This section features background information about the World Dialogue on Regulation and its partners, news about their activities, and information on conditions of use of the site.
RIA! workshop finalises E-access project Print E-mail
Written by Stephan Esselaar   
Thursday, 18 November 2004
research ICT africa!Research ICT Africa! network members held their third workshop from 8-13 November 2004 at the LINK Centre in Johannesburg. The purpose of the workshop was to finalise the E-access and Usage Index Research Project in 13 African countries. Details of the RIA! research agenda will be finalised at a February 2005 WDR Expert Meeting in Ghana.

The countries in the study are Botswana, Cameroon, Ghana, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.

Outcomes

There have been numerous positive outcomes from the 2004 study. All participants have been impressed by the commitment of enumerators to getting accurate results. The quality of enumerators has been impressive. Most important, however, has been the ability to spread capacity in this type of research by building up a research network from the ground.

This ability to train teams of people, from enumerators to university colleagues, has had several effects: there is greater awareness of the RIA! brand name; there is an increased ability to deliver on grassroots research through the network and there is a higher level of sustainability.

Dissemination

With time constraints in mind, there was consensus that there will be two volumes/phases: the first will focus on achieving the deadline of 2nd February LIRNE/WDR Expert meeting in Accra. This will be a 300 page document available on the RIA! website. A flyer with the most important findings will also be produced and presentations will be made at the conference in Accra.

A second, and more analytical volume, will be published later in 2005. This will be a hardcopy and, with more time available, will include more analysis of the data.

In addition to electronic and hard copy books and the flyer, it was suggested that a database be produced for the public domain so that future research can build on this foundation. However, this will require time to clean the data and to present it in an appropriate format and must be further investigated.