This member story was featured in the 2016 APC Annual Report, as part of our work on governance.
With support from Facebook and Hivos East Africa, the Kenya ICT Action Network (KICTANet) held the first Kenya School of Internet Governance (KeSIG) in November 2016. The school aimed at bringing new voices into ICT policy dialogues.
After convening the Kenya Internet Governance Forum in 2015, KICTANet realised the Forum had attracted a great deal of interest from the youth and professional stakeholders from diverse backgrounds.
However, they were not able to join in the discussions as they needed prior understanding of the issues and how to connect them to their work.
This was also emphasised during the Kenya ICT Policy Review that was led by KICTANet. The public needed to be educated on public participation in policy processes. In view of this, the school targeted youth and professionals from backgrounds which have not traditionally been active in policy development dialogues.
Participants were taken through an introduction to various issues of internet governance, the different players and engagement processes, in addition to practical sessions where they were trained how to engage in policy dialogues and submit input on different topics.
KICTANet has noted the success of this training, as the participants are now engaging and making meaningful contributions to ICT policy processes at both the local and global levels. KICTANet looks forward to holding the 2nd Kenya School of Internet Governance in 2017.
Image: KeSIG participants group work on stakeholder mapping.