Intersections between civic technology (civic tech) and governance in Nigeria and South Africa

Abstract

This study explores the drivers and impact of the civic technology (“civic tech”) ecosystems in Nigeria and South Africa, with a focus on civic tech actors’ engagement with governance matters in the two countries. Framed by a social accountability conceptual framework and based on data collected from an African civic tech database and interviews with civic tech players in both countries, the research explored the work of 26 initiatives in each country. Based on the content in the civic tech database, it was found that, in both countries, civic tech initiatives’ foci could be grouped into five categories: (1) citizen engagement and participation; (2) accountability and transparency; (3) service delivery and government responsiveness; (4) improving and/or helping government; and (5) policy. The emphases among these foci were found to be largely similar between the two countries, with the exception of the fourth category of focus—improving and/ or helping government—which was significantly more prominent in the work of the South African initiatives than in the work of their Nigerian counterparts. A similar difference was identified in the findings from the interviews with Nigerian and South African civic tech actors. The South African interviewees identified, to a greater extent than the Nigerian interviewees, a collaborative ethos that was bringing government entities and civic tech actors together to jointly implement projects, including projects that had been fully integrated into the operations of government departments.

Keywords

• civic technology (civic tech), governance, digitisation, social accountability, open data, Nigeria, South Africa