Title: Technology for transparency, accountability and good governance
Author: Dave Algoso
Source: Find What Works blog
Date (published): 30/11/2011
Date (accessed): 03/12/2011
Type of information: blog post
Language: English
On-line access: yes (HTML)
Abstract:
"I spent yesterday morning at a discussion on the above topic. The issue at hand was the fact that a bunch of groups have been doing government accountability and transparency work for decades, and a bunch of groups are trying to leverage new technology and social media for similar ends — but these two sets aren’t talking to one another as much as they should be.

I noticed two major themes in the discussion...

How to divide up such a big topic?

The conversation ranged from open government data, to the use of mobiles for government service delivery, to citizen reporting on government abuses. In other words: the intersection of technology and better governance is huge. By the end of the event, it was clear that those attending had more to say on these issues.

There were several attempts to divide up the issue into manageable chunks. One rubric involved a distinction between top-down and bottom-up. The first category includes efforts to make data more accessible, use mobiles/other technology to reach citizens, or generally improve the efficiency of government operations through better technology.
...
Another approach for understanding the topic is to think about the impact that new technologies have on current governance processes. Technology might simply make a process more efficient by reducing transaction costs. For example, mobile phones and the internet help make it a lot cheaper to monitor elections, provide government data, or inform citizens about services. But technology might go another step further, beyond mere efficiency, by actually transforming how government works and how citizens interact with one another. This (some would argue) is what Twitter did in Egypt.
...
How do we know what works?

The other big theme yesterday was evaluation. I get the sense that most technology-for-governance interventions don’t receive anything close to rigorous evaluation. This is hardly surprising: governance issues are notoriously difficult to evaluate. As I’ve discussed before, randomized controlled trials aren’t applicable. Even psuedo-experimental methods run into trouble when trying to pick a defensible counter-factual. New technology might make data collection easier, but that won’t allow us to overcome the complexity of understanding governance or how change happens..."

Title: New technology and good governance
Author: Linda Raftree
Source: Wait… What? bridging community development and technology blog
Date (published): 01/12/2011
Date (accessed): 03/12/2011
Type of information: blog post
Language: English
On-line access: yes (HTML)
Abstract:
"Civil society has been working for years on participation, transparency, accountability and governance issues. Plenty of newer initiatives (small and large) look at new technologies as a core tool in this work. But are these groups talking and learning from each other? What good practices exist for using new technologies to improve transparency, accountability and governance? What are some considerations and frameworks for thinking about the role of new technologies in this area of work? What needs consideration under this broad theme of good governance?

Tuesday’s Technology Salon in New York City focused on those issues, kicked off by our two discussants, Hapee de Groot from Hivos and Katrin Verclas from Mobile Active. Discussion ensued around the nuances of how, with whom, when, why, and in conjunction with what do new technologies play a role in transparency, accountability and good governance.

Some of the key points brought up during the Salon**:

What is “good governance?” The overall term could be divided into a number of core aspects, and so the discussion is a big one and it’s complicated. Aid transparency is only one small part of the overall topic of good governance.
…
More data doesn’t equal more accountability. Data does not equal participation. Can mobile phones and other ICTs or social media reduce corruption? Can they drive new forms of participation? Can they hold power accountable in some ways? Yes, but there is no conclusive evidence that the use of new technology to deliver data down from governments to people or up from people to governments improves governance or accountability.
…
Efficient vs transformational. Transactional efficiency within a system is one thing. Transformation is another. You can enhance an existing process from, say, writing on paper to calling on a landline to texting in information, thereby improving accuracy and speed. But there is something more which is the transformational side. What’s most interesting perhaps are those ways that ICTs can completely alter processes and systems. Again, there are a lot of promising examples but there is not much evidence of their impact at this point.
…
Is open data just a big show? Some alluded to opaque transparency, where a government or another entity throws up a bunch of data and says “we are being open” but there is no realistic way to make sense of the data. Some felt that governments are signing onto open data pacts and partnerships as a fake show of transparency. These governments may say, “The data base is available. Go ahead and look at it.” But it costs a lot of money and high level skills to actually use the data. In addition, there is a need for regulatory frameworks and legislation around openness.
…
Is open data an extractive process? Some at the Salon cautioned that the buzz around Open Data could be a bit false in some ways, and may be hyped up by private companies who want to make money off of nice data visualizations that they can sell to big donors or governments. The question was raised about how much data actually gets back to those people who provide it so that they can use it for their own purposes?
…
Whose data? A related issue that wasn’t fully discussed at the Salon is: who does the information that is being “opened” actually belong to (in the case of household surveys, for example)? The government? The International NGO or multilateral agency who funds a project or research? The community? And what if a community doesn’t want its data to be open to the world – is anyone asking? What kind of consent is being granted? What are the privacy issues? And what if the government doesn’t want anyone to know the number of X people living in X place who fit X description? Whose decision is it to open data? What are the competing politics?
…
Can new ICTs weaken helpful traditional structures or systems? Is new tech removing some middlemen who were an important part of culture or societal structure? Does it weaken some traditional structures that may actually be useful? The example of the US was given where a huge surge of people now engage directly with their congressperson via Twitter rather than via aggregation channels or other representatives. Can this actually paralyze political systems and make them less functional?
…
Does new technology create parallel structures? Are parallel structures good or bad? In an effort to bypass inefficient and/or unaccountable systems, in one case, private business owners started their own crime reporting and 911 system to respond and accompany victims to report to the police and follow up on incidents. Questions were raised whether this privatization of government roles was taking justice into ones’ own hands, forcing the government to be accountable, allowing it to shirk responsibilities, or providing a way for government to see an innovation and eventually take on a new and more effective system that had been tried and tested with private funds. This same issue can be seen with parallel emergency reporting systems and other similar uses of ICTs..."

Title: Opening government : A guide to best practice in transparency, accountability and civic engagement across the public sector
Source: Transparency and Accountability Initiative
Date (published): 12/07/2011
Date (accessed): 13/07/2011
Type of information: report
Language: English
On-line access: yes (pdf)
Abstract:
"To help inform governments, civil society and the private sector in developing their Open Government Partnership commitments, the Transparency and Accountability Initiative (T/AI) reached out to leading experts across a wide range of open government fields to gather their input on current best practice and the practical steps that OGP participants and other governments can take to achieve it.

The result is the first document of its kind to compile the state of the art in transparency, accountability and citizen participation across 15 areas of governance, ranging from broad categories such as access to information, service delivery and budgeting to more specific sectors such as forestry, procurement and climate finance.

Each expert’s contribution is organized according to three tiers of potential commitments around open government for any given sector—minimal steps for countries starting from a relatively low baseline, more substantial steps for countries that have already made moderate progress, and most ambitious steps for countries that are advanced performers on open government.

REPORT BREAKDOWN

Introduction p3
Illustrative commitments & best practice p5
Aid p6
Asset disclosure p9
Budgets p11
Campaign finance p16
Climate finance p18
Fisheries p20
Financial sector reform p24
Forestry p27
Electricity p30
Environment p32
Extractive industries p37
Open government data p40
Procurement p43
Right to information p45
Service delivery p49"

Title: New Models of Technology Assessment for Development
Authors: Adrian Ely, Patrick Van Zwanenberg and Andrew Stirling
Pages: 50 pp.
ISBN: 978 1 85864 993 5
Source: STEPS Working Paper 45
Publisher: STEPS Centre
Date (published): 02/06/2011
Date (accessed): 13/07/2011
Type of information: research paper
Language: English
On-line access: yes (pdf)
Abstract:
"Technology assessment (TA) is a term for processes that collect, interpret and evaluate information and perspectives about different technological options, in order to inform investments, strategies or policies (see Figure 1). It can play an important part in steering science, technology and innovation towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals and addressing the sustainability objectives at the centre of the Rio+20 summit in June 2012. This briefing outlines work conducted at the STEPS Centre that investigates how ‘new models’ of technology assessment may support these development aims.
...
What are the ‘new models’ of technology assessment?
The new models of technology assessment
- combine citizen and decision-maker participation with technical expertise
- can be conducted ‘virtually’ using new information and communication technologies
- are networked rather than being based in a single office of technology assessment
- are flexible enough to address issues across disciplines and
- are increasingly transnational or global in their reach and scope.

The STEPS Centre report...examines the utility of these ‘new models’ of technology assessment in a broad range of geographical contexts, asking to what extent they can be applied to improving the lives of poor and vulnerable populations in the developing world."

Title: Cutting Through the Hype: Why Citizen Reporting Isn't Election Monitoring
Authors: Katrin Verclas, Anne-Ryan Heatwole
Source: MobileActive.org
Date (published): 31/05/2010
Date (accessed): 01/06/2010
Type of information: blog post
Language: English
On-line access: yes (HTML)
Abstract:
Recently, we’ve been seeing a lot of hype about citizen reporting with mobile phones during elections. It is often conflated with the term “election monitoring,” but this does a disservice to both citizen reporting and election monitoring, a discipline and field that has been around for some 20 years. These two approaches have markedly different goals, target audiences, and processes. We think it is time for readers to definititively understand what election monitoring is in contrast to citizen reporting, and what the role of mobile phone and mapping platforms are in regard to these two very different forms of engagement during elections. We aim to clearly differentiate between them once and for all.

We also urge the adoption of differing terms - citizen reporting during an election versus systematic election monitoring. Mobile phones, SMS, and mapping platforms play a role in both citizen reporting and election monitoring, of course.

We believe that more clearly distinguishing between citizen reporting during an election and the discipline of systematic election monitoring will better serve organizations that are considering using mobile technology for either of these engagement processes.

via http://twitter.com/AudienceScapes and http://twitter.com/mobileactive

Title: Technology for Transparency: The role of technology and citizen media in promoting transparency, accountability, and civic participation
Editor: David Sasaki
Pages: 75 pp.
Source: Transparency and Technology Network
Publisher: Global Voices
Date (published): 27/05/2010
Date (accessed): 28/05/2010
Type of information: research report
Language: English
On-line access: yes (pdf)
Abstract:
This report is the culmination of four months of research examining the objectives, challenges, successes, and effects of online technology projects that aim to promote transparency, political accountability, and civic engagement in Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia, South Asia, China, and Central & Eastern Europe. A team of eight regional researchers documented a total of 37 case studies of relevant technology projects. Though this report contains only executive summaries of each case study, full interviews including audio podcasts and related documents, are available on our website. In addition to the in-depth case studies, we have also documented over 30 project listings, which provide basic descriptive information and context about related projects.

This report is structured in three sections. The introduction examines the differing aspects between traditional watchdog journalism and online media that rely on raw data sources, often directly from government websites. The introduction also aims to contextualize the benefits of transparency, accountability, and civic engagement from a grassroots, networked perspective. The second section of the report consists of regional overviews authored by each of our eight researchers. These overviews document the history of the good governance movement in each region, the role of technology in promoting transparency and accountability, and summaries of the case studies they documented. The concluding section groups case studies thematically in order draw out trends, conclusions, and recommendations that apply across a number of projects.

Title: Incentives and Participation in Development Communication. Evidence from 63 recent projects
Author: Emile McAnany
Source: Glocal Times
Publisher: Malmö University
Date (published): 27/10/2009
Date (accessed): 14/01/2010
Type of information: research article
Language: English
On-line access: yes (HTML)
Abstract:
Economic incentives and the participation of communities can both be powerful rivers of successful innovation and expansion. This article explores a sample of “best cases” applying innovative technologies to solve urgent problems and looks into how the communication of innovative ideas for development could be fostered in order to make solutions available to those who need and might use them.

Title: E-Gov Versus Open Gov: The Evolution of E-Democracy
Author: Jenn Gustetic
Pages: 10 pp.
Publisher: Phase One Consulting Group
Date (published): 11/12/2009
Date (accessed): 12/12/2009
Type of information: research report
Language: English
On-line access: yes (HTML)
Abstract:
How is the Obama Administration’s Open Government (Open Gov) initiative different from the Bush Administration’s E-government (E-gov) initiative? There are many people who use the two terms interchangeably but this paper argues that although they are distinct initiatives in the United States, they are also part of the same E-democracy maturity continuum. Thus while they should not be handled totally separately, they should not be combined either. This paper provides a short history and terminology discussion and then compares and contrasts the two initiatives.

(via http://twitter.com/jspeigel1 )

Title: State of the eUnion: Government 2.0 and Onwards
Editors: John Gøtze, Christian Bering Pedersen, Foreword by Don Tapscott
Pages: 321 pp.
Publisher: 21Gov.net
Date (published): 18/11/2009
Date (accessed): 19/11/2009
Type of information: book
Language: English
On-line access: yes (HTML)
"The future of eGovernment is up for discussion when ministers of IT and Technology from all over Europe gather in Malmö, Sweden on November 18, 2009.

But what is the status of eGovernment? In a new book, published on the same day as the minister meeting, 34 global thought-leaders in the field, including Don Tapscott, Tim O’Reilly and Lawrence Lessig, have contributed their views and ideas about the current state of eGovernment and what has come to be known as Government 2.0.

The book’s themes include:
* How the “web 2.0″ revolution affects eGovernment activities
* How the digital grassroots, entrepreneurs and ‘goverati’ are working to change government
* How new tools, used over the internet, are going to change the way government interacts with citizens"

Download here
1,1 MB