Users on digital participation in Uganda

Digital documents would improve the current situation

Michael Tebere is a senior governance technical advisor working with the USAID-funded GAPP program (Governance, Accountability, Participation, Performance).

Michael Tebere is a senior governance technical advisor working with the USAID-funded GAPP program (Governance, Accountability, Participation, Performance), which seeks to strengthen Uganda’s service-delivery systems as well as civil society to give Ugandans a voice in local and national government.

Our task is to strengthen systems with local governments and we work in teams of three in each region. I work with leadership and local council development which includes building capacity to apply the Access to Information Act. The Act is not well known by local government officials which results in very few responses to information requests. Record management systems are not up to date and hard-copies of records are still kept. Every little issue requires a lot of paperwork and there is not enough space to keep all the paper. In addition, sometimes the hard copies get eaten by termites. I think updating the laws so that digital or scanned documents can act as legal documents would really improve the current situation.

The #speakup barometer is a DW Akademie project that examines the connection between digital participation, freedom of expression and access to information. Learn more at www.dw.com/barometer

Date 13.11.2018
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Date 13.11.2018
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