Engineering civil society: ICT in Tanzania

The international development community has recently focussed attention on the potential role Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs; email and Internet) can play in promoting democratic development. The ‘Zapatista effect’ has prompted claims that access to ICTs will strengthen civil society by giving voice to the poor and marginalised, widening popular participation, and encouraging information-sharing and alliance-building. Drawing on research carried out in Dar es Salaam and Arusha, two of Tanzania's ‘most connected’ cities, this paper critically analyses such claims in the light of the experiences of non-governmental organisations' (NGOs) use of ICTs. In the first instance, only a minority of well-resourced, urban and/or international NGOs have access to ICT facilities. Moreover, NGOs are not using ICTs in the ways imagined by donors, who ignore the social, cultural and political contexts within which they would wish to embed technological professionalism. Access to ICTs has to some extent facilitated networking among Tanzania's elite NGOs whose advocacy and lobbying activities have had some impact upon national policies. Overall, however, while donors may enjoy limited success in engineering an elite civil society, the paper concludes that the recent ‘ICT fetishism’ of international donors is likely to result in a case of misplaced optimism.