The first three of my selection deal exclusively with female issues in Africa. Gender and Women's Studies for Africa's Transformation is a suitable site for those looking for in-depth backgrounds on African feminist thinkers and a vast amount of related scholarly essays, though some links lead to blank pages and there is little to no interactivity; an important criterion of Webby. On the other hand, Feminist Africa encourages interactivity as the online journal "provides a forum for progressive, cutting-edge gender research and dialogue focused on the continent" and asks for reader responses and contributions to past and future issues. The journal also offers a strong selection of information in each online issue, however with its severe lack of visuals or graphics it is boring to the eye. Lastly, the Association of African Women Scholars suffers from a need for updated material in the AAWS page that describes the organization (for example, the newsletter is from 1998!) but otherwise information is neatly arranged in categories such as health and human rights, women, literature and youth that each supply a multitude of easy-to-access resources.
A few online African news sources I found useful are the Sub-Saharan Informer, (its main page shown to the right), Pambazuka News and All Africa. Strong in content, the Sub-Saharan Informer presents the reader with several articles on a variety of topics, however the design is unappealing with miniature summaries of each report covering the main page and there are very little pictures to supplement them. The few images that do exist are weak and too small, which is similar to Pambazuka News, a Web site with zero visuals though it also has good content with stories on every subject a person could think of; from elections and governance, to LGBTI, environment, corruption and technology just to name a few. All Africa gets high marks in functionality for its convenient links to other sites, but because it has advertisements surrounding every side of the page, the appearance is cluttered and it is hard to distinguish between which links lead to ads or articles.
Additional sources of news may be found in online magazines or blogs, such as Africa Renewal, a magazine that "provides up-to-date information and analysis of the major economic and development challenges facing Africa today" though it is created by the United Nations' Department of Public Information and therefore includes public relations pieces such as press and news releases, media advisories and links to other UN programs. The visual design, structure and navigation are wonderful but there is nothing that engages the reader to interact with the site. When gathering research through blogs, one must employ a critical eye as many blogs have an agenda or may appear as a news site at first glance. Africa News does just this, as it can be easily mistaken for a news page. It does not disclose information about the blogger, which is an important criterion of IMSA, although it does offer a link to almost every African country for more information and is actively posting current articles. In contrast, the PoliGazette, which writes about current events in Africa, makes it very clear who the blogger and editorial staff is, but could benefit from more frequent posts. Two very academic blogs are ODI Blog and Concerned Africa Scholars. The ODI Blog (Overseas Development Institute) is made up of extremely in-depth and knowledgeable posts with topics ranging from health, economics and international aid, and although it is meant to be scholarly, it would be helpful to the reader to include more images and graphics to make the reports less daunting and to enhance understanding of the concepts. Quite the opposite and enjoyable for its visually supportive design as well as its up-to-date collection of research, Concerned Africa Scholars is frustrating when links do not lead to the whole story, but rather a small section. A small criticism, because readers can eventually find the complete report by then scrolling down and clicking "read more", but the blog would be more easily navigable and appealing if links went directly to the entire story the first time.
Facts and statistics may be useful for some looking for more direct and succinct information. In those cases, recent census statistics (in areas such as population, women and men in families, health, education, work and political decision making) for different continents and countries can be found at WIDNET (Women in Development Network). Besides being a valuable source for numbers, the site is very functional but it lacks in appearance and interactivity. Africa Development Indicators (ADI) is another similar resource created by the World Bank that has more than one-thousand indicators on fifty-three African countries. The indicators focus more on developmental goals, for example infrastructure, disease and agriculture rather than census information. A good amount of information can be downloaded, but other important documents cannot be accessed online and must be purchased, which is unfortunate. To find summaries of African charters and systems, explore the Institute for Human Rights and Development in Africa Web site. While the site is not appreciated for its aesthetics (it is not attractively designed and some pages are left blank) it has easy-to-follow explanations of legal issues surrounding the African Union, the rights of the child and much more.
The last six of my selections are sites of international humanitarian funds, organizations or non-profits. UNIFEM (United Nations Developing Fund for Women) and Women Watch (United Nations Inter-Agency Network on Women and Gender Equality) both have beautiful presented pages, (though the latter may be a bit wordy,) and both are rich in content and demand the visitors interactivity. Nevertheless, UNIFEM's fact sheets are complicated and not "reader friendly" as they should be to invite people's interest to the cause, and Women Watch could be improved by cleaning up the page so it isn't quite as busy. USAID: Sub-Saharan Africa gives a good overview of the United States foreign assistance with links to budget, initiatives, success stories, FAQs, related documents and recent updates in a visually pleasing and easily navigable format, but it doesn't provide a very transparent budget analysis. A budget for each country is accessible, though there is no study of what is or is not working and what should be done monetarily to improve the programs in the future -- something many taxpayers like to see. The Carter Center, a non-profit founded by Nobel Peace Prize winner and former President Jimmy Carter that promotes peace and health around the world, has an interactive-encouraging Web site that is also well designed and easy for the visitor to follow. It is hard to critique this site, though a small complaint is that otherwise "hard" information such as the analysis of the Carter Center's projects and budgets appears to be written as a public relations piece with more fluff and photos than a more sincere, concise and informative report. It was also difficult to find fault in Camfed's Web site (Campaign for Female Education) which is creative and unique with its quick introductory video for those who are new to the organization. Many sites do not make use of videos, which can be extremely user-friendly and an interesting medium to discuss information. If anything, Camfed's Web page could include a stronger news and press release section with more frequent updates that catch reader and media attention -- an important factor for many non-profits. On the other hand, it is easy to critique the loud orange and black color scheme of CARE which is a bit jarring, and contributes to an overall feeling of disorder when combined with the multiple links. The picture shown above, to the left, is nice when is separated from the rest of the halloween-looking page. But to it's credit, CARE's Web site insists that you become involved by giving upfront options on how to donate or spread the word, and suggests that you engage in the organization's blog.
1 comment:
Good job Devon. I really enjoyed this blog post, and I feel like the addition of all these sites to your linkroll makes your site that much better, and that much more helpful. I really enjoyed how you organized your post, and listed the websites you found in a specific order, like websites strictly about women in Africa, or international organizations. Your analysis of the websites you found is concise and helpful – exactly what it should be. Your critique was very astute, and I could tell what you meant right away once I clicked to each site. I also think you did a good job broadening your scope from just women in Africa to the inclusion of all international humanitarian organizations. You make that transition very well, and it is an obvious and helpful link to the more important topic, women in Africa. If I could give any critique at all, would be to add some personal opinions of these websites, aside from factual observations. If there were certain links that you particularly liked or disliked, I think readers would be appreciative if you said so even with a couple links, because it may be a nice way for readers who just wanted to check out a couple great ones instead of looking through 20 websites. However, the structure of your article makes it very easy to find the description/critique of a link at any point in the article. Overall, I really like the post, and I think it is a very nice follow up to your article about Rwandan women. Its very tough to make an appealing blog about a topic people usually fare away from, but you’ve done a great job so far!
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