When handyman Alex Theuri puts down his wrenches after laying water pipes in buildings, he picks up screwdrivers and pliers to install electric wiring elsewhere — but there's one tool he's never without. The mobile phone has become the most essential work item for Theuri, a Kenyan plumber, electrician and small businessman who, like so many others in the East African nation, makes a living from various different jobs at the same time. Thanks to the growth in the mobile phone industry in Kenya over the past five years, Theuri says his plumbing-electrical business has grown by about 50 per cent.

The second edition of 21st Century Fundraising Resources by Michael C. Gilbert, et al is available. It's been substantially expanded to contain six feature articles, five of those new, and 105 resources, which are divided into 9 categories, including Community, Email, Design, Principles, and Websites.

"Leaving the Annan Centre, David and I drove across town past the sprawling campus of the University of Ghana until we reached the site of my workshop on blogs, podcasts and video blogs. When we arrived, I discovered the cards were stacked against me; the facility had no projector (nor an empty wall on which to project, even if we had found one), and its Internet access was having problems. What those problems were, no one could really explain, but the end result was that my connection was no more than 10k per second. Frustrating as this was, it was actually useful in a way, given the fact I'd be talking about publishing tools that usually require fast bandwidth. Would it be possible for me to demonstrate video blogging or podcasting on a connection slower than what I had at home in the 1980s? We'd have to find out." This is the beginning of an article from www.balancingact-africa.com, which examines blogging and podcasting trends in Africa.

You are invited to join the second Agenda e-talk with a special focus on Gender, Culture and Rights. This feature will become a monthly event on the Agenda website.

I your editorials are great – this week is excellent: definitely many lessons to learn from and hope many within this sector do. If I may share: I just find that players in the sector have a tendency to go for "information overload" rather than focusing on qualitative information that can actually be disseminated and utilized especially by those who do not have a PC on their desk. It seems that people have an "obsession" by how many hits their websites have instead of caring whether the user really benefits from the info.

Rwanda has a lot to recover from. Nearly one million people were killed during the 1994 genocide, and educated people were a prime target. Yet, as Dan Simmons of the BBC reports, the country has high hopes of using education and training to help it lead Africa into the information age. Unlike much of the rest of Africa, Rwanda is a small, densely populated country. This makes it much easier to connect different regions with fibre optic cables that can bring telephone, Internet and television services. The aim is to link the five main population centres in this way by the end of 2005.

There is a new phenomena spreading around the world - the spread of extremely restrictive seed laws. A new series of articles, in the latest issue of GRAIN's Seedling magazine, has found that many countries are being pushed into embracing some of the world's most repressive laws: seed laws. It is clear that these seed laws have very little to do with protecting farmers at all and a lot to do with creating conditions for the private seed industry to gain and control markets worldwide. Seed laws are all about repression. They're about what farmers can't do.

The Committee to Protect Journalists says it is deeply shocked about the July 22 closure of independent radio station Radio Publique Africaine. The closure took place despite an earlier compromise deal between the authorities and RPA, local sources said. RPA fell silent around 5 p.m. local time as a large group of police broke into the station compound, padlocked its studios, and cut off its transmitter. It was not immediately clear if any RPA staff had been arrested, although one journalist told CPJ in a brief phone call, "they are taking us to the police station."

The second-phase of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS-II) is around the corner. It is the second largest international conference to take place on the soil of Africa this millennium after the World Summit for Sustainable Development (WSSD) in South Africa in August 2002. WSIS-II will take place in Tunis, Tunisia from November 16 to 18 this year. WSIS-II is the United Nations summit intended to address issues pertaining to information, communication and the technologies and structures that assemble and sustain these systems. It is ample time also for stakeholders to exhibit new technologies and innovations. The first-phase of the WSIS took place in Geneva, Switzerland between December 10 to 12, 2003. WSIS-I generated a declaration establishing the goals and priorities of governments, business and civil society members around the information society; the society where the digital divide is widening while media ownership consolidates.

A bicycle-powered, Linux-based VoIP system: not your usual high-tech architecture. But what if you were one of the more than 1 billion people living without electricity? No power, no phone. The mission of Inveneo, a nonprofit group of inveterate high-tech adventurers, is to bring developing communities that never reached a 20th century level of infrastructure into the 21st century. Its bicycle-powered system brings not just VoIP but also e-mail and Web browsing to remote areas.

Mvuramanzi Trust has set up a website to facilitate the generation and dissemination of information, knowledge and experiences in water, sanitation, health and hygiene education promotion. Visit the website at www.mvuramanzi.org.zw and find out how people-centred approaches have sustained Zimbabwe's campaign for water, sanitation and hygiene for all. Sign up for their newsletter at http://www.mvuramanzi.org.zw/mailing_list/sign_up.asp?email=

Siyabhala - We are writing Africa - is produced by Venekera Works on behalf of Writers of Zimbabwe. The aim is to promote a writing and reading culture in Zimbabwe. If you would like to subscribe please send an email to [email protected] with "join" as the subject.

The Network for the Defence of Independent Media in Africa (NDIMA) has changed its name to the Africa Free Media Foundation. Their new e-mail address is [email protected] and their website which is still under
construction is www.freemediafoundation.org

SADC journalists are invited to apply for a fully sponsored two-week course in Poverty Reporting. Its overall objective is to further the development of independent journalism and media practice in southern Africa through the provision of higher training for journalists and other media practitioners.

For over 28 years, Facing History and Ourselves has offered an interdisciplinary approach to citizenship education that connects the history of the Holocaust and other examples of genocide to the moral questions young people face in their own lives. The online course, Holocaust and Human Behavior, is a powerful learning experience that provides an excellent overview of Facing History's resources and methodology.

Richard Kamidza is not optimistic about the outcome of EPAs, arguing that they will ultimately undermine Africa’s economies. Kamidza explains that negotiations are taking place in the context of a skewed relationship between Africa and Europe that already hinders development prospects. This means that the EU is unlikely to face strong opposition to its desire to fast track EPA negotiations.

Introduction

The first round of the Cotonou Agreement ended without the legally binding document that is necessary for future references. Indeed, the European Union (EU) emerged the victor, a development that is haunting the ongoing economic partnership agreement (EPA) negotiations between the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) states and the EU. As the EPA negotiations fast approach the EU-imposed deadline, the predictions are that the score will be EU 1, ACP 0, because the process firmly allows the EU to protect its interests against those of a begging trading partner.

Europe as a ‘partner’

As a partner, Europe is fortifying its vertical links with Africa, which also benefits its bilateral and multilateral trade negotiations. Unfortunately, vertical integration with Europe is unlikely to facilitate the industrial development of African economies, because the EPA process does not take into account the differences in development between Europe and Africa, and within Africa itself. For instance, 34 of the 48 countries currently negotiating an EPA with EU are least developing countries (LDCs). They should have continued to benefit from the Lomé Convention’s Everything But Arms (EBA) initiative but under the EPA process they will have to do without such special treatment.

The current thrust of the EPA negotiations suggests that their main concern is solving Europe’s overproduction and profitability crisis by opening up more markets for its products and services in Africa. EPAs are essentially 'free trade areas' between partners that are both economically and politically unequal. They come supported by 'one size fits all' neoliberal policies, a development that provides a further example of the combined effort of global forces (the EU, International Monetary Fund, World Bank) to thwart the development of poor countries. Trade relations that were non-reciprocal are now being made reciprocal thereby removing the developmental component that characterised the previous Lomé Conventions. Indeed, EPAs seek to replace past special preferences, a development that also suits Europe’s political interests well, particularly now that the 25-member body is increasingly sensitive to the demands of the new member-states, which are reluctant to be guided by past colonial relationships.

The EU as a major trading ‘partner’

The EU is well positioned to ensure that its negotiating options and financial, institutional and technical resources all serve its interests in both bilateral and multilateral trade negotiations. Indeed, the European Commission (EC) has a layer of technical experts whose sole duty it is to prepare these negotiations. It is likely to exploit its superior bilateral bargaining power to push for EPA outcomes that maximise the EU’s political and economic interests at the WTO negotiations. The EU’s push for EPAs is inextricably linked to the WTO’s political processes, where decisions are based on a one-country, one-vote consensus. So, EPAs provide the ideal political framework for the EU to neutralise the potential for opposition to its agenda in the WTO from a large constituency of the G90 grouping – the multilateral body of which the ACP countries constitute the larger proportion.

In addition, the EPA process will assist the EU politically by fostering a community of interest between it and the ACP in future WTO negotiations. The EU is also fast-tracking the negotiations in order to meet the end of the current waiver date of the WTO, which is December 2008. The above clearly shows the promotion of Europe’s interests at the expense of Africa’s long-term sustainable development as well as the failure of the dominant partner to muster the political will to defend future pro-Africa positions at the WTO.

While Africa is concerned about developmental issues and resources, Europe is busy prioritising issues within the six clusters (development, agriculture, services, trade-related issues, fisheries and market access) that countries are to negotiate with the EC. Europe is also working out how to bring back the rejected Singapore issues of competition policy, investment policy, transparency in government procurement and trade facilitation, issues that are much easier to manage at the WTO level. This is also the reason why the EU is fast-tracking the process, so that the EPA negotiations are concluded before the finalisation of the Doha Development Agenda. As a result, the EU is ready to use all its leverage to put pressure on the four African configurations to come up with EPA outcomes that favour Europe, even though this may not necessarily promote the Africa’s long-term sustainable development through trade.

The EU as a ‘donor’

Europe provides developmental assistance to individual countries and debt relief to the highly indebted poor countries (HIPC) of the continent. Having realised the vulnerability of African economies, Europe then dangled the 'developmental aid purse', which resulted in the split of Africa into four configurations that totally disregard existing regional economic communities. The division of Africa into small, weak and fragmented negotiating structures suits the EU politically, especially since to date no country has received the promised developmental assistance despite the development challenges they face.

The EU also supports many projects across Africa and provides assistance to fiscal financing. In some African countries, this budget support is estimated to be over 60% of the total fiscal budget. At a regional level EU support has gone to implementing developmental projects and bankrolling regional integration efforts on the continent. These regional groupings were able to establish trade protocols that seek to facilitate trade and development within and outside the regions. However, largely through the EPA process, the EU is sacrificing the very regional integration it has long been bankrolling. In the process, it is deligitimising the existing regional integration agenda simply because of its desire to experiment with the new wave of regional negotiating structures that are set to negotiate a new medium- to long-term trade regime with Europe.

Of interest is the EU’s desire to bankroll an EPA with the Eastern and Southern African (ESA) region - the 'high breed configuration' which does not have the legal standing and structures that ought to be required by any donor. But because the donor is an interested party, which expects to gain from the conclusion of the negotiating rounds, it simply overlooks the ESA’s legal and structural deficiencies. Under normal circumstance, no donor could bankroll the activities of a recipient through another 'entity’s structure' the way the EU is supporting ESA-EPA activities through COMESA. This raises a number of questions: Why bend the rules of donor funding? Whose interests are at stake if proper legal structures are established, albeit at a slow pace? What will happen if ESA member-states refuse to honour funds coming from the EU through COMESA? All this points strongly to the EU having considerable interests at stake over EPA negotiations. It therefore appears that forming these new regional configurations is likely to produce desirable results for the EU comparable to those of the 1884 Berlin Conference, which carved Africa into small but controllable states solely for the benefit of Europe.

The EU’s divide and rule policy

EPA negotiations have bundled countries in Africa into new regional political structures a development that separates them from the existing regional integration frameworks and hampers regionalisation efforts. Since countries belong to multiple economic integration blocs, the EPA structures have further split and bundled them into a weak and loose trade negotiating machinery. For instance, this process has split the EAC, ECCAS and SADC regional groupings, a development that raises the question of what will happen to Tanzania, the four original members of SADC (Malawi, Mauritius, Zambia and Zimbabwe) and the three ECCAS member-states (Burundi, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo) in the event of a good or bad ESA–EPA deal. This is part of divide-and-rule tactics associated with the EU and other bigger powers at the multilateral level. The result is total control over the other partner (Africa) and compliance with the EU’s interests. Africa is aware of well-documented threats the EU has made in the past, including withdrawing development aid, existing trade, aid and investments, contracts and budgetary support; interfering with national and regional security policies; re-imposing trade barriers; and removing ambassadorial representations from WTO and ACP-EU headquarters where key events take place.

Africa as a ‘partner’

EPAs will tie Africa to Europe in an unbalanced framework, and in so doing will undermine the continent’s economies, particularly the producers of goods and services and the regional integration effort. Africa is experiencing serious developmental challenges including supply-side constraints, growing unemployment and declining economic activity. The supply-side constraints include: the unreliable provision of public utilities (electricity and water); a poor public infrastructure (run-down roads and railways); weak institutional and policy frameworks (leading to fluctuating exchange rates and high interest and inflation rates); and low labour productivity (arising from poor education, health and housing provision).

In addition, all the African countries negotiating an EPA are locked into an unhealthy post-colonial dependence on Europe for development aid, fiscal support and markets, which hinders Africa’s competitiveness in the national, regional and international markets. This dependence and these economic weaknesses ensure that the EU is unlikely to face strong opposition to its desire to fast track EPA negotiations. Europe is aware that African configurations not only lack independent preparation, but are also small, weak, poor and too fragmented to mount a strong position in the timeframe that is being determined by Europe. Europe is also aware that African countries do not have the resources to mount any serious resistance to its long-term agenda and that her negotiators at every level lack the experience of their EC counterparts.

This clearly illustrates that Africa is being denied an opportunity by its partner and the referee of this process to revitalise its industrial development so that its products and service can become more competitive. Surely, the EU is set to win this bilateral round of negotiations. It is also certain to score victories at the WTO given its strategy for neutralising the larger organic group in the south.

* Richard Kamidza has just joined the African Centre for Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD) as a senior researcher. You can reach him on [email protected] or +27315023908.

* Please send comments to [email protected]

EDITORIAL
The G8 was no success, argues Charles Abugre.

COMMENTS AND ANALYSIS
FOCUS ON THE MEDIA: Guest editor Richard Carver brings together articles discussing the media and publishing in Africa
- Publishing in Africa remains an enclave industry serving foreign multinationals and their 'joint ventures', which are actually comprador companies, established to legitimise the former's presence and exploitation, writes Walter Bgoya
- When community radio is established, its value to those politically inclined rises sharply, writes Muthoni Wanyeki.
- Faced with problem how do we create viable pro-poor media, Chris Kabwato suggests that we need five key ingredients
- Richard Carver reviews a timely book 'Who owns the media? Global Trends and Local Resistances'
- Firoze Manji describes the experience of Fahamu in using ICTs for publishing
- It is commonplace to claim that liberal democracy and Africa are not good bedfellows, writes Francis Nyamnjoh.

To enable staff to rest and recuperate, this week's Pambazuka News includes only the Editorial and Comment & Analysis sections.

If someone had said to me four years ago that a new electronic newsletter on social justice in Africa would reach a readership three years later of more than 80,000 people every week, most of them in Africa, and that this could be done without forming an alliance with media magnates or multinationals, I would have told them they were insane.

And yet that is exactly what Pambazuka News has succeeded in doing. Almost without realising, Fahamu has become a publisher of news and with a constituency that not only consumes what we produce, but also actively feeds information to the newsletter on a regular basis.

How did this come about? What were the features that led to this modest success? And are there lessons for others from these experiences? Answering the first two questions is relatively straightforward. How far our experiences can be generalised for African publishers seeking to harness information and communications technologies (ICTs) is more difficult to answer: we have used publishing as a means to an end, rather than as an end in itself. And that, perhaps, provides a clue to what others might take from our experiences.

The context

Pambazuka News was the serendipitous offspring of a programme established to harness ICTs for strengthening the human rights movement in Africa. Its birth was intimately intertwined with an attempt to develop distance learning materials for civil society organisations in Africa.

In 1997, Fahamu set out to examine how developments in information and communications technologies can be harnessed to support the growth of human rights and civil society organisations in Africa. Like many others, we saw the potentials opening up with the growth in access to the internet.

Although less well developed than in the industrialised world, access to the internet has spread rapidly in Africa. In 1996 only 16 countries had access; by 1998, 49 of the 54 countries were online, with most African capitals having more than one internet service provider. By 2001, all African countries were online. According to Mike Jensen, the number of computers permanently connected to the internet extended beyond 10,000 in 1999, but this probably grossly underestimated the actual numbers, given the widespread use of .com and .net addresses.

Since the early 1990s, Africa has witnessed a flourishing of numerous organisations of civil society, including non-governmental organisations, membership organisations, professional associations, religious groups and movements. The period has also seen a significant growth in the number of organisations concerned with promoting and protecting human rights. Human rights activism is not, of course, new to Africa. It has been a feature of all democratic struggles in the region both during and since colonial times. However, it has largely been during the last decade that there has been a proliferation of self-proclaimed human rights organisations whose explicit purpose is to investigate, monitor and report on violations or abuses of human rights and to campaign, lobby and advocate for these rights. Our view was that the ability of the African human rights movement to open, maintain and expand an environment in which basic freedoms are respected will depend largely on the establishment of a critical mass of organisations that have the necessary skills both to promote and protect human rights.

Could the new technologies be harnessed to strengthen this movement?

When we first started, the idea seemed simple enough (if rather naive): given the development of the worldwide web, we should be able to produce web-based distance learning materials and establish a web-portal to bring together relevant information resources for this constituency. Human rights organisations would in this way, we thought, be able to access the material as they needed. But before we could launch such a website, we needed to know what kind of training such organisations needed.

Understanding needs

In 1998, we undertook surveys involving more than 100 human rights and civil society organisations in eastern and southern Africa. We wanted to know how such organisations used the internet, what kind of technology they had access to, what their training priorities were, and the way they managed their organisations. We were able to visit the offices of about 60per cent of the organisations interviewed, enabling us to inspect their ICT infrastructure and to test out the problems of accessing the internet.

Although most organisations had access to email, access to the web was found to be much more problematic: organisations expressed frustration with how long it took to download web pages because of low bandwidth, and irritation with the number of times they had to dial in to re-establish connections over the telephone lines. One of the biggest constraints to accessing the internet was found to be the cost of going online: the average cost of using a local dialup internet account for 20 hours a month in Africa is about $60 (including call charges). To understand the relative scale of these charges, $60 is higher than the average African monthly salary.

We found that many of these organisations had difficulties accessing training. In part, this was due to the relatively high cost of course fees. In addition, faced as they are by the day-to-day demands of activism in a frequently hostile political environment, with deteriorating economic conditions, and ever-increasing public demands on a small number of committed and experienced staff, many of these organisations have difficulties in giving priority to capacity building either within or beyond their own institutions. We found that most training undertaken by human rights and civil society organisations in the region was in the form of short workshops. In-depth training was rarely possible without long absences from work, and therefore relatively few have attended longer, residential courses. Given the fragility of many of these organisations, many said that prolonged absences of key staff threatened their viability.

Our survey confirmed the findings of previous studies on the training needs of human rights organisations in the region , . Their priorities included: skills training in fact-finding, investigation and monitoring; knowledge and application of international and regional standards and mechanisms, especially in the field of social and economic rights; strategies for human rights litigation, reporting complaints and adjudication; provision of paralegal services; campaigning and lobbying; documentation techniques and uses of documentation; monitoring of elections and trials; popular education and human rights education.

Because of the problems of access, relatively few organisations at the time had much experience in using the internet for systematic research beyond investigations using the most common search engines. Few had experience of using the internet in their advocacy work. However, most organisations did have computers with a modem, which they used mainly to collect and send emails. Most had at least one computer with a CDROM drive, with 32-64MB RAM capacity as the norm. Except in South Africa, the ratio of computers to staff was about 1:4. The operating systems that were common at the time were Windows 95 and Windows 98. Few computers had sound or video cards.

Most organisations stated that they would be interested in participating in distance learning courses, provided that they did not have to rely on the web.
Our research pointed out clearly what kind of training was required. But how could that be delivered using ICTs?

Developing interactive course materials using ICTs

Any strategy based on offering courses via the worldwide web was doomed to failure, given the difficulties of using what one wag called the 'worldwide wait'. Furthermore, any technologies we developed were going to have to be workable on what were, even then, low specification machines. If the web was not going to be practical, then we would need to develop materials that provided similar interactivity offline. Using some kind of interactive programme stored on CDROM seemed the obvious solution.

If we were to develop distance learning course materials, how would we enable interactions between course participants? How would they communicate with each other and with their course tutor if online discussion via the web were not a practical route? Given the ubiquity of email, it was clear that we would need courses organised to use that form as the principal means of communications.

We designed our courses with three phases. In the first phase (usually lasting about 10 weeks), participants are provided with carefully designed interactive CDROM that helps them to learn the subject at their own pace. They are connected to each other and to the course tutor via an email list where they discuss issues arising in the course of their studies, and where they hold asynchronous discussions on topics set by the tutor. During this phase, they are required to complete and submit via email as attachments a series of assignments. Their work is formally assessed by the course tutor.

In the second phase, those who have completed the first phase satisfactorily are invited to attend a 3-4 day workshop held at a convenient location. As a result of what participants had learned in the first phase, there should be a considerable homogeneity in the participants' knowledge and understanding of the subject. The depth to which the subject can be treated is therefore much greater than would otherwise be the case.

In the third phase of the course, participants are required to carry out a practical project, putting into practice what they have learned during the first two phases. They are mentored through this work by their course tutors. They prepare a written report on their project that is then formally assessed.

There were a number of challenges in developing appropriate learning materials. We commissioned authors to write the materials based on an agreed framework of learning objectives and outcomes. Authors were provided with guidelines on, and examples of, the range of interactive exercises and 'tricks' that they could use as part of their courses. They produced their manuscripts electronically in Word or other similar formats. The manuscripts, based as they were on extensive courses that spanned several months, were always substantial in length. The first challenge we faced was to work out how such large quantities of material could be transferred to an interactive medium that could be stored and delivered on CDROM.

After extensive research, we had decided that we would use Macromedia Director as the medium for delivering the course materials. Although this required somewhat complex programming, and although other software programmes are available for this purpose, we chose Director principally because it gave us the flexibility for producing the range of exercises and interactivity that we knew would be required. However, we were also concerned that we should not be imprisoned by the choice of software or platform: what if tomorrow the web became a practical route for delivering our course materials - would that mean we would have to start all over again? What if tomorrow we wanted to move the material on to another platform - for example, on to palmtop computers (PDAs)? How could we 'future-proof' our developments?

The route we eventually pursued was to separate the content of the learning materials from the formatting: we did this by parsing the word documents into XML. The XML was then fed into Director dynamically. This allowed us to work on the manuscript whenever we needed to, using word processing software to edit and revise the manuscripts as required. With a library of interactive exercises developed over time, it became a relatively straightforward procedure to call these up as and when required. This approach resulted in a considerable speeding up of the process of production

At the same time, we felt that any technology we used should enable us to maintain Fahamu's essential design principles: namely, strong designs which run through our publications; inspiration from African art; simplicity; usability; focus on learning/content; use of space; clean; minimal text; consistency; and ease of navigation. We applied this approach to a series of courses that we made available, in the first instance, to southern African organisations.

Pambazuka is born

But learning is more than about studying. It is also about reading, reflecting, commenting on and contributing to a discourse on issues that matter. It is about sharing experiences, and about gaining an authority of those experiences. One of the most powerful mediums for that - at least potentially -is, of course, the internet. There are numerous sources of information; there are numerous opportunities for dialogue and engaging in discussion. But what happens to a community that is unable to access these? People often speak of the 'digital divide' as if this were simply a technical divide. It is deeper than that. It is also a social division that prevents the experiences of the greater part of humanity from being heard, and which, therefore, under-nourishes the discourse of those who do have access to the technology.

If the constituency we have worked with does not have access to the web, would it not be possible to bring the web to them? Would it not be possible to provide them the means to share experiences and information with others on the internet? One of the outcomes of the initiative described above was that we began receiving requests from human rights and other civil society organisations for assistance in finding information on the web, and with disseminating information about their own work. Initially, we responded on a case-by-case basis, sending off the results of searches or disseminating by email information we had received from others to those on our modest contacts list. But soon the demand became overwhelming. We simply could not respond to all the requests we received.

To make the process of response more manageable, we compiled the information in the form of a newsletter, with a number of categories that reflected the subjects that appeared to be of concern to the constituency. To make the newsletter more interesting, we included editorial commentary and opinion pieces from activists in the region and elsewhere.

The newsletter is sent out as an email, with text only format so that even those without HTML enabled email programs can read the content with ease. Each section contains a five-line summary of the item, with a URL pointing to the relevant website. Stories or information announcements sent to us directly are stored on the Pambazuka online database (there are currently some 20,000 such news items and editorials available free online). The newsletter receives more than 200 postings from other newsletters, websites, and various sources each week from that we draw on for the different sections. And each week, there is a vibrant debate on critical issues related to social justice in the region and in response to editorial materials.

By forming strategic alliances with other organisations , we were able to expand the reach of the newsletter. In December 2001, it was named Pambazuka News (pambazuka in Kiswahili means to awaken or arise - as in the breaking dawn). From an initial base of a few hundred subscribers, Pambazuka News has grown to nearly 17,000 subscribers at time of writing, and a readership estimated at 80,000. The newsletter is also reproduced in its entirety at allAfrica.com, with a potential readership probably in the hundreds of thousands.

Our last subscriber survey in March 2003 indicated that about 60% of our email subscribers were based in Africa. Response from subscribers on the extent to which they forwarded and printed out the newsletter led us to extrapolate that the newsletter, or parts therof, reached more than 70,000 people on a weekly basis. Approximately 35% of subscribers worked in the NGO sector, 18% in universities, 11% in international agencies and 7% in government, although this number is likely to have increased due to the work we have done targeting parliamentarians in Africa. The survey revealed that about 20% of readers were directors or senior managers, 15% programme staff and 11% held media-related positions. We don't have reliable information on gender distribution of our readers, but we know that the number of subscriptions from women's organisations has increased substantially as a result of our involvement in the campaign on the protocol on the rights of women in Africa.

Several other factors need to be considered when taking into account the readership and reach of the newsletter. Firstly, we know from our survey that subscribers commonly print out the newsletter for distribution to their networks, indicating that information distributed in the newsletter reaches people in Africa that do not have internet access. Secondly, editorials from Pambazuka News have frequently been republished in print publications, again indicating a cross-over to a wider audience. Lastly, information distributed by Pambazuka News has been used by community radio stations in Africa in their broadcasts in two cases that we know of, again indicating how the newsletter has reached a broader audience.

According to website statistics for the pambazuka.org domain, there have been a monthly average of nearly 200,000 requests over the last six months, These figures indicate a clear upward trend, reflecting the 30% increase in the number of subscribers to the newsletter. It is difficult to draw any conclusions from the actual domain statistics. Individual country domains show low web usage, but many users in Africa make use of yahoo.com or hotmail.com email accounts which could account for the 26.34% of visitors from the .com domain.

The significant growth of Pambazuka News over the last 12 months has been associated with the extent to which the newsletter has been used as a tool for advocacy in the region. We have supported the campaign for the ratification of the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa, coalition of some 17 regional organisations, producing two special issues profiling important aspects of the protocol. These have been successfully used as campaigning tools at meetings of the African Union. In July 2004, an edition of Pambazuka News was delivered to parliamentarians of the inaugural Pan-African parliament in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. This edition was also produced as a pamphlet and in PDF version and entitled 'Not Yet a Force for Freedom' . We also developed and hosted a petition on the Pambazuka News website in support of women's rights. This has also involved the development of an SMS function that enables people to sign the petition by SMS and receive SMS updates about the campaign. The numbers of signatories to this petition is approaching 4000. News about the petition has been covered by VOA, BBC, Reuters, SABC, UN-IRIN and African radio and newspaper outlets in at least 20 countries.

In addition, Pambazuka News has supported the campaign for the Remembrance of the 10th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide by producing a special issue that profiled the genocide through a series of ten editorials. Pambazuka News also acted as a forum for the distribution of news and information on the commemorations .

Since its origins, we have stored each news and editorial item on an online database, mainly because this provided an effective resource for production. Over time, we had accumulated so much valuable information that we decided to make the full content of the database available online. The new website was launched in July 2003. The database and the newsletter archives are fully searchable, and access is free. We are as yet unclear what the impact of this has been: we know that there are still difficulties within our primary constituency in Africa in accessing the web. Making the database available means that it is those with easy web access who benefit most.

Lessons

We are reluctant to offer our experiences as a 'model'. We have not been 'successful' in the sense that the term is often used today: we have not made millions, we have not reached millions, and still less, we have not (yet) managed to transform the lives of millions. But we believe that there are certain features of our approach that others may find useful.

The revolution in information and communications technologies (ICTs), and in particular the internet, has potentially transformed the way people can organize, relate, discuss or debate with each other, and the way they exchange, find, retrieve, and disseminate information - even the way in which information itself is produced. Our work has been driven by a purpose outside of and beyond technology. We have sought to contribute to the building of a movement for social justice. ICTs are, we believe, only one means to that end.

We publish not because we are or want to become publishers: publishing is only the means for supporting a particular movement. Although we have devoted much energy to developing the technology that we needed, we are not a technology company. We see technology as a manifestation of social relations, rather than as an end in itself. Our work has been guided by the desire to support a particular movement. As with the products of all previous technological revolutions, the technology itself is not 'neutral'. It serves the interests of those who exercise control. All technological developments have the potential for either contributing to the emancipation of humankind, or serving the self-interest of a minority (often with socially destructive consequences). The extent to which the technology may be used for either purpose depends both upon the power of those who control it and the extent to which organized civil society concedes that control or itself harnesses the technology. Our work has essentially been an exploration of how the movement for social justice can harness that technology.

Firoze Manji is Director of Fahamu and Editor of Pambazuka News

Please send comments to [email protected]

In December 2003, with generous donor funds, we set out to cover the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Geneva, Switzerland. Eighteen journalists drawn from the several African countries sought to report on what we considered to be a critical event for the developing world. We thought we should hear the voices of the powerful and the marginalised as they contested the definitions and implications of the so-called "Information Society" and transmit the information to our audiences across the continent. Under the rubric of Highway Africa News Agency (HANA) we had set up a subscriber list of over 150 individuals, organisations and networks based in Africa. We saw our role as:

* to report the proceedings, issues, personalities, positions in the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) to African audiences via the media networks and individual subscribers;
* to report the proceedings, issues, personalities, positions in WSIS from an African perspective.

We did that and more and our stories are on www.highwayafrica.ru.ac.za

The gist of my article, however, is not about what we did but of the challenges that we now encounter as we try to set up a news agency dedicated to reporting on "Information Society" issues and on Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). These challenges are fundamentally ideological. They relate to how do you create viable and sustainable media that is different from mainstream commercial media in terms of its focus.

What kind of media for what kind of society?

To make my point clear I should go back to the vision for HANA. My dream for the news agency is:
- to create a virtual platform for reporting on developments in technology and how these relate to our societies (read the poor and marginalised);
- to interrogate ICT policies and practices from the point of view of the public (the poor and marginalised);
- to create a space for ordinary voices to be heard and also for their views to be mainstreamed.

Now to go about making the above a reality is a challenge. Donor funds can only take you for a couple of years until the demand comes in for sustainability. It is this issue of sustainability that is killing ideological media. The world over both commercial and non-commercial media are grappling with how revenue and profits can be generated online. Various business models are punted on a daily basis but the reality is that most "successful'' online news publishers rely on their printed newspaper. The profits of the shareholding company sustain them through the start-up years (it literally takes years to develop a profitable online news publishing business). In any case not much of the content generated is new. Various sources of content are identified and the result can be a myriad sites carrying virtually the same stories.

So faced with problem how do we create viable pro-poor media? I think we need five key ingredients:

- clear ideological vision
- individual commitment
- partners who share same vision
- some money
- hope

In this so-called post-modern world and its fear of any claims to 'truth', 'ideology' and what post-modernists term meta-narratives when they refer to Marxism and other 'isms', there is such a fear of taking a clear ideological stance. All Marxists seem to have disappeared into something loosely calling itself left-leaning. But our media have to state their position clearly and my dream is to have an agency that proudly proclaims 'We support workers; We support the poor; We support the marginalised.' The use of the ritual of 'objectivity' is often used by journalist and the media when they do not wish to state their political leaning. The result is an attempt to play god and pretend to be above the social, political and economic contradictions of our societies.

The e-mail bulletins, independent online news sites and other small media are normally driven by the zeal of one individual. That commitment is an essential ingredient in the creation and sustaining of pro-poor media. But an individual can only do so much, hence the need for partners (strategic and financial) that buy into that vision and help drive it. Empathetic sponsors are crucial in making the dream take off. Someone has to pay for the editor's living expenses, some equipment and all that.

Above all else, driving a vision for viable media needs a huge dose of hope. The hope is for a changed world and for equally transformed media.

When all five - ideological vision, commitment, partnerships, money and hope - come together we can build media that truly speaks the language of our people's dreams.

I hope the Highway Africa News Agency will go some way in speaking that language.

* Chris Kabwato is the Director of Highway Africa, a programme of the School of Journalism and Media Studies at Rhodes University, South Africa.

Please send comments to [email protected]

Each week in Pambazuka News carries stories about Media and Freedom of Expression. These tend to follow a predictable pattern: journalist arrested or killed, newspaper shut down, repressive laws hamper media freedom, state media displays appalling bias...

These are all important issues and they preoccupy African journalists and media freedom activists on a daily basis. Given the importance of a free flow of information in the struggle for social justice, these are things that concern broader sections of society too. But these are not the only significant issues that need to be addressed.

Who owns and controls the media in Africa? What is the impact of multinational media companies on Africa? What are the alternatives to the current choice between state-controlled media and media owned by private companies? What is the future of community media? Of alternative electronic media? Of book publishing?

Freedom of expression and freedom of information are important human rights because they provide a key to mobilising in defence of other rights. The Indian economist Amartya Sen has written that famine does not occur in countries with a free press. This is scarcely an exaggeration - the point being that the media act as a means of allowing information to flow and thereby holding governments to account.

Yet this classic "fourth estate" view of media freedom is looking distinctly tattered. In the United States, where the approach evolved, the private media have become concentrated into a small number of immensely powerful global media corporations, which have no interest in holding anyone to account. In Africa, the remnants of the old one-party media apparatuses are still going strong. Locally owned private media are emerging, but they too serve their own sectional interests.

In this issue, Richard Carver brings together articles that address these and other questions from a variety of different perspectives.