About

The Africa ICT Policy Database (AIPD) is designed as an open and free resource for information technology across Africa especially on policies and laws. It is a project of The Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Technology Law (CIPIT) based at The Strathmore Law School in Nairobi, Kenya.

CIPIT’s mission is to study, create, and share knowledge on the development of intellectual property and information technology, especially as they contribute to African Law and Human Rights. From our experience working on ICT policies across countries and regions in Africa, we have encountered two main challenges on Information technology policy making processes; scare official policy documents and limited opportunities for governments to involve the public(s) in making new ones.

In setting up AIPD, we are responding to the first challenge through availing in one simplified repository the latest constitutions, conventions, Acts, regulations and other legal documents that have a direct bearing on the expansive information technology ecosystem in Africa’s 54 countries. This in itself is a very ambitious undertaking and will involve extensive partnerships with governments, civil society and libraries to ensure the database is up to date.

Connected to this, and responding to the second challenge of limited opportunities for public participation in policy making, we have incorporated a document annotation web tool designed to aggregate comments on bills or proposed regulations. We are calling this platform Jadili - a Swahili word for discussion, debate or conversation. The platform uploads a bill as received from the sponsor, sets a timeframe for public comments as stipulated by drafting authorities and once complete, a report is sent to the bill sponsor and all those who participated in the commenting. This supplements existing public participation avenues like physical meetings (barazas). 

As a multidisciplinary research centre, we are alive to the reality that technological tools can only do as much in mediating complex social relations as governance. However, we believe this creates a chance to start and sustain a conversation on open policy processes in our countries by leveraging interactive technologies.