Embracing ICTs and Community Networks at the Local Council

On 9 April 2021, the newly elected Local Council leaders for Soroti District in Teso Sub Region converged at Speke Courts Hotel in Jinja, Uganda for orientation and leadership training. The meeting organised by Tango Consult, was attended by approximately 45 newly elected leaders including the District Chairpersons, Speakers, and Councillors, National Resistance Movement (NRM) Secretariat, Consultants and the Deputy Chief Coordinator of Operation Wealth Creation. 

One of the key topics discussed during the training was the need to adopt the use of technology a) for implementing and monitoring government activities and improve service delivery at the local councils, and b) to promote inclusive access to Information Communication Technology (ICT) through establishing community networks.  Leaders were encouraged to embrace and promote use of new technology advancement especially now in the wake of the COVID-19 Pandemic. 

On behalf of AccessPlus, Ms. Esther Patricia Akello shared with the newly elected leaders the various tools they can use for service delivery, citing cases of how other governments like Rwanda are utilizing technology to improve service delivery in the health sector. For instance the use of drones to deliver medical supplies in remote areas which would protect the medical workers from the continuous spread of COVID-19  as well as protect  Rwandan citizens. 

Considering that all the newly elected leaders were going to have tablets assigned to them, Ms. Akello shared with them the various collaboration tools they could use to improve their daily operations like Zoom, Hangouts, Microsoft Teams, among others, for meetings and the various Google collaboration tools for tracking government and local council programs under implementation.

The need to extend Information and Communication Technology (ICT) services to the last mile was also emphasized and various options on how to achieve that were presented. Among the options was the need to implement Community Networks as one of the most effective ways to extend ICT services to the communities, especially those in underserved regions of Uganda. Most of the farmers, small scale business owners, youth, and women were affected by the COVID-19 containment measures like the closure of open markets from which most of them traded their goods as that was the only available option for access to markets. The leaders were encouraged to promote online business for the farmers, traders and youth as a means to promote their goods online and reach a wider market range as well as get inputs and employment opportunities.  

Responding to the call to action, the Local Council (LC) 5 Chairperson committed to including an ICT budget as part of their annual budgeting processes. Some areas of focus include: 

• Capacity Building 
• Recruiting and training ICT support  personnel for all Constituencies
• Extending ICT services to the women and youth by implementing community networks
• Using ICTs to improve their operations and collaboration in the Teso Sub Region 
• Using ICT to conduct council and executive meetings 

There was a lot of enthusiasm and optimism among the participants who requested AccessPlus to support the training of the new councillors on ICT including on how they can make the best use of their tablets. The participants also embraced the establishment of community networks which they promised to partner in its establishment and operation. We are grateful to Tango Consult for the invitation and we look forward to collaborating with the newly elected leaders in embracing ICT use and extending access at local council level.

By Esther Patricia Akello, review by Sarah Kiden and Lillian Achom