology can enhance these systems and make them much easier to track the allocation of resources and create a platform for greater effiiency and transparency.

Contacts

Aristide Ahouassou