Trace: » 1.1. Introduction
1.1. Introduction
“There is a tremendous yearning, not for technology per se, but for what technology can make possible” -Kofi Annan
The Marc Lindenberg Center1) has asked Kabissa to research and analyze how African civil society organizations are, will be, and could be using the latest technologies of blogs, wikis, and social networking tools, commonly known collectively as Web 2.0.
Web 2.0, while arguably overly hyped in the media, presents a powerful new opportunity for African organizations to make more effective use of their often limited Internet connections. Thanks to dynamic and user-friendly Web 2.0 services and tools, organizations can now more easily create a stable and up-to-date presence on the Internet, establish lasting and useful relationships with like minded organizations around the world and join a global conversation on issues and concerns dear to them.
As a technology assistance partner providing web hosting services and training for African organizations since 1999, and with over 1000 organizations in our network, we at Kabissa have a keen interest in Web 2.0. Through this research we will be able to better serve our members by establishing Web 2.0 services of our own and support our members reaching out to us for guidance on how to create blogs, wikis or otherwise take advantage of Web 2.0. More generally, we anticipate that this paper, published on the Kabissa wiki2), will be a useful resource for the Marc Lindenberg Center, Global Action Network3) and other stakeholders seeking to harness Web 2.0 to strengthen and empower civil society organizations in Africa and around the world.
In the first section, we introduce Web 2.0 concepts and terminology, provide useful case studies for considering the concepts, and then discuss the relevance of Web 2.0 for African civil society.
Then in the second section, we document a parallel set of experiments we are running at Kabissa to examine real, concrete use cases for Web 2.0 and evaluate the benefits and obstacles of using these tools within African civil society. In this section we will get more deeply into the technical nuts and bolts of creating Web 2.0 websites. Specifically, Kabissa will:
The goal with the experiments is to give practitioners a deeper view into the planning and implementation of Web 2.0 websites for African civil society.
In the resources section, we provide additional resources that we hope will be useful, including a Glossary of the sometimes bewildering array of Web 2.0 terms such as Blogosphere, Folksonomy and Tag Cloud. We also include Kabissa's blog and wiki implementation plans. And finally, we provide a list of relevant Web 2.0 websites and resources encountered during our research. Readers are encouraged to contribute to and comment on the resources, and indeed any part of this wiki document.
Why Civil Society?
Kabissa is particularly interested in working with African Civil Society Organizations since they have a critical role to play in promoting positive change in their communities. The concept of Civil Society is not in wide currency, so we provide here a definition from the website of the LSE Centre for Civil Society:4)
“Civil society refers to the arena of uncoerced collective action around shared interests, purposes and values. In theory, its institutional forms are distinct from those of the state, family and market, though in practice, the boundaries between state, civil society, family and market are often complex, blurred and negotiated. Civil society commonly embraces a diversity of spaces, actors and institutional forms, varying in their degree of formality, autonomy and power. Civil societies are often populated by organisations such as registered charities, development non-governmental organisations, community groups, women's organisations, faith-based organisations, professional associations, trades unions, self-help groups, social movements, business associations, coalitions and advocacy groups.”
