Shidende, Nima H.Chawani, Marlen S.Kaasbøll, Jens.2024-03-142024-03-142014Shidende, N. H., Chawani, M. S., & Kaasbøll, J. (2014). Challenges in Participation and Implications on Human Development: Experiences from Health Information Systems Implementations in Tanzania and Malawi.URL: https://www.academia.edu/9703897https://repository.udom.ac.tz/handle/20.500.12661/4302Full-text Article: Also available at https://www.academia.edu/9703897In this paper, we present our empirical insights from Tanzania and Malawi by showing the challenges of participation and we provide implications which can be used to enhance human development in the health sector. Our empirical material is drawn from the Health Information Systems Project which is a global south-north network aiming at improving the use and management of health data in developing countries. Our focus is on the interaction between software implementers, end users and global open source software developers. Our study indicates participatory challenges which are related to the difficulties in identifying users, limited health domain knowledge among some of the expected end-users and software implementers; and limited participation arising due to local-global differences. We argue that for human development to occur through the use of open source software, participation skills in the design, development and use of open source software need to be enhanced through capacity development of end-users and software implementers.enDistributed participatory designImplementation mediatorsHealth information systemsDeveloping countryOpen source softwareArticle