Technology has become an essential tool for development in recent times. For the development sector, it has helped to amplify various organisational impact, causes and connected like-minded organisations to work together.

The absence of functional technological tools in Convention de la Société Civile Ivoirienne (CSCI) posed a serious problem for members of the organization. They were not equipped with adequate tools and skills to enhance their work and organisational visibility.

“We faced a lot of challenges with augmenting the visibility of our organisation and our work and impact because we did not have an operational website. Due to this, many of our partners and beneficiaries were not informed about the work we were doing or the influence we were making through our activities.” Oscar Gaguy, Administrative Secretary of CSCI lamented.

CSCI was also confronted with internal communication issues. Without access to the Internet, staff had to exchange documents in person with each other. This hindered the efficacy and progress of their work especially when staff were away on official duties.

“Our computer networking system had glitches which prevented us from printing documents from our offices. We had to move our computers to the room where the printer was located,” Gaguy explained. “This made our work very cumbersome especially during meetings when we needed to print documents in real-time,” he added.

In 2017, the organisation concluded on the urgent need to enhance their capacity especially in the area of technology. This led them to apply for the technology project initiated by WACSI in July 2017 and supported by the Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA). The CSCI team was convinced that their participation in the project would afford them the know-how and tools to address the technology challenges they experienced.

A year after their participation in the project, CSCI has witnessed a drastic turnaround in their productivity. They’ve achieved significant milestones.

“Thanks to the OSIWA-WACSI project, we now have a functional website that has extended our reach and audience. We are now able to project our impact and achievements to our partners and beneficiaries,” Gaguy happily shared.

The website package included professional email addresses that have greatly improved communication with their external audience.

Through the technology project, the organisation benefitted from donated products such as licensed software that have been installed on their computers making their work more efficient.