CATIA - Catalysing Access to ICT in Africa
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ICTs

The Catalysing Access to ICT in Africa (CATIA) programme aimed to enable poor people in Africa to gain maximum benefit from the opportunities offered by Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and to act as a strong catalyst for reform.

CATIApicIt supported a package of strategic activities to improve affordable access to the full range of ICTs, from Internet to community radio. This programme focussed on the need for ICTs to address social and economic development issues. It worked to help build capacity across Africa to achieve sustainable change.

Gamos - as part of a team coordinated by Big World (www.big-world.org) - were responsible for the monitoring and evaluation of this project. This involved meeting with the various partner agencies and offering assistance concerning log frames and other evaluation tools. An analysis of all the stakeholders was undertaken leading to interviews being conducted with the key all actors. Evaluation summary papers were produced by Gamos highlighting the lessons learned from the project with regards to programme design, influencing policy and networking.

A little surprisingly, DFID and Atos didn't make provision for the CATIA website to be hosted for the next 5-10 years. So all the wonderful work of CATIA is scattered throughout the web and many links to CATIA funded documents don't work anymore. Fortunately some crazy people are archiving the entire web! So you can find the CATIA website as it was just before its demise at here.

The evaluation summary papers are available to read here:

 

Senegal Household Survey Analysis

Further to this, Gamos conducted a household survey in Senegal of over 650 households. The survey was designed to yield data on how people are using communications, and what impact this has on their lives. The survey was not designed to measure or attribute the impact or outcomes of CATIA per se, but to make informed comment on some of the key assumptions made, and to give a view on whether the trends identified and supported by CATIA are leading to fulfillment of the CATIA goal.