Our 2023 Annual Report is here! The report highlights our achievements & impact throughout 2023 in Kenya and Somalia, marking a decade of amplifying citizens’ voices across Africa. Dive in to explore the incredible milestones we reached in 2023.
Our 2023 Annual Report is here! The report highlights our achievements & impact throughout 2023 in Kenya and Somalia, marking a decade of amplifying citizens’ voices across Africa. Dive in to explore the incredible milestones we reached in 2023.
Africa’s Voices Foundation deployed its unique Common Social Accountability Platform (CSAP) methodology to listen to and collect citizens’ views on corruption in Kenya.
Africa’s Voices deployed its unique Common Social Accountability Platform (CSAP) methodology to listen to and collect citizens’ views on corruption in Kenya.
The project sought to strengthen climate resilience in the SEKEB region by fostering citizen
knowledge, involvement, and ownership of afforestation and smart agriculture methods, and ensuring their
voices shape county policies and programs addressing climate change in Kitui, Machakos and Makueni
Counties.
Between April 2024 and August 2024, Africa’s Voices Amplified (AVA), with support from the Danish
International Development Agency (Danida) through Uraia Trust, implemented the project titled “Enhancing
Climate Resilience through Citizen Engagement in the Southeastern Kenya Economic Bloc
(SEKEB)”. The project sought to strengthen climate resilience in the SEKEB region by fostering citizen
knowledge, involvement, and ownership of afforestation and smart agriculture methods, and ensuring their
voices shape county policies and programs addressing climate change in Kitui, Machakos and Makueni
Counties
The public engagement aimed to gather the perspectives of citizens with a primary goal to provide and understand citizen-led data that will support the improvement of Sexual and Reproductive Health (SRH) services in Somalia and address other issues like GBV and FGM.
The public engagement aimed to gather the perspectives of citizens with a primary goal to provide and understand citizen-led data that will support the improvement of Sexual and Reproductive Health (SRH) services in Somalia and address other issues like GBV and FGM.
Africa’s Voices Foundation (AVF), in partnership with South Eastern Kenya Economic Bloc (SEKEB),
with funding from Porticus, deployed the Common Social Accountability Platform (CSAP)
methodology to spark plural dialogue between the citizens and their county leadership.
Africa’s Voices Foundation (AVF), in partnership with South Eastern Kenya Economic Bloc (SEKEB),
with funding from Porticus, deployed the Common Social Accountability Platform (CSAP)
methodology to spark plural dialogue between the citizens and their county leadership.
Africa’s Voices Amplified (AVA) with support from Danish
International Development Agency (Danida) through Uraia Trust implemented a project titled “We
Need Collective Action” project.
Africa’s Voices Amplified (AVA) with support from Danish
International Development Agency (Danida) through Uraia Trust implemented a project titled “We
Need Collective Action” project.
The Swiss Agency for Cooperation and Development (SDC) partnered with Africa’s Voices, leveraging its extensive Somalia database to conduct a concise SMS survey in order to gather citizen feedback.
The Swiss Agency for Cooperation and Development (SDC) partnered with Africa’s Voices, leveraging its extensive Somalia database to conduct a concise SMS survey in order to gather citizen feedback.
Africa’s Voices Foundation in partnership with Rift Valley institute (RVI)’s Somali Dialogue Platform
implemented a 3-month project between February 8th – May 7th 2022. The project promoted public
dialogue around elections so as to understand citizens’ perspectives on Somalia’s national elections.
Antimicrobials, including antibiotics, underpin modern medicine. But they are becoming less and less effective because of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) — a condition that occurs when infections become resistant to the drugs designed to treat them. Data on AMR is lacking, which limits our understanding of its burden, hobbles efforts to communicate the urgency of the crisis, and slows national and global efforts to address AMR effectively. Citizen-generated data (CGD) can play a crucial role in plugging these gaps, but it is also critical to gather data that surveillance data will never capture, such as citizen knowledge levels, as well as perceptions and drivers of behavior. AVF worked with the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data collaborated to generate and disseminate insights on AMR in Kenya using CGD.
The report covers AVF’s activities, insights and success stories over the year 2020. Despite the unprecedented challenges brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic, 2020 was yet another year for AVF to place the voices of the people of Africa at the heart of the Continent’s transformation. It is during the pandemic that AVF demonstrated its ability to make real contributions in yet one more field. This can be attributed to thousands of participants who sent SMS messages asking how to protect themselves and demanding accountability from the authorities in the management of COVID-19 resources. In 2020, our two programmes (Citizen Evidence for Social and Governance and Accountability) gave a voice to thousands of citizens in both Kenya and Somalia.
Africa’s Voices partnered with the Foreign, and Commonwealth Development Office (FCDO) to support the implementation of the Education in Emergencies in Protracted Crisis 2019-2023 programme. AVF and its partner Katikati deployed in tandem two unique approaches: The Common Social Accountability Platform for radio dialogues and SMS feedback; and Kati-kati for 1-1 SMS engagement. The aim was to ensure that citizens are meaningfully consulted, and their voice, agency and influence are used to inform education service delivery.
Get the AVF’s Fact Sheet to read on our unique methodologies, how we work, our three core outcomes (Engagement, Evidence, Action), our programmes, and a summary of our work in numbers.
With funding from World University of Canada (WUSC), Africa’s Voices Foundation has been working in Kakuma and Dadaab refugee camps to contribute towards WUSC’s Kenya Equity Education Programme (KEEP II) aiming at improving conditions for refugee girls’ education.
We implemented interactive radio for awareness raising and feedback collection in an effort to understand the knowledge, attitudes, & practices related to COVID-19 among community members in Kitui & Makueni counties.
Public participation is a critical component of the Constitution of Kenya 2010 (CoK, 2010). Even though public participation is entrenched in the CoK (2010), citizens’ ability to be involved in decision making and the consideration and inclusion of their views by duty bearers remains an open question, with many legal experts describing the process as a “rubber stamping” exercise. To bridge this gap, with support from UNDP, AVF implemented the Strengthening Public Accountability and Integrity Systems (SPAIS) pilot project.
Africa’s Voices in collaboration with local organizations in Somalia, namely MediaINK
and Message to the Audience (M2A), delivered a COVID 19 Risk Communication and
Community Engagement (RCCE) response and Social Behavior Change Communication
(SBCC) campaign by adapting its proven locally-trusted mass media approach to reach
most vulnerable groups in Somalia including Women, IDPs, Youth and minorities.
Africa’s Voices in collaboration with local organizations in Somalia, namely MediaINK
and Message to the Audience (M2A), delivered a COVID 19 Risk Communication and
Community Engagement (RCCE) response and Social Behavior Change Communication
(SBCC) campaign by adapting its proven locally-trusted mass media approach to reach
most vulnerable groups in Somalia including Women, IDPs, Youth and minorities.
What do the citizens of Bossaso and Baidoa in Somalia think the role of the government should be in responding to the displacement crisis? See the findings of our interactive radio consultations in partnership with the United Nations Resident Coordinator Office in Somalia.
By Dr Sharath Srinivasan and Dr Claudia Abreu Lopes published in the International Journal of Communication. This article examines what drives audience participation in interactive broadcast shows, with implications for the democratic potential of these shows as spaces of citizen engagement and public discussion. It makes three contributions, the first two to audience and media studies and the last to political communication.
How can we put youth voices at the driving seat of programmes and policies for dignified work across Africa? In 2018, Africa’s Voices joined forces with the Mastercard Foundation to pilot an SMS-based two-way feedback and engagement platform to amplify the voices of African youth and place them at the heart of Mastercard Foundation’s youth employment programmes. Our Learning Report outlines how AVF designed and tested a prototype of this channel, and some of the insights that were learnt.
Explore highlights from 2018, the year that in many ways, defined Africa’s Voices. In 2018, we raised the bar on the accountability of humanitarian actors to populations served in Somalia. We shaped a multi-year programme with social insights on barriers to girls education in refugee communities in Kenya. And we brought new community solutions for a displacement crisis to authorities in Mogadishu through citizen-authority dialogues.
This report outlines the first iteration of the Common Social Accountability Platform (CSAP), developed by Africa’s Voices Foundation (AVF) and launched in partnership with ReDSS and the Banadir Regional Administration (BRA) in late 2018 with financial support from Danida, DFID and ECHO.
Based on research carried out in African countries by Cambridge’s Centre of Governance and Human Rights, this interactive toolkit is full of tips and exercises to help radio hosts and producers create open, inclusive discussions that invite everyone to participate. It was designed by The Internews Center for Innovation and Learning.
This is an illustrated, accessible guide to research on interactive radio, from the Politics and Interactive Media in Africa research project (led by the University of Cambridge’s Centre of Governance and Human Rights). It was created in partnership with The Internews Center for Innovation and Learning, The University of Nairobi and The University of Zambia.
Read the results of Africa’s Voices pilot project in this research paper. Our goal was to practically assess the potential for interactive radio to gather and analyse opinions of harder to reach sub-Saharan African communities. We evaluated how best to work with small, rural radio stations, and the most effective approach to gathering public opinion.
To better understand who participates in media-driven public discussion and opinion-making, this working paper presents the results of a randomised household survey implemented in four constituencies in Kenya and Zambia, one urban and one rural constituency in each country.
Africa’s Voices’ Sharath Srinvasan and Claudia Lopes have contributed a chapter, to the ‘Voice and Matter‘ anthology brings together research that was presented at the fourth Ørecomm Festival in September 2014, and makes “important contributions to how we think about voice, power, technology, culture, and social change”.
How can organisations design programmes that are grounded in citizen’s everyday realities? This in-depth interactive page explores Africa’s Voices approach, focusing on health-related research with UNICEF Somalia. Discover our innovative method and key insights into citizen’s beliefs on immunisation and HIV/AIDS.
