The “Working with civil society on digital topics” webinar displayed an overview of shared experiences from the IDEA D4D Hub project, implemented by Team Europe partners that support the D4D Hub platform in fostering engagement with civil society and academia to promote a human-centric digital transformation in Africa. The project has been running for almost two years, successfully implementing activities in Mozambique, Burkina Faso, Tunisia, Morocco, and Uganda. 

Civil society, academia, think tanks and grassroots organisations are often neglected stakeholder groups in the digital transformation process. The IDEA project identified many interesting actors doing inspiring work on the ground in Africa. It offered capacity building, networking, and the opportunity to participate in innovation and co-creation processes. 

The webinar took place on 26^th September 2023. Among the facilitators are Isabel Gahren, Project Director of the Digital Human Rights Lab, Capucine Gonnord, Project Coordinator of the IDEA Project, and Lucrezia Biteete, Senior D4D Expert at Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH GIZ.

Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) across the five African countries where IDEA D4D Hub was implemented are premature in digital education at the local, regional, and national levels. To bridge the gaps, the project pierced into the stakeholder database across the five countries, mapping out the critical barriers to digital transformation, such as digital access, digital infrastructure, digital policy, skills, and inclusion, to mention a few.

Identifying these challenges and bottlenecks helped IDEA D4D Hub design and organise capacity-building programmes, synergy creations and innovation days through workshops based on the lessons learned.

Innovation days brought the digital ecosystem together from the CSOs, academia, government and participants from the European Union and Africa. Thereby breaking the silos for networking, collaboration, and interactive discussions. Before the implementation of the IDEA project, CSOs and the governments were not collaborating in building a digital ecosystem. However, with the implementation of the IDEA project, CSOs and the government are beginning to collaborate to find solutions to digital challenges.

DIGILOGIC has collaborated with D4D hub as a synergistic initiative to promote Digital Innovation Hubs (DIHs) located in Africa and Europe. The partnership seeks to promote the exchange of ideas, knowledge, and expertise between the two regions, and to contribute towards the development of a more robust and innovative digital ecosystem.