Digital Empowerment Foundation, DEF | eNGO Programme (International)

NIGERIA
“CAMPAIGN WORKSHOP PROGRESS REPORT”
March 11th 2014, University of Lagos Conference Centre, Lagos, Nigeria
“E-NGO International Programme is a joint effort of Digital Empowerment Foundation and Public Interest Registry to ICT enable grassroots organizations with .NGO Domain Advocacy.” www.pirengo.org
About eNGO Programme (International) – Nigeria: According to Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) there are currently over 45,000 NGOs in Nigeria, out of which a majority of them do not have a proper webpage. Most of these NGOs have limited or no access to ICT tools. These NGOs working at the grassroots remain unknown and do not get the advantage and appreciation, which come from Government bodies to such organizations. This situation might be a result of lack of finance, expertise and foresight. Besides, all such NGOs have a lot of information that is limited to their geographical area, policy makers, or potential granters. Digital Empowerment Foundation, India and Mr. Amos Emmanuel while attending the 2013 UN World Summit Award Global Congress in Colombo, Sri Lanka discussed the need & possibilities of an eNGO
Workshop for Nigerian grassroots NGOs in ICT capacity building along with free Website & training facility.
President, Programos Foundation, Nigeria and the Eminent National Expert of the UN World Summit Award Nigeria Mr. Amos Emmanuel, have taken the initiative to organize the local NGOs through online engagements. They have also made efforts and partnered with the International Association of African Non-Governmental Organizations (IAAN) to co-ordinate the maiden eNGO International Workshop in on 11th march, 2014 with 106 NGOs in, Lagos, Nigeria.
Programme Components:
The eNGO initiative comprises following components to roll out and execution:
i. The focus of the eNGO workshop and
training programme is to train and
empower grassroots organisations in Web
and Internet technology and facilitate
them towards organizational advantages;
ii. Theory and practical sessions are given to
participant trainees for full day;
iii. eNGO provides hands on training to
trainees on how to manage and maintain
organizational websites on a daily basis;
iv. Training on content and database
management.
v. Dedicated session on How .NGO Domain
will be an asset for NGOs
vi. Providing them with .ORG domains
vii. Getting .NGO Domain Choices for their NGO and programmes.
viii. Issues & Challenges with feedback and recommendations.
E-NGO Campaign & Workshops Evaluation/ Assessment
PRE-WORKSHOP ASSESSMENT
Summary of pre-workshop responses regarding Internet tools knowledge, website, domain & Social Media usage skills among NGOs: (Total no of NGOs attended: 106)
NGOs Demography:
 106 participating NGOs, was a mix of many sectors. 20NGOs were working for Human Rights issues and being online was a powerful tool for them.
 12 NGOs were from Health sector and working for HIV elimination, which needs a lot of social media, attention amongst youth was very important for them.
 22NGOs were youth specific and IT knowledge was a must for them. They understood that going online could make them credible & authentic among others.
 There were a few Government agencies which work for development sector, in the domain of ICT e.g. Internet Registration Association (NIRA) who took interest in promoting .NGO domain with .ng
 Other NGOs were working in multi disciplinary activities like green initiatives, education, livelihood, advocacy for food etc.
Web platform development
Training of NGO professionals
Network building
Content development & management
Theory & practice learning
Rating Skills of NGOs in ICT & Web:
 70% of participants had no understanding of Internet usage for organization development and community empowerment program. 20% of participants had a good understanding about Internet usage but did not use it officially. Only 10% were using all possible means of Internet & web tools. Most organizations hesitated in using internet due to heavy cost involvement;
 75% of the participants had no understanding of the purpose of conducting an eNGO training programme and its relevance to NGO empowerment. 20% participants felt that they had a good understanding of eNGO programme , while the rest 5% felt that they had a strong understanding about eNGO;
 Only 12 organizations had websites with independent .ng.org domain. 50% felt that website is the most expensive product while the rest 30% had no awareness about website, domain or social media;
 80% organizations had no understanding of top-level domains like .com; .org, .net, .in etc. Only 20% had a good understanding of domains. Most of them only know .ng country Specific-domains.
 40% organizations had never used social media like facebook, twitter and YouTube. Rests 60% had heard about social media but were not using it. Only 25% were using social media for organization networking purpose.
 65% participants did not use email as a mode of communication.70% organization did not have organisation’s email ids, 10% did not have any idea of using emails for business. Only 30% of organisations were using valid email and 25% had personal email ids.
 95% organizations had a need of online donation system on website although only 10% had understanding about online payment and 5% had online donation system in their website.
 Most of them were enthusiastic about using Internet and web tools but had cost and technical support issues with local vendors. All NGOs showed huge interest on .NGO tld specially those having no option for .ORG domain. They liked the directory feature the most.
 30 NGOs have already submitted their profile to go online with .org domain and later with .NGO domain. Others are drafting contents with help from local organization Programos Foundation. Very soon, eNGO will get more number of NGO profiles to go online.
 E-NGO has taken .NGO domain choices from all NGOs.
Summary of pre-workshop responses regarding content, knowledge & digital documentation for NGOs:
 Most of the NGOs are good in documenting their activities and office work in the form of annual reports and activities but do not do it digitally. Only 20% participant NGOs had information in a proper digital format. Out of the 20 percent only 15 percent had made their documents online.
 60% NGOs had no digital photos of their activities. They only had printed version of all photos. Annual Reports in the form of booklet which is an expensive exercise so eNGO has taken initiative to digitize those reports and upload on their website so that they can access anytime.
 95% NGOs had no presence in Google drives or any other online file management tools. Only 5% were using Google drives only to manage their work online.
 20% NGOs had uploaded photos on Picasa, 10% on facebook and 5% on flicker. Only 5% were using YouTube for video broadcasting. Most NGOs had no exposure on using all these tools without investing additional resources
 Only 5% were using News Letter feature for their visitors, 10% were using SMS as a Community Newsletter for disseminating information with communities in local languages as well as English.
 Local eNGO Partner Programos Foundation is helping all organisations in drafting content and design according to web interface. They wanted to use social media for their campaign and networking but had no knowledge of content designing. eNGO along with local partner is helping them.
POST- WORKSHOP ASSESSMENT
The post workshops assessment was done through questionnaire-based survey about experience of participant NGOs. Questionnaire was divided into two parts. Questions in the feedbacks part dealt with the quality and value of workshop while questions in ICT Survey part asked NGOs to rate their level of knowledge and skills after completing the Workshop.
A general feedback session was conducted. This session was to conducted to collect some information from participants regarding the value of .NGO Domain among Development Communites in Nigeria along with PIR eNGO programme. The session also tried to know about its benefits for the grassroots organizations and Content Management System (CMS) training, conducted in workshop. The response was surprising and participants had many queries related to the .NGO domain, its launch and cost per domain etc. There were questions about content structure, Website Management and Online donation process.
Summary of responses regarding level of knowledge and skills after workshops:
“The following statistics represent those participants who responded to the questionnaire”
• Maximum numbers of participants were able to differentiate among .ORG & .NGO Domains.
• All participants were eagerly waiting to have .NGO Domain for their NGOs websites.
• Most of the participants were able to draft content for website and social media as per content structure provided by eNGO Network.
• 40% of the participants were confident about updating their web pages independently any time with the help of User Manual provided by eNGO.
• 60% participants understood about how social media could help them in getting support for many activities and causes.
• 100% NGOs preferred the online donation service on their website which would not be too costly for them to manage.
• 50% of the participants felt uncomfortable to update their website so they chose eNGO facilitation center to do it on a regular basis.
• Most of them chose English as a preferred language for their website.
Outcome of Workshop
 100 Validated NGOs at one place.
 30 NGOs to go online by 2nd week of April
 Many will send content by 15th April
 230 .NGO Domain EOI
 10 eNGO outreach Coordinators to spread the message of .NGO & eNGO
 Nigeria Internet Registration Association (NIRA) Association to promote .NGO tld
 Trusted Partner to run the initiative at a local level with many coordinator NGOs.
Strategy plan for eNGO – Dot NGO Initiative in Nigeria
Outreach:
 We target to reach out to a minimum of 5000 NGOs in Nigeria before the end of year 2015
E-NGO State Coordinators:
 We have adopted the strategy of collaborating with NGO networks across the country, that is, 2 NGOs per state.
Methodology:
 The 2 accredited NGOs per state will contact and coordinate reaching out to 250 grassroots NGOs in various locations and offer them an opportunity to conduct a local eNGO workshop within this year.
 The coordinators will grow the .NGO Expression of Interest from the NGOs in these regions and commit them to register online to the www.pirengo.org/dotorg portal.
 State representative on eNGO initiative may have determined build up a regional calendar for eNGO Workshop awareness campaigns as.
State Coordinators
No. of States
Total eNGO Coordinators/Min. NGO size/state
Total NGO Targeted
2 Per State
36 plus FCT
2 x (36+1) = 74/250
(36+1) * 250 = 9250 NGOS*
 Promote eNGO development in Nigeria in any possible way – Programos Foundation will secure a slot to present eNGO-DOTNGO initiative in the upcoming “Info poverty World Conference” where he will promote its expansion in the country and Africa as a whole in an approved paper titled: “Enabling Grassroots NGOs in Africa through Digital Empowerment – eNGO”.
for more details & photos of workshop plz visit
www.pirengo.org/africa/nigeria
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