A few BarCamps have explicitly mentioned that they will hold an event in 2012:

• BarCamp Lusaka, last held in 2009, is in the planning stages. A group of Zambians met on January 10th to brainstorm ideas.
• BarCamp Sunyani 2012 will happen later in the year in Ghana.
• Barcamp Kumasi is scheduled for March.
• BarCamp Ethiopia will occur in September (thanks to Markos for the update).
• BarCamp Gabon (Libreville) will take place in January and again in March

International resource BarCamp.org has few African BarCamps slated for 2012. However, a we can also be assured that a few more BarCamps will occur this year based on historical cadence and general social media activity from past organizers:

• Ghana: Barcamp Cape Coast, Barcamp Tamale, BarCamp Ho, BarCamp Takoradi, and BarCamp Ghana are all likely once again
• Kenya (4 of 5 past years)
• Cameroon (past 3 years)
• Ivory Coast (past 3 years)
• Nigeria (past 3 years)
• Tunisia (past 3 years)
• Malawi (past 2 years)
• Garage48 events are in the works for new African countries (other than Kenya, Ghana, Nigeria, Uganda, South Africa)

The question is: who will host a BarCamp for the first time? We’re guessing Benin will finally hold its delayed event from 2010. Rwanda, Namibia, and Liberia have good chances of holding an inaugural BarCamp. Tanzania has momentum after holding the nation’s first. Also, we hope that Nigeria can engage areas other than Lagos to host a BarCamp. Three were scheduled for last year but never seemed to come to fruition. Perhaps South Africa can revive its BarCamp fever of years past.

BarCamps can really complement tech hubs, hackathons, and developer contests. After all, great ideas and passion are key elements to creating successful businesses that improve upon a facet of daily life. We look forward to reading about the ideas BarCamps generate aas the year progresses.

We also maintain a list of all African BarCamps. Enjoy!

Google Insights for Search lists the top 10 search terms in addition to top 10 rising searches over a given time period for Web, Image, News, and Product searches. Assuming Google is used by the typical African web user, we can get a feel for the web culture of a given nation. For example, are searches targeted or are they generic? Are they more tech-inclined or focused on news or celebrity? How popular is Facebook or YouTube?

In general, the insights are not all that surprising. Searchers are most likely to search for their country. At the same time, nationalism seems to be giving way to the phenomenon that is Facebook. Across 15 of the 37 nations, searchers are more likely to Google “facebook” than any other term. Also popular are web searches for “download,” “telecharger,” and “yahoo”. The high rank of “download” is interesting considering the general lack of sufficient bandwidth across the continent.

“Youtube” is a top web search term in Angola, Gabon, Madagascar, Mauritania, Mauritius, Senegal, and South Africa. Out of the 37 nations with sufficient search data, only two – Benin and Burkina Faso – do not have “youtube” in the top 3 web search positions. However, the term still ranks fourth and fifth most popular, respectively. Again, interesting, considering many areas like Mauritania do not yet have the bandwidth needed to successfully stream online videos en masse.

Also interesting is the prevalence of searches to translate content in Francophone nations like Senegal, Togo, Cote d’Ivoire, Burundi. Such a trend suggests the need for more local content in these nations.

Top rising search terms (those expressing high levels of growth compared with 2010) varied slightly, but often centered on Facebook and Libya. Additionally, the website WAPTrick often appeared in the list – a sign that most Googlers in Africa are using mobile devices. Trends from the largest Google markets – Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa – are not too different from 2010.

Image searches for a user’s home country, like web searches, take the top spot. Also high in the mix are “women” and “love”. In fact, “love” is an extremely popular image search term in Botswana, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Namibia, Somalia, and Tanzania. Clearly, most Google searchers in Africa are male, but more interesting is how searchers are looking for images of love rather than articles about love.

Angola

Top: angola, facebook, download, 3hg, jogos, youtube

Rising: libia, facebook.com, www.waptrick.com

Images: angola, imagens, mulheres, luanda, imagem, messi

Benin

Top: benin, telecharger, proxy, facebook, france, yahoo

Rising: google chrome, idm, www.facebook.com

Images: logo, image, benin, photo, images, naruto

Botswana

Top: botswana, facebook, yahoo, news, mail, lyrics

Rising: big brother amplified, boys over flowers, gaddafi, psle results 2011

Images: botswana, images, africa, women, love, rihanna, car

Burkina Faso

Top: burkina, faso, yahoo, burkina faso, telecharger, facebook

Rising: kadhafi, libye, www.concours.gov.bf

Images: burkina, image, burkina faso, photo

Burundi

Top: burundi, facebook, yahoo, news

Rising: traduction, yahoo.fr

Images: burundi

Cameroon

Top: cameroun, facebook, yahoo, telecharger, google

Rising: wapdam, waptrick

Images: cameroun, naruto, rihanna, photo

Congo

Top: facebook, congo, yahoo, telecharger, mail

Rising: congo brazzaville, www.facebook.com, youtube

Cote d’Ivoire

Top: telecharger, facebook, abidjan.net, yahoo, jeux

Rising: facebook.com, chat.nrj.fr, google traduction

Images: image, photo, logo, homme, nokia

Eritrea

Top: facebook, news, eritrea, arsenal

Rising: libya, www.eurosport.com

Images: love

Ethiopia

Top: facebook, ethiopia, yahoo, download, news

Rising: www.nae.gov.et, libya, facebooklogin, wapdam

Images: ethiopian, pictures, love

Gabon

Top: gabon, facebook, yahoo, telecharger, youtube

Rising: www.waptrick.com, opera mini

Images: image, gabon, naruto, rihanna

Gambia

Top: facebook, gambia, download, news

Rising: facebooklogin, libya, vybz kartel, waptrick

Images:

Ghana

Top: ghana, download, facebook, yahoo

Rising: facebooklogin, lovingyou, airtel, twitter

Images: ghana, pictures, logo, love

Guinea

Top: facebook, guinee, yahoo

Rising: facebook, skype, campus france, hotmail

Kenya

Top: kenya, facebook, download, yahoo

Rising: muliro gardens, soy tu duena, airtel, fb

Images: kenya, pictures, images, girls, love

Lesotho

Top: lesotho, facebook, gmail, yahoo, news

Rising: facebooklogin, mxit, hotmail

Madagascar

Top: facebook, madagascar, yahoo, mail, youtube

Rising: web2sms airtel, airtel, facebook connexion

Images: madagascar, photo, logo, image, fille

Malawi

Top: facebook, malawi, yahoo, nyasatimes

Rising: facebooklogin, fb, malawi voice, opera

Images: pictures, malawi, girls

Mali

Top: mali, facebook, telecharger, yahoo

Rising: kadhafi, libye, le bon coin

Images: mali, rihanna, image, lil wayne

Mauritania

Top: facebook, youtube, telecharger, google

Rising: allocine, mappy, pages jaunes

Images: messi, mauritanie, photo, ronaldo

Mauritius

Top: facebook, mauritius, download, youtube, games

Rising: games, liverpool, livescore, mcb

Images: mauritius, wallpaper, pictures, logo, girl

Mozambique

Top: facebook, download, mocambique

Rising: kadhafi, libia, rebelde, caras e bocas

Images: imagens, nokia, mulheres, mocambique, toyota

Namibia

Top: facebook, namibia, news, yahoo

Rising: libya, log in facebook, rugby world cup

Images: pictures, namibia, love

Niger

Top: niger, facebook, yahoo, telecharger

Rising: facebook.com, photo, waptrick.com

Images: niger, image, photo, messi

Nigeria

Top: nigeria, facebook, news, yahoo

Rising: facebooklogin, 2go, airtel

Images: pictures, nigeria, logo, images, man

Rwanda

Top: rwanda, download, facebook, kigali, google

Rising: igitondo.com, umuseke, jobs in rwanda

Images: rwanda, kagame, igituba, rihanna

Senegal

Top: facebook, senegal, telecharger, youtube

Rising: facedakar, pages jaunes, translate

Images: senegal, photo, image, modou lo

Sierra Leone

Top: sierra leone, download, facebook, yahoo

Rising: www.facebook.com, bbc

Somalia

Top: download, facebook, somali, google

Rising: download manager, hadhwanaag, www.facebook.com

Images: somali, somaliland, somalia, love

South Africa

Top: facebook, how to, facebook login, gmail, youtube

Rising: whatsap, fnb online, www.facebook.com, blackberry, mxit

Images: pictures, girls, south africa, hot

Sudan

Top: facebook, photos, download

Rising: tubidy, nimbuzz, opera

Images: photos, girls, sudan, movies

Swaziland

Top: swaziland, facebook, south africa, download, how to

Rising: youtube, games, www.facebook.com

Tanzania

Top: tanzania, facebook, download, yahoo

Rising: loliondo, osama

Images: tanzania, pictures, picha, love

Togo

Top: togo, telecharger, facebook, yahoo, google

Rising: gbagbo, google traduction, translate

Images: togo, image, logo

Uganda

Top: uganda, facebook, download, yahoo

Rising: libya news, gaddafi, facebooklogin

Images: uganda, pictures, images, logo, black

Zambia

Top: zambia, facebook, yahoo, news

Rising: kachepa, tumfweko, waptrick.com, facebooklogin

Images: pictures, zambia, images, wallpaper, rihanna

Zimbabwe

Top: facebook, zimbabwe, news

Rising: gaddafi, mujuru, opera mini, facebooklogin, mxit

Images: pictures, zimbabwe, images, facebook, girls

One day after its creation, the Harakat Al-Shabaab Al Mujahideen Press Office account had over 400 followers; 3 days later the number stands at nearly 2,000. The organization most likely created the account with goals to re-brand Al-Shabaab’s image, increase transparency, and perhaps provide local content for Somalia. A well-planned Twitter account could very well have the potential to assuage fears of the international community (or attract new followers to the group, but that is for a different platform).

Al-Shabaab may have been active in online communities for years, but Twitter is a far cry from online forums. Accordingly, the past couple of days have visibly been a learning period for the Harakat Al-Shabaab Al Mujahideen Press Office. The account has gone from strictly broadcasting information to interacting with followers to challenging the Kenyan military to denouncing “irrational” comments and pledging to selectively interact with the community. Forty-one Tweets have certainly given unprecedented insight into Al-Shabaab’s ideology. Al-Shabaan would be wise to lose the Twitter aggression if the group is to improve its image.

In its first day or two, @HSMPress strictly relayed news of the Kenyan invasion with a few propaganda-laden comments. At one point, @HSMPress even reminded journalists to verify their sources after the account noticed other Twitter supposedly “re-branding” stories as originating from Al-Shabaab.

{@HSMPress}

However, on December 9th (two days after its creation), the Al-Shabaab account became more defensive as hundreds users began reaching out on Twitter. One discourse centered around the use of religion as a weapon; another boasted to the Kenya Military Spokesman how Somalia would hold of “a few disillusioned & disinclined Kenyan boys.”

Shortly thereafter, @HSMPress seemed to realize that inane debate was detrimental to its mission and would only be used as fodder to the super-vigilant followers (largely international activists and the like).

As of December 10th, @HSMPress has stopped interacting with the onslaught of Tweets from around the globe. Indeed, most inquiries to @HSMPress are accusatory and the ideas contained in them are too complicated to be addressed via social media. Perhaps Al-Shabaab sums up their relationship with Twitter the best by saying:

{@hsmpress}

At least Al-Shabaab knows what to expect based on its reputation. This account is surely one to watch in the coming days.

We want an election free of violence because we have seen what is happening in other countries but we in The Gambia should nurture the peace that God has given us” – Mustapha Caraylo, Independent Electoral Commission Chairman

‘Tis the season of Gambia’s long-awaited presidential election. On November 24, 2011, nearly half a million Gambians will visit the polls. Unfortunately, a climate of fear surrounds the elections. For one, opposition parties will only be allowed to campaign and be given access to the media for eleven days (Nov. 12-22), rather than the four weeks they’d been previously allocated. Presumably, such a law also pertains to maintaining an official web presence. Even if social media accounts and websites for the vying parties appear on November 12, illiteracy poses a major hurdle. In all likelihood, the electoral results won’t change much from the last elections in 2006. At least, there was hardly any violence during those elections…

Either way, the physical voting process certainly does not bode well for the integration of social media or the Internet to spread information. The Gambia is the only nation in the world that uses a marble system to track votes. (The BBC does a good job explaining the process in a 2006 article.) The reason? High illiteracy. Except the marble system, first used in 1965, has not changed with the times. Apparently it works so well that there is no need to spend time and money to buy new equipment and re-educate the voters.

Creating trust and a safe electoral environment. {IEC.gm}

That said, Gambians are using the Internet to stay abreast of the November 24 elections:

Facebook:

As of early November 2011, political parties in Gambia are not embracing Facebook. APRC has 27 fans. Interestingly, NADD (an opposition coalition) currently has 94 fans, suggesting that Gambian Internet users are more likely to support change. Two Facebook pages exist for incumbent President Yahya Jammeh, but neither is official. Still, the two pages boast 5,912 and 2,316 fans, respectively. Neither has been updated in months. Still, the presence of the pages has lead to confusion whether President Jammeh is behind the content. Similarly, a “Vote for President Jammeh 2011 Election” is clearly not backed by the APRC. The United Democratic Party (UDP) has an official website that is updated a couple of times per week with campaign news, but no Facebook page could be found.

Twitter:

• @africanelection covers all elections across the continent, including The Gambia
• @thegambiavoice actively Tweets ‘uncensored’ news from The Gambia
• searches for ‘Gambia Jammeh‘ produce plenty of results, but most are news and not discussion

IEC:

The Independent Electoral Commission is an excellent resource and is the main success story of how Gambia is using the Internet to keep citizens informed. The homepage provides easy-to-understand visuals for Internet users with limited literary skills:

• A Flash logo inspires nationalism while demonstrating how to vote. It reads, “One citizen, one vote…you are part of 1.3 million Gambians” as a marble traverses the river and lands in a hand which places it into a drum.
• A header slideshow of images promotes “fair-play, integrity & transparency”. They serve as a visual guide to the election. Slides show how to maintain peace and order and how to say no to bribery. Other slides explain how a vote is an expression of freedom of speech. A couple of others reiterate how to cast the ballot token and urge to “Join the Democracy Journey.”

The rest of the site provides written instructions on how to register and what to expect on election day. Of course, the question remains how many potential voters actually visit the IEC website. One downside of IEC.gm is that the resource does not appear mobile-friendly.

Statistics:

SMS is not widely used in rural areas. Internet penetration remains low. Fewer than 10% of Gambians (less than 200,000) use the Internet and only 70,000 of 1.8 million (~4%) of Gambians use Facebook. 3G is certainly new to the country in the last five years. However, 3G service from Gamtel is limited to Banjul. (The Greater Banjul population was 357,000 in 2003 and was home to 26% of Gambians.) Access costs and smartphone costs remain high – unfortunate, since when paired with appropriate content, touch devices are extremely handy in areas of low literacy.

In 2006, 670,000 registered voters made 393,000 valid votes for a participation rate of 59%. In other words, approximately 25% of Gambians voted in the 2006 presidential election.

Combining the Internet and voter stats, we see that if the Gambian Internet user is as likely to vote as a non-Internet user, then only 2.5% of voters in 2006 (assuming they are still able to vote) now use the Internet. Of course, the number of voters in the 2011 election who also use the Internet will be much higher than 2.5%. One reason is the growing youth population who is more in tune with technology than ever before. Many of these youth were too young to vote in the 2006 presidential elections. Additionally, it has been found that Internet access increases voter participation (at least in the United States). Therefore, at best, no more than 1-in-10 Gambian voters also accesses the Internet.

Still, even if digital technology is not yet necessary for the election to function, certain issues from the 2006 elections could have been mitigated with the use of social media. A report by Jerome Leyraud of ACE Project describes the context of the 2006 presidential elections in the Gambia. At least two areas stand out:

• After heavy rains, elections were extended by 2 1/2 hours. However, some polling officials were not aware of the time extension despite radio and television broadcasts. Social media, or even email, could have kept polling officials up-to-date.
• State-run Gambia Radio & Television was found to provide one-sided election coverage. Opposition platforms and parties were often ignored. Private radio often avoided politics altogether. The Internet can provide a unbiased medium for the discussion and dissemination of information.

In closing, Gambia’s biggest challenge from the upcoming election isn’t violence like the past couple of days in Liberia (or Kenya in 2008). Moreover, the issue doesn’t seem to be transparency, as demonstrated by the IEC’s commitment to fair elections. Instead, the obstacle is the dominance of state media and the fear of the current regime to lose power. Under the current regime, most voters cannot understand that a change of leadership is possible. Fortunately, with some confidence on the behalf of early adopters, the Internet can make that happen. We’ll be watching closely on November 12 when the official campaigning process is allowed to begin.

____

Further reading: “Gambia’s Pre-Election Jitters,” AfricanDictator.org, Sept 1, 2011. http://www.africandictator.org/?p=4071

{Wikimedia Commons}

One of this site’s goals is to better relay Internet progress in under-represented nations. Many such nations widely communicate in French and so little information is available in English if an international media outlet lacks a strong presence. Although French is the official language in 22 African nations and will be spoken by an estimated 700 million Africans by the year 2050, much international ICT work is conducted in English. Other languages are certainly represented, but it becomes difficult to find the time to monitor all of these niche resources. African bloggers are an invaluable resource to those interested in following economic and technological development, but again, there are only so many hours in the day to read their insights.

From our experience, there are a few notable aggregator-type websites with a fair share of Francophone African tech news. They include, but are not limited to:

• Jeune Afrique: A Pan-African magazine with a robust sciences and technology section. Not as focused as a smaller publication, but still worth a weekly read.
• ITMag.sn: Aggregates stories published on other sites. Currently has articles on Orange Guinea, 4G in Cameroon, and more.
• Afrique Avenir: A variety of articles, generally about economics. Tech comes up every so often.
• Afrique en ligne: Posts press releases and stories from other sources. However, news from nearly every country in Africa seems to find its way here.
• Google Alerts: Perhaps the most efficient way to easily find news in a non-native language. Simply figure out the keywords you wish to follow (ie. “africa haut débit” for “africa broadband”) and check your feed.
• Of course understanding the language would not be possible without the invaluable Google Translate. Translating common technological terms (ie. débit for broadband) and using them in a news search can find numerous articles only published in French.

National telecommunications organization sites are also useful as well. For example, Portail TIC et Développement au Burkina tends to have interesting updates. Blogs are excellent too, but are often biased and pose challenges to non-native speakers who must interpret a machine translation.

Portuguese and other languages (Swahili, Amharic, etc.) are less commonly spoken than French, but are still critical to understanding the whole African economic growth picture. Again, Google Alerts are a great tool – just translate the keywords, set the alert, and check your feed every day.

We would love to hear how you follow non-English ICT news in Africa. Leave your favorite non-English resources for African tech insight in the comments!

By André-Michel Essoungou

In 2008, then US presidential candidate Barack Obama broke new ground by using social media in ways never seen before. Yet it was Goodluck Jonathan, the recently elected president of Nigeria, who took the extraordinary step of announcing his bid for the highest office on Facebook. On Wednesday, 15 September 2010, he informed his 217,000-plus fans on the world’s most popular networking platform of his intent. Twenty four hours later, 4,000 more fans joined his page. By the day of the election, on 16 April 2011, he had over half a million followers.

Mr. Jonathan’s online campaign was only one illustration of the social media fever that gripped Africa’s most populous country (with around 150 million people) during its most recent presidential, parliamentary and local elections. A report by two researchers who helped track online traffic during the month-long polls argues that the country’s use of social media reached unprecedented levels.* “Nigeria set a new record for recent African elections in the number of reports tracked using social media,” it says. In addition to the approximately 3 million registered Nigerians on Facebook and 60,000 on Twitter, almost every institution involved in Nigeria’s elections conducted an aggressive social networking outreach, including the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), political parties, candidates, media houses, civil society groups and even the police.

The report notes that between 10 March and 16 April 2011, the electoral commission posted almost 4,000 tweets, many in response to voter queries. Using Twitter, commission officials at polling stations around the country also were able to communicate among themselves, and even confirmed the death of one of their members who had been attacked. “Twitter ultimately proved to be the most efficient way to interact with INEC,” the document authors report. The commission’s use of social media led to its website receiving a record 25 million hits in three days during the presidential election. “By using social media to inspire voters, the electoral commission has redefined elections in Nigeria,” analyzed Punch, the country’s most circulated newspaper.

The boom in use of social media during elections also helped the media expand their readerships. Shortly before the polls, the Daily Trust newspaper had 32,000 fans on Facebook. A few weeks later, the number had more than doubled to 65,000, placing its online reach beyond its print distribution of 50,000. To build up its fan base, the newspaper also used social media in its reporting. Journalists solicited and used questions from Facebook fans for interviews with the chairman of INEC. Since the elections, the Daily Trust has further increased its Facebook presence, with 95,000 fans by July 2011.

The online networking platforms reflected popular interest. Unsurprisingly, social media use reached its peak during the presidential election on 16 April. On that day, a total of 33,460 text messages and 130,426 posts on Twitter and Facebook were sent by some 65,000 voters.

The content was mixed, the authors point out. “Social media, especially Twitter, was used to report occurrences [of fraud] — truthful as well as fabricated.” Yet, they add, it played a mostly constructive role during the post-election violence by exposing unfounded rumours.

“Social media tools,” the report concludes, “revolutionized the efficiency of election observing by increasing coverage and reporting, while minimizing costs…. They changed how information was disseminated in Nigeria. Citizens accessed information directly and more accurately, resulting in unsurpassed participation in politics during the 2011 elections.”

That upbeat assessment, however, needs to be put in context: An estimated 70,000 people posted contents online during Nigeria’s polls, but they were just a tiny fraction of the registered 73 million voters. Still, a new trend appears to have begun.

___

Africa Renewal www.un.org/africarenewal

A handful of influential and/or promising African development Twitter accounts have gone silent over the past year or two.

What did we learn from eliminating once-valuable information streams from our dashboard? For one, it drove home the effort needed to maintain a website or developmental project. Life often gets in the way, or new projects compete for sacred man-hours. Secondly, we were reminded of the power of a single initiative to reach a substantial audience. Many of the now-inactive accounts once fueled spirited debate and contributed to unquantifiable progress. They are gone, but not forgotten thanks to the archival power of the Internet. Lastly, we remember the need to be passionate while a project is in progress. One year of high energy is arguably worth multiple years of average dedication.

Perhaps a handful of the following accounts will return to life. If not, we wish them the best and feel they have made left a positive impression in the ICT for Development realm.

• StartUpAfrica – @StartUpAfrica – 540 followers. Reports on African entrepreneurs. Blog is still going intermittently, but Tweets have ceased essentially since 2010.
• Africa Action – @AfricaAction – 1,764 followers. Mirrored website content on activism. The site has been silent since August 2010.
• eMobilis Mobile Tech – @eMobilis – 48 followers. Run by the mobile training academy in Kenya. Blog has some activity, but the Twitter account has only been used once.
• Building Ethiopia – @BuildEthiopia – 130 followers. Engineering capacity building program. Active through March.
• Mobiles4Development – @mobiles4dev – 820 followers. Active through October 2010. Perhaps funding ended?
• OECD Centre – @OECD_Centre – 9,769 followers. Works on innovative solutions to the global challenges of development, reducing poverty and encouraging equality. Unusually quiet since June.
• Afrilabs – @afrilabs – 338 followers. Network for African tech hubs. Typically retweets content, but has not done so since late June.
• Rwanda Works – @RwandaWorks – 1,621 followers. An NGO focused on building a healthy society. Nothing since January.
• ecapacity – @thinkethiopia – 51 followers. Produced some quality tweets about Ethiopia in September 2010. Silent all year.
• Renesys Corporation – @renesys – 560 followers. Monitored Egyptian Internet outage earlier in the year. Silent for over 2 months now.
• Youth Assets – @YouthAssets – 656 followers. Connects orphans in Southern Africa to knowledge. No activity since April.
• Millennium Campaign – @mcampaign – 6,432 followers. United Nations campaign to end poverty by 2015. Daily tweets through March 2011.
• Faso International – @Faso_Inter – 164 followers. Encouraged diasporans to contribute to Burkina Faso’s economic development. No activity since March.
• FOSSFA – @fossfa – 256 followers. Promotes use of open source software. The organization has a 3-year plan, but Tweets have ceased.
• apps4africa – @apps4africa – 584 followers. Used for last year’s developer competition. A shame that it isn’t utilized anymore (or for another contest).
• Google Africa DevRel – @GAfricaDev – 119 followers. Once used to promote Google events in Africa. Silent since September 2010.
• afrigadget – @afrigadget – 4,251 followers. Showcases African ingenuity. Hasn’t been too active this year.
• Africa Grows – @africagrows – 1,040 followers. Covers Southern Africa’s business news. Quiet since June 2010.
• Uganda Wire – @ugandawire – 1,098 followers. Stream of news from Uganda. All of the ‘wire’ accounts except for Kigali seem to have ceased.
• mlearningafrica – @mlearningafrica – 798 followers. News about mobile learning in Africa. The website has been suspended for some time.
• UgaBYTES Initiative – @UgaBYTES – 115 followers. Telecentre support network that has been quiet for a few months.
• Literacy Bridge – @LiteracyBridge – 45,777 followers. Promotes the ‘talking book’. No Tweets in over 2 months.
• Maneno – @maneno – 3,119 followers. Open-source blogging platform that has been missing in action for over a year.
• Africa_2020 – @Africa_2020 – 638 followers. Promotes a sustainable vision for Africa. Nice theme, but quiet since March 2010.
• Fixing Africa – @FixingAfrica – 1,937 followers. Seems to have promoted an e-book. No Tweets since July 2009.
• Africa Newswire – @AfricaNewswire – 3,647 followers. Has a high number of followers despite only 127 Tweets, mostly back in 2009.

Red-shaded nations (roughly 1/2 of Africa) will hold elections in 2011. {EISA}

Any type of election should be of international interest, but it is the coveted African Presidential Election that leaves the most at stake. In many nations, a change of president means a change in personal freedoms and the ability for greater self-expression. Of course, a transfer of power is only possible if:

• the current government allows an election in the first place
• the election is deemed fair
• peace and order prevail

What a better way to monitor election logistics and real-time reports than over the Internet? Crowd-sourcing and social media are power tools for informing citizens, rallying voters, deterring violence, and keeping the international community in the loop. Across Africa, more politicians are turning to social media to propagate their ideology. At the same time, electoral commissions are using the Internet to promote transparency and confidence.

That said, nations with low levels of Internet adoption cannot rely on social media to get the word out to vote or to calm fears of post-election violence. Just this year, Central African Republic, Chad, Djibouti, and Niger held national elections to the tune of minimal online fanfare. Perhaps the elections went smoothly and fairly, but most likely, low Internet penetration prevented the candidates, parties, and even local newspapers from ever having an Internet presence. (For more, read Caldwell Bishop’s recent post on how social media is not an option for the DRCs’ elections.)

Calendar of African Elections:

A couple of great African election resources exist. The National Democratic Institute maintains a chronological list of global elections by year through 2012. A strictly African calendar sorted by nation is frequently updated by the Electoral Institute for the Sustainability of Democracy in Africa (EISA). The color-coded image used in this post comes from EISA.

Local media is perhaps the best source for pertinent news and opinion, and citizens of African nations are most likely aware of what is available. In the interest of time, there are a few general sources that capture an unbiased picture of each African election.

General Online Resources:

• African Elections Project: Coverage of all elections, but especially West Africa and Southern Africa. The next upcoming AEP election is Liberia, but plenty of information is available on Guinea‘s last election. @Africanelection (759 followers)
• ACE Project: The Electoral Project Network. Holds comparative data and multiple link to information on each nation. @aceproject_org (316 followers)
• NDI: Nonprofit organization working to support democratic institutions worldwide. Supplies democracy updates. @NDI (2,578 followers)
• Election Guide: Region profile pages explain current government structure and roles for all nations. Has records of previous elections, in addition to an upcoming timeline. @electionguide (532 followers)
• Open Society Initiative of Southern Africa (OSISA): An institution committed to deepening democracy, protecting human rights, and enhancing good governance in the region. Posts the occasional editorial on African politics. @OSI_SA (107 followers )
• African Elections: A database of Sub-Saharan African election results run by Albert Nunley. The chronology page includes all elections from 1990-2011.

Current Online Presence:

Unsurprisingly, there is much more interest around upcoming presidential elections than there is toward legislative elections. Moreover, there is a loose correlation between population size and number of recent Tweets.

• Although a handful of nations have Twitter accounts set up to monitor election news, they are almost always run by the African Elections Project. And, few of these exist for upcoming elections. Liberia seems to be the only African nation with an upcoming election with an active account posting updates. Zimbabwe and Guinea election accounts appear idle at the moment.
• Ushahidi Liberia will use the platform to monitor the election.
• Impressively, The Zambian Peoples PACT, a Facebook group devoted to encouraging political discussion, has over 5,500 members.
• Liberia, Zambia, and The Gambia have websites for national elections commissions
• Global Voices will undoubtedly report on the elections. Articles already exist on Zambia and Tunisia.
• NDI has produced bulletins on the political situation in Guinea and Mauritania.
• Blogger Alex Engwete has top-notch analysis and updates on DRC election news.

Summary:

Country	Election Date	Election Type	# Tweets (past 5 days)	Social Media to Follow	Link 1	Link 2
Cape Verde	8/6/2011	Presidential	2 Tweets	@KapVert	News
Sao Tome	8/7/2011	Presidential	4 Tweets
Liberia	8/23/2011	Referendum	25 Tweets	@liberiaelection, @ushahidiliberia	African Electoral Project	National Election Commission
Zambia	9/20/2011	General	27 Tweets		Electoral Commission of Zambia	Global Voices
Madagascar	Sep-11	General	5 Tweets		News
Zimbabwe	Sep-11	Referendum	36 Tweets	@zimbabwelection?
Mauritania	10/1/2011	Legislative/Local	2 Tweets		NDI
Morocco	10/7/2011	Parliamentary	6 Tweets		News
Liberia	10/11/2011	General	25 Tweets	@liberiaelection, @ushahidiliberia	African Electoral Project	National Election Commission
Tunisia	10/23/2011	Legislative	60 Tweets	@Tunisia_Live	IFES	Global Voices
Cameroon	Oct-11	Presidential	30 Tweets
Cote d'Ivoire	Oct-11	Legislative	Many from previous
The Gambia	11/24/2011	Presidential	2 Tweets		Independent Electoral Commission
Guinea	11/27/2011	Legislative	1 Tweet	@guineaelections?	African Electoral Project	NDI
DR Congo	11/28/2011	General	60 Tweets	@alexengwete	Blog	Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa
Egypt	Nov-11	Presidential/Par.	100 Tweets	@AJELive	Reuters
Mali	Apr-11	Presidential	11 Tweets

Let us know of additional sources in the comments, and here’s to safe elections!

Farming.

Search volume index for "farming," Jun 2011. {Google}

Google searches for “farming” have increased globally since 2009. Often cited is the case where a farmer uses the Internet to learn sustainable agricultural methods. Better yet, the data seems to support such habits. Botswana claims the highest search volume index for ‘farming’ in the world. Uganda, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Zambia, and Namibia are not far behind, suggesting that using Google to research farming is a popular in southern Africa. Data seems limited, however, as neighboring Malawi and Mozambique show no volume. Perhaps Internet users in these nations do not use Google for their online agricultural needs.

Health.

Search volume index for "health," Jun 2011. {Google}

Google searches for “health” have been relatively popular in Africa for years. And, the term is relatively most popular in a tight geographic area: Swaziland has a higher share of ‘health’ searchers than any other nation and Lesotho and Malawi show similar trends. In fact, of the 19 of the 25 nations with the highest ‘health’ search density are African. Health appears not as popular in North Africa. Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia all show little interest in health versus other subjects.

Education.

Search volume index for "education," Jun 2011. {Google}

Globally, the percentage of Google searches containing “education” has decreased since at least 2004. Often, when an area gets connected to the Internet, the first step is to bolster education. It seems as if this was the case with the United States and Europe pre-2004. Now, however, ‘education’ remains a relatively popular search term in Africa. Lesotho leads the way by recording the highest index of any nation. Swaziland, Tanzania, Malawi, Botswana, Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Uganda round out the top 8. For reasons unknown, Angola ranks near the bottom of nations with data.

ICT.

Search volume index for "ICT," Jun 2011. {Google}

“ICT” continues to be a very Afro-centric term. Led by Rwandan searches, African nations claim the top eleven highest search volume indexes for the term. What’s more, searches for the French equivalent, TIC, are very popular in Burkina Faso and Cameroon – perhaps a sign that initiatives are underway in these areas. The highest non-African nations are, not surprisingly, Netherlands and the United Kingdom (two nations known for their foreign tech initiatives). From this, we can gather either that the African public is interested in ICT, or that few people use Google Search and those who do work on development projects.

View Insights for Search analysis for ‘apps’, ‘mobile’, and ‘Facebook’ here.

Search volume index for "apps," Jun 2011. {Google}

Google searches for “apps” have really skyrocketed since 2009. In Africa, the highest search volume indexes are recorded in South Africa, Ghana, Botswana, Nigeria, and Kenya. In general, East Africa ranks very highly compared with the continent (and most of Europe and South America).

No measurable search volume occurred in Africa until Feb-Jun 2006. Then, for two years, South Africa was the only nation producing volume. Egyptians began searching in earnest around mid-2008. Morocco and Tunisia appear in mid-2009. Suddenly, Nigeria and Kenya appear in mid-2010.


Mobile.

Search volume index for "mobile," Jun 2011. {Google}

Nigeria ranks 6th in the world on relative Google searches for “mobile”. Impressive also is Congo, ranking just outside the top 10. Congo, Ethiopia, and Eritrea are not far behind. The usual suspects, however (Niger, Chad, CAR, DRC) are not ranked due to a lack of relative search volume for the term.

The change-over-time map shows that searches for the team “mobile” have remained popular in Nigeria and Kenya for over 7 years.


Facebook.

Search volume index for "facebook," Jun 2011. {Google}

Tunisia is actually the nation with the highest share of Google searches containing “facebook” and its index is set as 100. North Africa (sans Libya) tends to search for the term, as do South Africa, Kenya, and Ethiopia. Interestingly, nations that do not produce volume for terms like “apps” and “mobile” appear for this term. They include: Lesotho, Gabon, Chad, Niger, Mali, Mauritania, Burkina Faso, and Guinea.

The first time an African nation had a substantial number of “facebook” searchers was in mid-2007. Most appear as of early 2009.

Coming soon: visuals showing the relative African popularity for themes such as “farming”, “health”, “education”, and “ICT”. Amazing how the term “ICT” is primarily used within the U.K. and Africa.