South Africa

Bridging the digital divide: Insights from the Africa Community Networks Exchange
Bridging the digital divide: Insights from the Africa Community Networks Exchange 09 April 2024 Maria José Casares García

Community networks in Africa stand as beacons of innovation and resilience. Through a series of four webinars, Tanda Community Network along with APC and and Rhizomatica's LocNet initiative helped with capacity building and explored such networks' challenges, triumphs and how to support them in bridging the digital divide.

Five hopeful stories of community networks rethinking technologies from our podcast series
Five hopeful stories of community networks rethinking technologies from our podcast series 30 January 2024 Débora Prado

Can communities shape digital technologies in favour of their environments, cultures, knowledge and well-being? This piece present five inspiring stories from the Routing for Communities podcast showcasing how connectivity and the use of technology gain meaning from local demands.

Violence against sex workers surges in South Africa as they move to the internet for work
Violence against sex workers surges in South Africa as they move to the internet for work 31 March 2023 Colleta Dewa for GenderIT.org

Sex workers in South Africa moved to the internet to seek clients as the offline opportunities dwindled due to the pandemic-induced lockdown. But they face previously unknown challenges with the prevalent online gender-based violence in the country.

Sol Luca de Tena
Sol Luca de Tena 11 November 2022

Sol Luca de Tena has spent her life living and working between South Africa and Spain, and calls both countries home. She has over a decade of experience in strategic project management within technology development, capacity building, social impact and policy – with a focus on utilising technologies to address environmental and social challenges. She develops collaboration networks betwe...

Anriette Esterhuysen
Anriette Esterhuysen 19 September 2022

Anriette Esterhuysen was the executive director of APC until March 2017. Prior to joining APC, Anriette was executive director of SANGONeT, an internet service provider and training institution for civil society, labour and community organisations. She was active in the struggle against Apartheid from 1980 onwards. From 1987 to 1992 she did information and communication work in development and ...

African internet resilience: What about complementary access models?
African internet resilience: What about complementary access models? 31 August 2020 Marta Kopp

The fifth session of the African Internet Resilience webinar series took place on 30 July. The focus of the session was to foster a deeper understanding of complementary networks and address the need for internet services in rural and underserved areas across the continent.

REG4COVID: Community network responses to the pandemic
REG4COVID: Community network responses to the pandemic 04 August 2020 Marta Kopp

As a part of the ITU's pandemic response, the platform REG4COVID was launched, providing a space for regulators and civil society to share their own initiatives. APC asked their community network partners to contribute to the platform, given the general absence of civil society input.

Questions for white liberals
Questions for white liberals 22 June 2020 Kharnita Mohamed for GenderIT.org

White allies rarely explain why particular racist actions might have occurred. White liberal intellectuals frequently learn anti-racist discourse and mimic it back at us with little trenchant thought given to their own experiences of whiteness.

Privacy and the pandemic: An African response
Privacy and the pandemic: An African response 21 June 2020 Gabriella Razzano

COVID-19 has led to a surge of efforts by both state and private actors to manage the pandemic itself, and the consequences of it, with the aid of technology. Yet privacy has immediately been cast as a required trade-off in the efforts to combat the disease.

"Language revolt": This activist tweets against erasure of first languages in South Africa
"Language revolt": This activist tweets against erasure of first languages in South Africa 16 June 2020 Denver Toroxa Breda for Global Voices

This invisibility in the South African national narrative can also be seen by the language’s absence on the internet.

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