Thetha in Namibia

SANGONeT hosted its first regional Thetha ICT Discussion Forum from 12-13 July 2006 in Windhoek, Namibia.

This event formed part of a new series of five two-day events that we are hosting in Namibia, Swaziland, Botswana, Lesotho and Angola during the next few months.

Started in March 2003, SANGONeT's Thetha Forums aim to provide NGOs with the opportunity to discuss information communication technology (ICT), including challenges facing the NGO sector, highlighting and promoting practical benefits, opportunities and lessons learned.

The objectives of the regional forums are to create awareness amongst NGOs in the mentioned countries about various ICT policy issues and applications, as well as to build the capacity of local NGO coordinating bodies to convene similar events in future.

The Namibian forum was implemented in conjunction with three local partner organisations, namely the Rossing Foundation, SchoolNet Namibia and the Namibia Non-Governmental Organisations’ Forum (NANGOF).

Day one of the event started with more than 80 people participating in the first civil society event of this nature held in Namibia. Having expected between 30 and 40 participants, this was an encouraging turnout, highlighting the interest of local NGOs to learn more about ICT policy and application issues.

The local interest in the meeting was further demonstrated by a live television interview conducted with Len le Roux of the Rossing Foundation and me earlier that morning on the Good Morning Namibia show of the Namibia Broadcasting Corporation (NBC). The NBC also recorded the opening session of the event.

The event kicked off with a very inspiring and thought-proving presentation by Dr Claudia Harvey, regional Director of UNESCO in Southern Africa. She posed the following important challenge to participants in her opening comments, namely “…the tools are there, but how do you harness them in the interest of development?”

She then highlighted a number of key social issues which could be addressed through the application of ICTs, including the use of ICTs to close the development divide, open up “closed” open educational systems, regain patents of local resources, use of solar energy to solve Southern Africa’s energy requirements, promote African cultural experiences and expressions, become a tool for facilitating business and trade, promote the image of Africa, resolve conflict and promote peace, build the capacity of youth and fight the stigma of HIV/AIDS.

This presentation was followed by a session which highlighted the perspectives of government, academia and the NGO sector in relation to national ICT policy issues in Namibia, especially in the education field.

After lunch participants were introduced to various open source initiatives, especially the “ReadySteadyGo” solution of OpenLab, and NGO-in-a-Box. Given the strong open source focus of SchoolNet Namibia, the programme of the Namibian Thetha had a very strong open source orientation. In an environment were cost and access are major obstacles to the ICT uptake of local NGOs, free and open source solutions present these organisations with much needed opportunities to strengthen their ICT capacity.



The highlight of the first day was the “mass” blogging and wiki session facilitated by Joris Komen, Executive Director of SchoolNet Namibia. More than 50 participants grouped around PCs, while Joris guided them through a number of simple steps on how to set-up their own individual blogs and wikis. Within a few minutes, the number of Namibian blogs was most probably doubled if not tripled!!! Participants were also introduced to the wiki that SchoolNet Namibia set up specifically for the event.

This session demonstrated the power of practical skills building sessions, with participants introduced to new technology applications in a simple and easy-to-understand manner, giving them the opportunity to apply their new skills and see the results of their efforts.

At the end of an exciting and stimulating first day, participants attended a cocktail function hosted by our Namibian partner organisations.

Day two started with participants working in four groups, reflecting on the ICT challenges facing NGOs in Namibia, potential interventions to enhance the ICT uptake and awareness of local NGOs, and specific expectations regarding future Thetha-related events in Namibia.

Key ICT challenges highlighted include cost, lack of access, lack of people and organisations advocating for ICTs in the NGO sector, the need for government to provide more support, software choices, and the need for more training opportunities.

Participants expressed a need for NGOs to work closer together in support of bulk-buying of equipment in order to reduce cost, the need for information on ICT issues to be more readily available and the need for NANGOF to play a more prominent role in support of ICT issues in the NGO sector.

As far as the future is concerned and as a follow-up to the event, participants expressed an interest in quarterly progress meetings and practical training sessions, an annual conference based on the Thetha initiative, information about corporate social investment (CSI) initiatives of IT vendors and the need for more ICT focused NGOs, as well as IT vendors taking an interest in the NGO sector.

The rest of the day was dedicated to various sessions dealing with creative commons and open source issues, including a repeat of the “ReadySteadyGo” and NGO-in-a-Box sessions. Similar to the blogging session on day one, participants were also exposed to basic web design training.

Information on the outcomes of the Namibian event and other regional Thetha forums will be published on the Thetha website.

SANGONeT is extremely pleased with the outcomes of the Namibia event. Given the interest generated in ICT issues during the event and the positive feedback received from participants, a solid foundation has been created for more of these and related interventions in future. Given the combined commitment and expertise of the Rossing Foundation, SchoolNet Namibia and NANGOF, and with the support of local IT vendors, the ICT situation in the Namibian NGO sector could see a drastic transformation during the next few years.