Civic Tech is used to increase citizen participation in public life and to increase the transparency of the rulers. They can serve as bridges between civil society and government in favour of transparency.

In Mali, civil society has implemented OpenESR, a web and SMS technology, to observe the elections in real time, allow the electoral management bodies to correct irregularities and allow citizens to access the results of their polling station.

At the same time, civil society has used a web application called “Electoral compass” to help citizens to better understand electoral programmes and to compare their own views to those communicated by the different presidential candidates.

In this session, we will present how these two Civic Tech initiatives have built a bridge between civil society organisations, government bodies and political parties to increase civic engagement and for more transparent elections in Mali in 2018. We will also discuss what role donors, authorities and companies have played in empowering these Civic Tech initiatives.

This session will be hosted by Tidiani TOGOLA, Founder and CEO of Tuwindi Foundation, Mali. Discussions can take place in English and French.