[UgaBYTES] Thetha ICT Discussion Forums in Southern Africa

[David Barnard]

The Southern African NGO Network (SANGONeT) will host Thetha ICT 
Discussion Forums in five Southern African countries over the next few 
months.

SANGONeT and E-Knowledge for Women in Southern Africa (EKOWISA) will 
host the Zimbabwe Thetha forum on 21 July 2009 in Harare, followed by 
the Mozambique event, hosted in conjunction with the Centro de 
Informatica da Universidade Eduardo Mondlane (CIUEM), on 30 July 2009 in 
Maputo.

The Tanzania, Zambia and Botswana events will be held in September and 
October 2009.

SANGONeT first introduced Thetha ICT Discussion Forums in 2003 to assist 
South African civil society organisations (CSOs) in responding to 
various challenges and opportunities presented in their day-to-day work 
by information communication technologies (ICTs).

Thetha is a Nguni verb meaning talk, discuss, debate and share 
opinions/ideas.

Thetha forums provide an opportunity to both CSOs which are ICT-enabled, 
as well as those organisations which are considering introducing ICT 
solutions to their work, with an opportunity to discuss issues of common 
concern and learn from one another’s experiences. Since March 2003, 
SANGONeT has organised more than 20 Thetha forums throughout South Africa.

With the assistance of the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa 
(OSISA) and the Embassy of Finland (South Africa), SANGONeT expanded the 
Thetha project to five Southern African countries (Angola, Botswana, 
Lesotho, Namibia and Swaziland) in the period November 2005 - March 2007.

As of March 2008, SANGONeT has been expanding the Thetha project to 
Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Botswana.

The new regional project includes a number of features which will 
ultimately result in more tangible outcomes compared to the first 
project. From discussing general ICT issues relevant to the CSO sectors 
in the countries covered during the first regional Thetha project, the 
new project focus specifically on key issues that will inform the 
regional “ICT for Development (ICT4D)” process in the next ten years. 
The objective is to develop a comprehensive understanding of regional 
ICT4D issues through in-country research processes, stakeholder 
consultations, discussions of these findings on a country level through 
Thetha forums, and comparing the respective country lessons and 
experiences to identify and assess common ICT trends and issues facing 
the Southern African region.

For more information about the Thetha project, research reports and 
country events, refer to http://www.thetha.org.