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Posts Tagged ‘transparency’

New report: Opening Governance

Posted in accountability, development, governance, ICTs, mobile and technology, mobile, mobile and technology, open data, open development, open government, participation, politics, technology, transparency, tagged accountablity, data, development, governance, IDS Bulletin, open, opening governance, technology, transparency on January 26, 2016| 1 Comment »

Photo: Duncan Edwards, IDS.

A 2010 review of imp act and effectiveness of transparency and accountability initiatives, conducted by Rosie McGee and John Gaventa of the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), found a prevalence of untested assumptions and weak theories of change in projects, programs and strategies. This week IDS is publishing their latest Bulletin titled “Opening Governance,” which offers a compilation of evidence and contributions focusing specifically on Technology in Transparency and Accountability (Tech for T&A).

It has a good range of articles that delve into critical issues in the Tech for T&A and Open Government spaces; help to clarify concepts and design; explore gender inequity as related to information access; and unpack the ‘dark side’ of digital politics, algorithms and consent.

In the opening article, editors Duncan Edwards and Rosie McGee (both currently working with the IDS team that leads the Making All Voices Count Research, Learning and Evidence component) give a superb in-depth review of the history of Tech for T&A and outline some of the challenges that have stemmed from ambiguous or missing conceptual frameworks and a proliferation of “buzzwords and fuzzwords.”

They unpack the history of and links between concepts of “openness,” “open development,” “open government,” “open data,” “feedback loops,” “transparency,” “accountability,” and “ICT4D (ICT for Development)” and provide some examples of papers and evidence that could help to recalibrate expectations among scholars and practitioners (and amongst donors, governments and policy-making bodies, one hopes).

The editors note that conceptual ambiguity continues to plague the field of Tech for T&A, causing technical problems because it hinders attempts to demonstrate impact; and creating political problems “because it clouds the political and ideological differences between projects as different as open data and open governance.”

The authors hope to stoke debate and promote the existing evidence in order to tone down the buzz. Likewise, they aim to provide greater clarity to the Tech for T&A field by offering concrete conclusions stemming from the evidence that they have reviewed and digested.

Download the Opening Governance report here.

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The revolution will not be in open data

Posted in accountability, communication for development, communications, development, governance, IATI, ICT4D, ICTs, mobile and technology, monitoring and evaluation, open data, open development, open government, open knowledge, participation, transparency, wait... what?, tagged accountability, data, development, Duncan Edwards, Geneva, OK Con, open, Theory of Change, ToC, transparency on October 22, 2013| 6 Comments »

This is a cross-post by Duncan Edwards from the Institute of Development Studies. Duncan and I collaborated on some sessions for the Open Development stream at September’s Open Knowledge Conference, and we are working on a few posts to sum up what we discussed there and highlight some lingering thoughts on open development and open data. This post was originally published on the Open Knowledge Foundation blog on October 21, 2013

by Duncan Edwards

I’ve had a lingering feeling of unease that things were not quite right in the world of open development and ICT4D (Information and communication technology for development), so at September’s Open Knowledge Conference in Geneva I took advantage of the presence of some of the world’s top practitioners in these two areas to explore the question: How does “openness” really effect change within development?

Inspiration for the session came from a number of conversations I’ve had over the last few years. My co-conspirator/co-organiser of the OKCon side event “Reality check: Ethics and Risk in Open Development,” Linda Raftree, had also been feeling uncomfortable with the framing of many open development projects, assumptions being made about how “openness + ICTs = development outcomes,” and a concern that risks and privacy were not being adequately considered. We had been wondering whether the claims made by Open Development enthusiasts were substantiated by any demonstrable impact. For some reason, as soon as you introduce the words “open data” and “ICT,” good practice in development gets thrown out the window in the excitement to reach “the solution”.

A common narrative in many “open” development projects goes along the lines of “provide access to data/information –> some magic occurs –> we see positive change.” In essence, because of the newness of this field, we only know what we THINK happens, we don’t know what REALLY happens because there is a paucity of documentation and evidence.

It’s problematic that we often use the terms data, information, and knowledge interchangeably, because:
Data is NOT knowledge.
Data is NOT information.
Information is NOT knowledge.
Knowledge IS what you know. It’s the result of information you’ve consumed, your education, your culture, beliefs, religion, experience – it’s intertwined with the society within which you live.

Data cake metaphor developed by Mark Johnstone.

Understanding and thinking through how we get from the “openness” of data, to how this affects how and what people think, and consequently how they MIGHT act, is critical in whether “open” actually has any additional impact.

At Wednesday’s session, panellist Matthew Smith from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) talked about the commonalities across various open initiatives. Matthew argued that a larger Theory of Change (ToC) around how ‘open’ leads to change on a number of levels could allow practitioners to draw out common points. The basic theory we see in open initiatives is “put information out, get a feedback loop going, see change happen.” But open development can be sliced in many ways, and we tend to work in silos when talking about openness. We have open educational resources, open data, open government, open science, etc. We apply ideas and theories of openness in a number of domains but we are not learning across these domains.

We explored the theories of change underpinning two active programmes that incorporate a certain amount of “openness” in their logic. Simon Colmer from the Knowledge Services department at the Institute of Development Studies outlined his department’s theory of change of how research evidence can help support decision-making in development policy-making and practice. Erik Nijland from HIVOS presented elements of the theory of change that underpins the Making All Voices Count programme, which looks to increase the links between citizens and governments to improve public services and deepen democracy. Both of these ToCs assume that because data/information is accessible, people will use it within their decision-making processes.

They also both assume that intermediaries play a critical role in analysis, translation, interpretation, and contextualisation of data and information to ensure that decision makers (whether citizens, policy actors, or development practitioners) are able to make use of it. Although access is theoretically open, in practice even mediated access is not equal – so how might this play out in respect to marginalised communities and individuals?

What neither ToC really does is unpack who these intermediaries are. What are their politics? What are their drivers for mediating data and information? What is the effect of this? A common assumption is that intermediaries are somehow neutral and unbiased – does this assumption really hold true?

What many open data initiatives do not consider is what happens after people are able to access and internalise open data and information. How do people act once they know something? As Vanessa Herringshaw from the Transparency and Accountability Initiative said in the “Raising the Bar for ambition and quality in OGP” session, “We know what transparency should look like but things are a lot less clear on the accountability end of things”.

There are a lot of unanswered questions. Do citizens have the agency to take action? Who holds power? What kind of action is appropriate or desirable? Who is listening? And if they are listening, do they care?

Linda finished up the panel by raising some questions around the assumptions that people make decisions based on information rather than on emotion, and that there is a homogeneous “public” or “community” that is waiting for data/information upon which to base their opinions and actions.

So as a final thought, here’s my (perhaps clumsy) 2013 update on Gil Scott Heron’s 1970 song “The Revolution will not be televised”:

“The revolution will NOT be in Open data,
It will NOT be in hackathons, data dives, and mobile apps,
It will NOT be broadcast on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube,
It will NOT be live-streamed, podcast, and available on catch-up
The revolution will not be televised”

Heron’s point, which holds true today, was that “the revolution” or change, starts in the head. We need to think carefully about how we get far beyond access to data.

Look out for a second post coming soon on Theories of Change in Open, and a third post on ethics and risk in open data and open development.

And if you’re interested in joining the conversation, \sign up to our Open Development mailing list.

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Glass Houses… INGOs and Walking the Talk on IATI

Posted in accountability, development, IATI, monitoring and evaluation, open data, open development, smart aid, transparency, tagged compliance, IATI, INGO, plan usa, publish what you fund, transparency, transparency index on April 23, 2013| 1 Comment »

This is a cross-post from Tessie San Martin, CEO of Plan International USA. Tessie’s original post is published on the Plan International USA blog. For more on the status of the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI) in the US and information on which donors sit where on the Transparency Index, visit Publish What You Fund.

Over 40 governments, along with UN organizations and the World Bank, have committed to a common standard and time schedule for publishing aid information under the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI). There are high expectations for this initiative. The ultimate objective is to increase the effectiveness of donor assistance, making aid work for those whom we are trying to help and contributing to accelerated development outcomes on the ground. IATI is good news for increased accountability, can help improve coordination, and provides a space for engaging donors, communities, governments and the general public in a broader development dialogue.

Secretary of State Clinton signed on behalf of the US Government on November 2011. While US engagement has been very welcomed, US Government performance in terms of actually executing IATI has left much to be desired. Publish What You Fund, an organization helping to ensure governments are held to their initial aid transparency commitments, ranked only one out of six agencies (MCC) in the ‘fair’ category in terms of execution. Recently, organizations like Oxfam and ONE have rightly questioned the US Government’s commitment and progress, and exhorted the Obama administration to make full compliance with the IATI standard a priority.

But with all the attention focused on how USG is performing, what are INGOs doing about IATI? After all, governments can only open access to the data they have. Official development assistance is an increasingly smaller proportion of the entire aid flows, so having INGOs — particularly, and at the very least, the largest global INGOs — also committed to this process is vital to the success of the Initiative.

What are INGO’s doing about IATI? The answer is: not much.

Very few INGOs have committed to publishing their information to the IATI standard. INGOs that have complied are doing so primarily because a donor is requiring it. For example, DfID, the UK foreign aid agency, has such a requirement and, as a result, the UK has the largest number of INGOs in compliance. The US Government has not imposed this requirement on US-based INGOs and it is not likely to do so in the future. It is therefore not surprising that US-based INGOs have not shown much interest in IATI.

This is a lost opportunity for everyone. Accountability and transparency are as relevant to the private and the non-profit side of development assistance as they are to the public side.

At Plan International, an INGO with offices in almost 70 countries, it is not surprising that the part of our organization making the fastest strides in this area is our office in the United Kingdom. As an important recipient of DfID money, they were instructed to do so. In the US, though Plan International USA is not a major recipient of USG funding, we believe that making the investment to comply with IATI reporting format and timelines is good development practice; we are thus committed to publishing to IATI in the next year. How can we effectively preach transparency and increased accountability to our recipient communities and to the governments with which we are working yet not commit to something as eminently common sensical as uniform formats, comparable data sets and systematic reporting frequencies?

We are not Pollyannaish about the task. Like all INGOs pondering whether and how to comply with IATI, we have many concerns, including the costs of complying and what it will do to our overhead (and therefore to something like our Charity Navigator) rating. We have established an internal project code so we can better capture, track and understand the costs involved in this initiative. And we are evaluating where we draw the line in terms of the size of the projects on which we should be reporting, balancing costs with the desire to maximize disclosure (it is also worth remembering that rating agencies themselves are placing increasing emphasis on transparent reporting, so rating concerns may ultimately support a move towards greater IATI compliance).

As we have moved forward, we have had many issues to address, including privacy concerns, since a fair bit of Plan’s internal documentation was not written with the idea that it would one day be shared with the public. Publishing some information may pose security risks for minority or political groups being supported. These situations have been contemplated by IATI already, however, and there are valid exemptions for sensitive data. We have also learned that there are many resources to help INGOs navigate the IATI compliance waters. These resources are not well known to US INGOs, and need to be better publicized. Plan in the US, of course, is also benefiting from the research and hard work our UK office has done to comply with DfID’s mandate, allowing us to start off on a strong foundation of organizational experience.

I am convinced that IATI is not just good development practice but also makes good business sense. At the same time, it is worth remembering that IATI is not the entire solution. IATI is designed to improve upward accountability to donors and taxpayers. It is not designed explicitly to improve accountability to the children and communities with which we are partnering and whom we serve. And, as the ultimate goal is improved aid effectiveness, data must be accompanied by better information about goals, methodologies and approaches. We also need to get better at sharing not just successes but failures within our federation and across all development organizations.

Despite all the shortcomings, IATI is a good start. And as we push the US Government to do better, INGOs need to be pushing themselves to do better as well.

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Open data, open government and critical consciousness

Posted in accountability, activism, communication for development, development, governance, ICT4D, ICTs, mobile and technology, open data, open development, open government, participation, politics, transparency, wait... what?, tagged accountability, critical consciousness, data, EWB, forum, governance, government, ICTs, open, participation, policy, right to information, rural communities, transparency on January 18, 2013| 1 Comment »

Here’s a recap of my panel talk at the Engineers Without Borders, Canada, Annual Policy Forum. (A summary of the wider discussions on Open Government and Community and Economic Development at the Forum is here)

Open data are having some impact as seen in 4 key areas (according to what I heard at July’s International Open Government Data Conference). These are:

economic growth/entrepreneurship
transparency, accountability and governance
improved resource allocation and provision of services
connecting data dots and telling stories the public needs to know

Open data should be part of the public’s right to information, not a service that government can decide whether to provide or not. Open government should include open attitudes, open ways of being, not only open data and use of technology. It should be inclusive and seek to engage those who do not normally participate, as well as those who are already active. It should go further than data about public services and also encompass those aspects that may be uncomfortable and politically charged.

Opening data is only a first step – and there are still big gaps. ‘Open’ does not automatically mean accessible, useful, relevant or accountable. Although new ICTs offer huge potential, focusing too much on technologies and data can marginalize a range of voices from the current discussion about (and implementation of) open government initiatives and processes. Much about these processes is currently top down and focused at the international and national levels, or sometimes district level. Community level data would be a huge step towards local accountability work.

We can address the gaps. First we need to understand, acknowledge and design for the barriers and/or challenges in each particular environment, including the barriers of ICT access for some groups; e.g:

lack of connectivity and electricity
cost of devices, cost of connection
lack of time and resources to participate
low education levels, low capacity to interpret data
power and culture, apathy, lack of incentives and motivation, lack of interest and/or fatalism, disempowerment
poor capacity and/or lack of interest by duty bearers/governments (or particular individuals within government) to respond to citizen demand for services or transparency/accountability

We also need to support:

consultations with and engagement of citizens in different places, different sectors, economic levels, etc., from the very beginning of the open government process
better understanding of what is important to citizens and communities
generation of awareness and demand, better local ownership, expectations of responsive government
champions within local and national government, strengthened capacity and motivation to collect and share data; strengthened coordination
space for dialogue and discussion among citizens, communities, civil society organizations and governments

Government responsiveness matters. A lot. So when working in open government we need to ensure that if there are ways to input and report, that there is also responsiveness, willingness on government side and the right attitude(s) or it will not succeed.

Open Data/Open Government portals are not enough. I’ve heard that donors know more about the open government portal in Kenya than Kenyan NGOs, Kenyan media and Kenyan citizens. It’s important to work with skilled intermediaries, infomediaries and civil society organizations who have a transparency mandate to achieve bigger picture, social motivation, large-scale awareness and education, and help create demand from public. But these intermediaries need to strive to be as objective and unbiased as possible. If there is no response to citizen demand, the initiative is sunk. You may either go back to nothing, increase apathy, or find people using less peaceful approaches.

Great tech examples exist! But…. how to learn from them, adapt them or combine them to address the aforementioned barriers? Initiatives like Huduma, U-Report, I Paid a Bribe have gotten great press. We heard from Ugandan colleagues at the Open Knowledge Festival that people will use SMS and pay for it when the information they get is relevant; but we still need to think about who is being left out or marginalized and how to engage them.

We need to also consider age-old (well, 1970s) communication for development (C4D) and ‘educación popular’ approaches. New ICT tools can be added to these in some cases as well. For example, integrating SMS or call-in options make it possible for radio stations to interact more dynamically with listeners. Tools like FrontlineSMS Radio allow tracking, measuring and visualization of listener feedback. The development of ‘critical consciousness’ and critical thinking should be a key part of these processes.

Existing successful social accountability tools, like community scorecards, participatory budget advocacy, social audits, participatory video, participatory theater and community mapping have all been used successfully in accountability and governance work and may be more appropriate tools in some cases than Internet and mobile apps to generate citizen engagement around open data.

Combining new ICTs with these well-established approaches can help take open data offline and bring community knowledge and opinions online, so that open data is not strictly a top-down thing and so that community knowledge and processes can be aggregated, added to or connected back to open data sets and more widely shared via the Internet (keeping in mind a community’s right also to not have their data shared).

A smart combination of information and communication tools – whether Internet, mobile apps, posters, print media, murals, song, drama, face-to-face, radio, video, comics, community bulletin boards, open community fora or others – and a bottom-up, consultative, ‘educación popular’ approach to open data could help open data reach a wider group of citizens and equip them not only with information but with a variety of channels through which to participate more broadly in the definition of the right questions to ask and a wider skill set to use open data to question power and push for more accountability and positive social change. Involved and engaged media or “data journalists” can help to bring information to the public and stimulate a culture of more transparency and accountability. Responsiveness and engagement of government and opportunities for open dialogue and discussion among various actors in a society are also key. Community organizing will remain a core aspect of successful civic participation and accountability efforts.

[Photo credits: (1) Phone charging in a community with limited electricity, photo by youth working with the Youth Empowerment through Arts and Media (YETAM) program in Senegal; (2) Youth training session during YETAM project Cameroon, photo by me (3) Gaps in open data and open government work, diagram by Liza Douglas, Plan International USA; (4) Local government authority and communities during discussions in Cameroon, photo by me; (5) Youth making a map of their community in Cameroon, photo by Ernest Kunbega]

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16 thoughts on open government and community and economic development

Posted in accountability, C4D, communication for development, communications, development, governance, ICT4D, mapping, monitoring and evaluation, open data, open development, open government, open knowledge, participation, politics, protection, smart aid, social media, transparency, tagged accountability, aid, annual policy forum, citizen, engagement, EWB, government, grassroots, IATI, intermediaries, international aid transparency initiative, mapping, open data, open government, participation, privacy, transparency on January 16, 2013| 8 Comments »

This past Monday I had the opportunity to join Engineers without Borders (EWB) in Calgary, Canada, at their Annual Policy Forum on Global Development to discuss “How can open government contribute to community and economic development?”

Morning panels covered some examples of open government initiatives from Finland, Ghana and Canada. In the afternoon we heard about some of the challenges with open data, open government and the International Aid Transparency Initiative. Table discussions followed both of the panels. The group was a mix of Canadian and African government representatives, people from organizations and groups working in different countries on open government and open data initiatives, and young people who are connected with EWB. The session was under Chatham House Rule in order to encourage frank conversation.

Drawing from such documents as the Open Government Partnership’s Open Government Declaration, Harlan Yu and David G. Robinson’s “The New Ambiguity of “Open Government,” Beth Noveck’s What’s in a Name? Open Gov and Good Gov and Nathaniel Heller, A Working Definition of ‘Open Government’, the following definition of Open Government was used to frame the discussions.

Below (in a very-much-longer-than-you-are-supposed-to-write-in-a-blogpost summary) are the highlights and points I found interesting and useful as related to Open Development, Open Data, Open Government and the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI)

1. Participation thresholds need to be as low as possible for people to participate and engage in open government or open data initiatives. You need to understand well what engagement tools are most useful or comfortable for different groups. In some places, to engage the public you can use tools such as etherpad, wiki platforms, google docs, open tools and online collaboration spaces. In other places and with other populations, regardless of what country, you may be more successful with face-to-face methods or with traditional media like television and radio, but these need to be enhanced with different types of feedback methods like phone calls or surveys or going house to house so that your information is not only traveling one way. Community organizing skills are key to this work, regardless of whether the tools are digital or not.

2. Literacy remains a huge challenge hindering access to information and citizen engagement in holding government accountable in many countries. This is why face-to-face engagement is important, as well as radio and more popular or broad-based communication channels. One participant asked “how can you make open government a rural, rather than an urban only, phenomenon?” This question resonated for participants from all countries.

3. Language is still a critical issue. Language poses a big challenge for these kinds of initiatives, from the grassroots level to the global level, within and among countries, for citizens, governments, and anyone trying to share or collect data or information. It was noted that all the countries who have published data to IATI are publishing in English. All the IATI Standards are in English, as is the entire support system for IATI. As one participant noted, this begs the question of who the information in IATI is actually designed for and serving, and who are the expected users of it. Open data initiatives should consider the implications of language they publish in, both politically and practically.

4. Open data can serve to empower the already empowered. As one speaker noted, “the idea that everyone has the potential to make use of open data is simply not true.” Access to digital infrastructure and educational resource may be missing, meaning that many do not have the ability to access, interpret or use data for their own purposes. Governments can also manipulate data and selectively release data that serves their own interests. Some questioned government motives, citing the example of a government that released “data” saying its unemployment rate was 10% when “everyone knew this to be false, and people grumbled but we did not feel empowered to challenge that statement.” Concern was expressed over the lack of an independent body or commission in some countries to oversee open data and open government processes. Some did not trust the government bodies who were currently in charge of collecting and opening information, saying that due to politics, they would never release any information that made their party or their government look bad.

5. Privacy rights can be exploited if data is opened without data protection laws and effort to build capacity around how to make certain data anonymous. Citizens may also not be aware of what rights are being violated, so this should also be addressed.

6. Too much open data discussion takes place without a power analysis, as one participant commented, making some of the ideas around open data and open government somewhat naïve. “Those who have the greatest stake will be the most determined to push their point of view and to make sure it prevails.”

7. Open data needs to become open data 2.0. According to one participant, open data is still mostly one-way information delivery. In some cases there isn’t even any delivery – information is opened on a portal but no one knows it’s there or what it refers to or why it would be useful. When will open data, open government and open aid become more of a dialogue? When will data be released that answers questions that citizens have rather than the government deciding what it will release? The importance of working with community groups to strengthen their capacity to ask questions and build critical consciousness to question the data was emphasized. A counter point was that government is not necessarily there to start collecting information or creating data sets according to public demand. Governments collect certain data to help them function.

8. Intermediaries working on open government should be careful of real or perceived bias. Non-profits have their own agendas, and ‘open data’ and ‘open information’ is not immune to being interpreted in non-objective ways. Those working on civic engagement initiatives need to be careful that they are not biased in their support for citizen initiatives. One presenter who works on a platform that encourages citizens to be involved in petitioning new laws for contemplation in Parliament said “Our software is open source so that anyone can set up a similar process to compete with us if they feel we are biased towards one or another type of agenda.”

9. Technology-based engagement tools change who is participating. Whether in Finland, Canada, Ghana or Malawi, it’s critical to think about reaching those who are not active already online, those who are not the typical early adopters. To reach a broader public, one speaker noted “We are going to remote places, doing events in smaller towns and cities to see how people want to influence and take part in this. Making sure the website is accessible and understandable.”

10. Technological platforms are modifying how political parties and democratic processes operate. This may or may not be a good thing. Normally priorities arise and are discussed within political parties. Will people now bypass the party process and use ‘direct democracy’ channels if they are passionate about an issue but do not want to enter into negotiation around it? Will this weaken political processes or longer standing democratic processes? One speaker considered this change to be positive. People are not happy with being able to vote every 4 years and they want opportunities to participate in between elections cycles and direct voice in how priorities are decided. Others questioned whether bypassing official processes can lead to less participation and more apathy overall on national issues. Some questioned whether within fairly long-standing democracies, open data will have any real impact, considering existing levels of apathy and the lack of political participation.

11. Strong information, statistical, monitoring and evaluation systems are critical for open data and open government processes and to ensure more effective management of development results. This is still a challenge for some countries that need to review their mechanisms and improve their tools and processes for data collection and dissemination. If there is no data, or no current data, there is not much point in opening it. In addition, there are capacity and technical competency challenges within institutions in some countries. One participant mentioned a lack of current government geological information about gold and oil deposits that weakens government capacity to negotiate with the private sector extraction industry and ensure partnerships and earnings will contribute to national development. In addition more evidence is needed on the impact, use, and outcomes of open data. At the moment it’s quite difficult to say with any real authority what the outcomes and impact of open data and open government have been.

12. IATI (International Aid Transparency Initiative) needs more partners. Government representatives noted that they are opening their data, but they can only open the data they possess. In order for data on aid to be useful, more data is needed, especially that of NGOs who are implementing programs. Not many NGOs have published their information to the IATI standard at this point. “The really interesting thing will be when we can start mashing up and mapping out the different kinds of information,” as one speaker noted, “for example, this is the goal of the Open Aid Partnership. It will involve combining information from the donor, development indicators from the World Bank, and country information, and this will open up amazing possibilities once this is all geo-coded.” There are reporting challenges related to IATI and open government data, however, because at times countries and NGOs do not see the benefits of reporting – it feels like just one more top-down administrative burden. There are also issues with donor governments reporting their committed intentions and amounts, recipient governments reporting back, and communications with citizens on both sides (donor and recipient countries). One example that was reported to be enjoying some success was the multi-donor budget support initiative in Ghana, where development partners and government work together to establish development indicators and commitments. If the government delivers on the indicators, the development partners will then provide them with the funding. Development partners can also earmark funding to particular areas if there is government agreement.

13. We need more accountability towards ‘beneficiaries’.Currently many of these initiatives are perceived as being focused on donors and donor publics. As one participant noted, “the interesting thing is less about government and more about getting regular people involved in these processes. When you engage the public you’ll engage government leaders in thinking they will need to change to respond to what citizens are asking for.” Another noted that the essential issue is the link between transparency/accountability and citizens and their own governments. In addition, as one participant asked, “How can you strengthen capacity among citizens to ask the right questions about the data that’s being opened?” For example, citizens may ask about the number of schools being built, but not ask about the quality of education being provided. Public education was a strong focus of discussions around citizen engagement during the policy forum.

14. Should citizens be consulted on everything? however, was one big question. The public at large may not understand the ramifications of its own deep misunderstandings on particular issues and may be inputting from a viewpoint that lacks scientific evidence or fact. “It’s one thing to have an opinion about whether your child should be able to drink energy drinks before age 16, it’s another to input about technical programs like the best policy for green energy,” commented one group.

15. Can citizens really have greater participation if government is still in control of data? was another big question. An example was given of an open consultative process that became unwieldy for a local government, which then shut down the consultation process and changed the nature of the documents to ‘administrative’ and therefore no longer open. Others asked why governments pat themselves on the back over being part of the Open Government Partnership yet they do not have Freedom of Information Acts (FOIA) or they prosecute those who open data in alternative ways, such as Bradley Manning and Aaron Swartz.

16. If citizens don’t get a response from government (or if they don’t like the response, or feel it’s biased or manipulated), apathy and cynicism will increase. It’s important to make sure that ‘open government’ is not just a box that gets ticked off, but rather a long-term change in mentality of those in power and deeper expectations and efforts by citizens for openness and participation in conversations of national importance.

The conclusion was that Open Government is somewhat of a paradox, rooted in aims that are not necessarily new. Open Government strives to enable leaders in their communities to create change and transform their lives and those of people in their communities. It is a complex process that involves many actors and multiple conflicting goals and interests. It’s also something new that we are all learning about and experimenting with, but we are very impatient to know what works and what the impact is. In the room, the feeling was one of ‘radical pragmatism,’ as one participant put it. Open Government is a big idea that represents a big change. It’s something that can transform communities at the global level and there is a great deal of hope and excitement around it. At the same time, we need to acknowledge the challenges associated with it in order to address them and move things forward.

I’ll do a follow up post with the points I made during the panel as this post is clearly way too too long already. Kudos if you are still reading, and a huge thanks to the organizers and participants in the EWB policy forum.

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Does ‘open’ equal ‘accessible’?

Posted in accountability, development, El Salvador, governance, ICT4D, ICTs, mobile and technology, m4D, open data, open development, open government, open knowledge, participation, politics, social justice, social media, transparency, wait... what?, youth, tagged accountability, david rodriguez, El Salvador, governance, government, Marco Rodriguez, Max Rodriguez, OK Fest, OK Festival, open development, transparency on September 20, 2012| 2 Comments »

OK Festival is in full swing here in Helsinki, and if today is anything like the past two days, it will be full of information and exchange on everything “open.”

A number of us have been working hard to pull together the Open Development Stream, which started yesterday and which followed very nicely on Tuesday’s fantastic series of panels on Transparency and Accountability (with a heavy focus on the Open Government Partnership and Open Data) and the Open Data Journalism and Visualization streams.

Here’s a quick Storify summary of yesterday’s last Open Development session “Taking it Local: 10 ways to make ‘open’ relevant in low resource or marginalized contexts,” It was moderated by Soren Gigler from the World Bank’s Innovation for Governance Team and included superb group of panelists: David Rodriguez, Michael Gurstein, Huy Eng, Philip Thigo, and Barbara Birungi.

For the session, my colleagues David and Max Rodriguez from Plan El Salvador did some really great short videos around transparency, internet access, connectivity and related topics and how they are perceived and lived out in rural communities where they are working.

This first video with Marco Rodriguez (he’s also on Twitter), the Sub-Secretary of Transparency for the Government of El Salvador, is just a small example of some of the realities around “open” and accessibility, and the challenges of engaging every day people in some of the initiatives we are talking about here at OK Festival. (Not to mention it and the other videos with Marco and others have a number of fantastic metaphors and soundbites!)

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What does ‘open knowledge’ have to do with ‘open development’?

Posted in development, ICT4D, ICTs, mobile and technology, m4D, open data, open development, open government, open knowledge, participation, social media, transparency, wait... what?, tagged 2012, accountability, development, Helsinki, ICTs, OKFest, open development, open knowledge, practitioners, transparency on June 29, 2012| 1 Comment »

The Open Knowledge Festival (OKFest) happens this September 17-22 in Helsinki, Finland with the theme Open Knowledge in Action. OKFest will explore the benefits of opening up knowledge and information, look at the ecosystems of organisations that can benefit from openness, and discuss the impact that more transparency can have in our societies. OKFest will run 13 key Topic Streams, one of which will focus on the topic of ‘Open Development’.

So what does ‘open knowledge’ have to do with ‘open development’? And why are people putting the word ‘open’ in front of everything these days?

Well, in addition to being a bit of a buzz word or trend, the idea behind ‘open’ is that making data and information more accessible and less restricted can enhance transparency, accountability, sharing, and collaboration. This in turn can benefit development processes. (See this post for ideas on how openness and information literacy links with participatory governance, for example.)

As Matthew Smith, a strong proponent of ‘open development,’ says, ‘openness’ is not a new concept, especially with respect to development theory. Democracy and participation represent an opening up of decision-making processes to more people. Transparency and accountability are about opening up organizations, people and processes to scrutiny and feedback.

The Internet and new ICTs such as mobile phones play a big part in the idea of ‘open’ since these platforms and tools can allow data and information to be shared more freely and widely. The concept of ‘open development’ according to Smith is enhanced by ICTs when it favors:

Universal over restricted access to communication tools and information. For example, access to the telecommunications infrastructure through a mobile phone or access to online [educational] content or government information.
Universal over restricted participation in informal and formal groups/institutions. For example, the use of SMS to mobilize political protests or new e-government implementations that provide increased transparency and new accountability arrangements.
Collaborative over centralized production of information, cultural content, and physical goods. For example, collaborative production of school textbooks, co-creation of government services, mesh networks.

Attitudes and behaviors also play a part in ‘openness.’ Smith notes that egalitarianism and sharing are two core concepts within ‘openness:’

Egalitarianism suggests an equal right to participate (access, use and collaborate).
Sharing is embedded in the idea of enhanced access to things that were otherwise normally restricted. This enhanced access is often motivated by the normative desire to share – whether through an obligation to contribute to the common good or to participate in a coordinated or collaborative activity.

Policies, practices and philosophies that allow data and information to be shared are also a part of ‘open’. Tim Davies explains ‘open data‘ as:

a set of policies and practices – open data should be accessible (online); standardized (in a common format) and reusable (open licenses)
a response to how tech and society is changing – bandwidth is growing, there is more capacity to share and analyze data, people want to do things for themselves and analyze information for themselves rather than have someone do it for them.
a tendency towards new combinations of data – seen in ‘mash-up’ websites where people pull data from different sources, combine them with other sources, add crowd-sourced information and maps, etc.
a philosophy or movement – there is a push to open information and access to knowledge because information is power; there is a tendency toward greater collaboration, transparency and collaboration

The Open Development stream at OKFest will explore ways that openness can help address key development challenges, from reducing poverty to improving access to education and healthcare to mitigating climate change and managing natural resources to improving transparency, accountability and governance. One of the most important aspects of the Open Development stream will be the participation of development practitioners and thematic experts on development.

As guest program planners for the Open Development stream*, we are determined to support two-way learning about how open data and open knowledge can benefit development. We know that ICTs and new technologies cannot work in a vacuum and that open information on its own is not enough. We know that creating ICT tools and applications without basing them on real needs and local context is not helpful, useful or sustainable. We also know that traditionally excluded and marginalized populations are the ones that most often do not have access to information and new ICTs, and therefore open access to information and knowledge needs to be part of a broader and more holistic development approach that takes care to include those who are often marginalized and excluded.

Within the Open Development stream, we will offer space where those working with new technologies and those working on development issues can learn more about each other and work on joint solutions that are based on local realities and that take advantage of new opportunities that new ICTs and ‘open knowledge’ can offer.

The Open Development stream will bring together key thinkers and doers in the ‘open’ movement and the development sector via a panel discussion. We are also organizing 3 working sessions to explore:

Open development and aid flows. Here we will look more internally at ways that greater openness in aid and development funding, activities and impact (such as the International Aid Transparency Initiative – IATI) can help make aid more transparent, accountable, coordinated and effective. What are the new opportunities Open Data and Open Knowledge provide? How can aid and aid organizations be more open, transparent and accountable?

Open = accessible? In this session we will explore practical issues and the realities of access to and use of open information in low-resource settings. We will hear opinions and realities from development practitioners regarding a series of critical questions such as: Open for who? Open for what? Is open data enough? How can we design for accessibility in communities with lower resources and access and/or in ‘developing’ countries? Who are the new information intermediaries (aka ‘infomediaries‘)? How can we ensure that ‘open’ is not replicating existing exclusions, creating a new middle-class or benefiting already well-off sections of communities and societies?

Technologies for open development In this session we will focus on the role that ICTs and open technologies, from open source to open hardware, can play in development. We will hear ideas from development workers, technology evangelists and those who bridge the two fields.

In addition to these sessions, there will be an ‘Open Development Hack Day‘ where development practitioners can share development challenges with the OKFest community to create mobile and other ICT applications.

Events like OKFest can be overwhelming the first time you participate in them, but we are committed to making sure everyone who attends OKFest can join the discussions, contribute ideas, and learn from the wealth of keynotes, sessions and workshops. The organizers of the Open Development Stream will be on hand to support participants working in development and those who are new to the Open Knowledge World to navigate the conference via daily birds-of-a-feather gatherings, catch-up sessions and more.

In order for our stream to be a success, we need the participation of development practitioners and development workers! The core OKFest team has made a number of travel bursaries available to help potential participants with the costs of getting to Finland, and the open development stream team are also working hard to encourage development organisations to support staff and associates from projects in the ‘global south’ to take part. If you need help securing support from your organization or funders to take part, then get in touch with the team (okfest-dev@practicalparticipation.co.uk) and we will do what we can to help.

UPDATE (July 19, 2012) – copied from the OK Fest website:

Sida, the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, offers travel bursaries to a number of development practitioners and coders taking part in the Open Development topic stream. These travel bursaries will cover all reasonable flight costs and accommodation for the duration of the conference core days. A week ticket to the festival is also included. Transportation to/from airport and within Helsinki and food costs are not covered by travel bursaries.

Who are these Bursaries For?

The Sida travel bursaries are for development practitioners and coders who can make a significant contribution to the festival, but who are not able to take part without financial aid. People who are taking an active part in the Open Development topic stream will be prioritised. We will also prioritise those who truly cannot make it to Helsinki on their own without financial help, e.g. people from developing countries.

Be sure to fill out the application form here before the deadline on August 8!

For more on OKFest, watch the slideshow:

OKFestival 2012 | Helsinki Finland

*Tim Davies from AidInfo, Sarah Johns, Mika Valitalo and I from Plan.

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15 thoughts on good governance programming with youth

Posted in accountability, children, development, governance, ICT4D, ICTs, mobile and technology, m4D, open data, open development, open government, participation, politics, transparency, wait... what?, youth, tagged accountability, change, children, citizenship, governance, ICTs, information literacy, political, social, strategy, transparency, workshop, youth on June 26, 2012| 5 Comments »

Where are the spaces for dialogue on good governance? (Image from a workshop on youth participatory governance, April 2011)

As I mentioned in my ‘governance is *so* not boring’ post, I am recently back from an internal workshop where some 20 colleagues from across the organization where I work (Plan) pulled together some basic elements for a global program strategy on Youth, Citizenship and Governance.

One of the key elements that we talked about was the importance of information literacy in citizenship and governance work, including at the level of governments, duty bearers and decision makers and of course at the level of citizens — in our case, especially children and young people. Information literacy is defined by the University of Idaho as “the ability to identify what information is needed, understand how the information is organized, identify the best sources of information for a given need, locate those sources, evaluate the sources critically, and share that information”. (I can hear my librarian friends cheering right now, as they’ve been working on this for years).

Openness as an attitude came up as something that’s important all around for good governance. This doesn’t only mean ‘open’ as a technological specification for data, but rather openness as an entire approach and attitude towards governance, citizen participation and the nature of relationships and interactions in the spaces where citizens and government overlap. We were able to link our work up very well with the concepts of open development, open government and open data; all of which can contribute to better transparency, accountability and governance and which require information literacy and a number of other skills and capacities in order to take advantage of.

My practitioner colleagues said over and over at the meeting ‘we don’t have access to the information we need to do better governance work.’ I was left wondering how those of us working at various levels, including the field of ICT4D and related, can do a better job of supporting access to information, and what are the technology and non-technology tools and approaches that work best. There is still a huge gap between the community- and district-level governance work that my colleagues are working on with children, youth and communities and the big on-line data sets that are part of open data and open government. Both very important, but there really needs to be a stronger link between the two so that they can feed into each other to achieve better governance. Once again – the questions ‘open for who? and open for what?‘ come in, as well as the need for a two-way (multi-way?) information flow.

We talked about how social accountability tools like community scorecards, social audits, budget tracking and monitoring, and participatory budgeting can be an important way for engaging marginalized and excluded populations in governance work outside of more formal channels (eg, elections, law courts, planning and auditing of public expenditure). Social accountability tools and processes allow people to more directly participate in the accountability process and make themselves heard rather than leaving accountability in the hands of the government or relying only on formal mechanisms. During our workshop, we watched the International Budget Partnership’s video ‘It’s our money, where has it gone‘ on using social accountability tools in Kenya. (Long, but very worth watching)

Following the video I explained open data in a nutshell by asking people to imagine that the budget information that the community had to get via their district officials was available online and could be accessed without going through the district officer. It was a good opportunity to think about the potential of open data and open government and how they can fit in with social accountability work.

The video highlights the very real dangers that can be present when working on transparency and accountability. Since in our case we are working with children and youth, we need to be especially aware of potential risks involved in transparency, accountability and good governance work, because this kind of work raises questions and aims to shift power and politics and resources. We need to be very sure that we are not somehow pushing our own agenda through children and youth, or handing them a hot potato that we don’t want to take on as adults or organizations, or even unintentionally putting them at risk because we haven’t fully thought through a project or initiative. We need to be sure that we are conducting thorough, participatory and shared risk assessments together with children and youth and establishing mechanisms and ways of mitigating risks, or making decisions on what to pursue and what to leave for others. Child protection, our own responsibilities as duty bearers, and the notion of ‘do no harm’ are massively important to bring in here.

We spent time talking about what we need to do as an institution to support good governance, and emphasized that openness and good governance is a key element of institutions, INGOs, local NGOs and CBOs who want to be credible in this space. Organizations that are working with communities to push for local and/or national government transparency and accountability should expect that these same demands will be turned around to them, and the same questions asked of government and decision-makers will be asked of them. Taking those steps internally towards openness, accountability and good governance is critical. When working with youth associations and children’s groups, this is also a point for strengthening so that openness, transparency, accountability, positive leadership and other capacities, capabilities and skills are enhanced. If local associations replicate the bad governance practices that they are trying to change, then things are really not advancing much.

Successful governance work addresses multiple sides of the governance issue. Working only with citizens can create a demand that outstrips government interest, capacity or responsiveness and lead to apathy, frustration and/or conflict. So it’s really important to work with duty bearers and decision makers as well as with children and youth and their communities, and with other non-state adult actors, such as parents, teachers, community leaders and the media; to help create an environment for better governance. In addition, it’s important to understand the incentives and disincentives that shape the behaviors of different service providers, for example teachers and health care workers.

As my colleague Wale Osofisan from our UK office pointed out today after I shared these videos on governance work: “It is not enough to get the students and communities to monitor absenteeism without really examining the root causes of the problem from the point of view of the teachers and doctors. For example, in the DRC health care workers at PHCs particularly in the rural areas don’t get their salaries paid on time – sometimes for 6 months. Hence, they are forced to abandon their official duty posts and find alternative ways of earning an income either working informally for a private clinic which pays them or they engage in other economic activities. Same goes for the teachers. Thus, civil society interventions also need to focus on the problems encountered in the supply side of the equation… This is quite a challenge because it would require tackling the perverse politics of service delivery in many developing countries and NGOs always find it very uncomfortable to engage in such terrain.”

Good governance work uses existing spaces for collaboration and dialogue among the various actors or creates new space if none exists. It builds skills and capacities in both citizens and government officials. Children and youth, for example, need to have capacities to work effectively together, organize, prioritize, influence, use media and new communication technologies, access information and interpret/analyze it, and to develop partnerships and networks. Decision-makers need to strengthen capacities to engage with children and young people, to hear, respond, follow up and provide feedback. Government institutions need to have the attitudes as well as the resources to be more responsive to citizens’ needs and rights. Government employees, as mentioned above, need to also have the space to share what makes it difficult for them to do their jobs.

We did some group work around the 3 key actors in our citizenship and governance work: the State, children and young people, and other non-state adult actors. I participated in the group that looked at the changes that would need to happen at the level of the State and was again reminded how this work requires so much more than accountability mechanisms, new ICT tools and data. We talked about what would motivate a State to have an open information policy. What is in it for elected officials? How can State actors be motivated to change their attitudes to one of more openness and accountability? Can citizens push the State to be more open? Is international donor or political pressure the only motivator that has been successful so far in most countries? If a State is not governing well, what are the common root causes? If openness is an attitude, what motivates a State and its different bodies to be open? External pressure and citizen demand are one thing, but what about addressing other factors that prohibit good governance?

Linking and promoting collaboration between and among children’s and youth groups was noted as another key piece of citizenship and governance work with young people. This can be supported at a face-to-face level but also needs to happen from the local to the global level, so that young people can connect and share common agendas and experiences both ‘horizontally and vertically.’ The web is a key tool here for taking local issues to the global level and back down again to community level. A question in my mind here was how INGOs can do a better job of linking youth and governance work that they are supporting at local levels with the external social and political environment so that they are not happening in parallel or in a vacuum. Another was whether we are thinking enough about broader social and political movements as related to major events or changes happening in a country or globally (eg, Arab Spring, Occupy Wall Street, Rio+20) and our role and position and purpose there. And what about on-line organizing and activism and ‘direct democracy’ as more young people access on-line networks and activism happens in virtual spaces?

We discussed quite a lot about how supporting overall behavior changes and public opinion are critical to creating an environment that supports public accountability and openness and gets these on the agenda. It’s also important to change attitudes with relation to how children and young people are perceived so that adults and decision-makers will listen to them and take their opinions and claims into consideration. Programs that engage children and youth and showcase their capacities and abilities can help decision-makers and other non-state adults to see that the younger generation does have valid points, opinions and ideas for positive change.

And lastly, there is the importance of ensuring that staff are well versed in local political contexts and how government systems work. Without a strong and nuanced understanding of the local context, local power dynamics, local political and local cultural contexts, and how children and young people and other excluded groups are viewed, programs may be over ambitious, wrong-headed, create dangerous conflict, set back governance and accountability work, or put children and young people in harm’s way. The complexity of this kind of work combined with the complexity of the various settings mean that a clear theory of change is needed to guide efforts and expressly address the specific changes that are sought so that initiatives can be well-designed, implemented, monitored and evaluated, and so that there is a better chance of a good impact.

A practitioner’s discussion on social accountability and youth participatory governance

Governance is *so* not boring

Does ‘openness’ enhance development?

New technology and good governance

ICTs, social media, local government and youth-led social audits

Digital mapping and governance: the stories behind the maps

What would an International CSO Governance revolution look like?

Resources:

IIED’s Participatory Learning and Action Journal: Young Citizens: Youth and participatory governance in Africa

Plan UK’s Governance Learning Guide

Technology for Transparency network

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Governance is so not boring.

Posted in accountability, activism, children, development, governance, ICTs, mobile and technology, open data, open development, open government, participation, politics, protection, wait... what?, tagged accountability, capacity, data, development, dialogue, governance, ICTs, mechanisms, not boring, open, participation, politics, power, resources, responsiveness, space, tools, transparency, voice on June 24, 2012| 2 Comments »

I’ve been told that mention of the term ‘governance’ makes people want to immediately roll over and fall asleep, and that I’m a big weirdo for being interested in it. But I promise you governance is *so* not boring! (I’m also fairly sure that whatever my teacher droned on about as I slept through my ‘Government’ class senior year of high school was not ‘governance’.)

If you get excited about the concepts of ‘open’ or ‘transparent’ or ‘accountable’ or ‘sustainable’ or ‘human rights’ or ‘politics’ then you need to also get pumped about ‘governance’ because it includes elements of all of the above.

I am just back from a week-long workshop where, based on our different practical and strategic and thematic experiences, internal and external evaluations and reviews of good practice, videos and documents from other organizations, input from children and youth in several countries (and with the support of a fantastic facilitator), several of us from different Plan offices worked to define the basic elements for a global program strategy on Youth, Citizenship and Governance (to be completed over the next several months).

At the workshop, we got a copy of A Governance Learning Guide, which I’m finding very useful and am summarizing below.

Why is governance important?

Our focus is on children and youth, but many of the reasons that governance is important for them extend to governance overall.

From Plan UK’s Governance Learning Guide, chapter 1.

So what exactly do we mean by the term “governance”?

In our case, we link governance work with our child-centered community approach (a rights-based approach) and in this particular strategy, we will be focusing on the processes by which the state exercises power, and the relationships between the state and citizens. We have separate yet related strands of work around child and youth participation in our internal governance structures (here’s one example), effectiveness of our institutional governance overall (see this discussion on International CSO governance, for example), and the participation of children and youth in high level decision-making fora.

Our concept of governance for the youth, citizenship and governance strategy is based on the following governance concepts*:

Accountability and responsiveness. This includes formal government accountability as well as citizen-led accountability. Opportunities for children and youth to participate in formal accountability processes are often limited due to their age — they cannot participate in elections, for example. Citizen-led accountability can open new opportunities for children, youth and other more marginalized groups to hold those in power more accountable.

‘People no longer rely on governments alone to improve governance. All over the world we are seeing experiments in ‘participatory governance’. People and organisations are grasping the opportunities offered by decentralisation and other reform processes to demand more of a say in the public policy and budget processes that affect them. These ways of holding the state to account are often called ‘social accountability’. Examples include participatory budgeting, monitoring electoral processes, using online and mobile technology, and citizen evaluation of public services. These forms of citizen engagement and social accountability are particularly promising for young people, who often face challenges in getting their voices heard in formal policy and governance processes.’ (from the call for submissions for the Participatory Learning and Action Journal (PLA) special issue on Young Citizens: youth and participatory governance in Africa, published in December, 2011)

Accountability is also linked with openness and sharing of information such as local government budgets and plans (this is also referred to as ‘transparency’). Responsiveness, in our case, refers to ‘the extent to which service providers and decision makers listen, meet and respond to the needs and concerns of young people.’ Responsiveness includes the willingness of those in power to engage seriously with young people and a government’s commitment to ‘be responsive’ to the issues raised by citizens, including children and young people. Responsiveness entails also the administrative and financial capacity to respond concretely to a population’s needs, rights and input.

Voice and participation. This refers to the capacity of young people to speak, be heard and connect to others. Voice is one of the most important means for young people to participate. Within the concept of ‘voice’ we also consider voice strategies for raising and amplifying voices, capacity to use voice in a variety of ways to bring about change, space to exercise the raising of voices, and voice as a means to participate and exercise citizenship rights. (We consider that every child has citizenship rights, not only those who hold citizenship in a particular country). It’s also important to qualify the use of the term participation. In the case of young people’s participation in governance, we are not referring to the participatory methods that we commonly use in program planning or evaluation (we are also not discounting these at all – these are critical for good development processes!). In governance work, we are rather taking it further to refer to the meaningful inclusion of children and young people in decision-making processes.

Power and politics. These are key in governance work. It is essential to be aware of and understand politics and power dynamics so that children and young people (and other oft-excluded groups) are not overlooked, manipulated, intimidated or disempowered.

Image captured from Plan UK’s Governance Learning Guide, chapter 2 page 14.

A key question here is what children and young people are participating in, and what for. Another important question is where are children and young people participating? Is it in special events or spaces designated just for them or are they participating in adult spaces? How does the place and space where children and young people are participating impact on their ability to influence decisions?

It’s important to note the 4 types of power that are typically considered in power analyses (from VeneKlasen, 2007): power over (domination or control), power within (self-worth), power to (individual ability to act, agency) and power with (collective action, working together). These need to be analyzed and understood, including their social, cultural and historical factors that create and sustain different power dynamics in different situations and spaces.

Capacity. We refer here to the capacity of both decision-makers and young people. Decision makers need to have the ability to perform their duties and ensure services are delivered. This, in our case, includes the abilities of decision makers to interact, engage and listen to children and young people and to take them seriously and to be responsive (see above) to their views, needs and rights. Young people also need to have the capacity to hold decision makers to account and to express their concerns and their views, including the views of other children and young people who may be excluded and marginalized from the decision making process or from participating fully. Information literacy and the capacity to access, interpret and analyze information is a critical skill for children and young people.

Interactions between children and young people and decision makers. These spaces encompass critical aspects of participation, power and politics. An example of a space for interaction would be where children and young people, local government and school leaders come together to discuss budget plans and available resources for school infrastructure. These spaces are shaped by a number of factors, including social, economic, cultural ones. They are also not free of personal agendas, desires, intentions and prejudices. It’s critical to remember this in governance work — ‘tools’ and ‘mechanisms’ are not enough. (ICT4Governance and Tech for Transparency friends, I’m looking at you! Though I think most of us see this point as ‘beating a dead horse’ by now.)

From Chapter 2 of the Governance Learning Guide by Plan UK

*Summarized from Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 of Plan UK’s extremely useful and easily downloadable A Governance Learning Guide. The guide also has a number of practical use cases on different governance initiatives as well as an extensive section on additional resources.

Here’s a follow-up post (since governance is so clearly *not* boring and I’m sure there is high demand for more!) called 15 thoughts on good governance programming with youth.

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Technology Salon in DC: How will IATI impact US-based development agencies?

Posted in accountability, development, disaster and emergencies, governance, ICT4D, ICTs, mobile and technology, open data, open development, open government, participation, politics, smart aid, technology salon, transparency, wait... what?, tagged aid, AidData, DC, Hewlett, IATI, Initiative, international, mandate, Technology Salon, transparency, USAID on June 13, 2012| 2 Comments »

The Technology Salon* hosted at IREX on Thursday, June 6, focused on what the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI) would mean for international development, especially for US-based NGOs and government contractors.

Tony Pipa, Deputy Assistant Administrator, Policy, Planning and Learning at USAID, started the Salon off by noting that IATI is an inter-agency US government commitment, not only a USAID commitment. USAID is the lead agency for developing the IATI implementation plan, building on existing agreements on transparency, enhancing the US Government’s commitments to transparency, openness and accountability. A key element of these efforts is the Foreign Assistance Dashboard which places the data into the public realm in a user friendly way, making it easier to understand visually and also more accessible and easy to find. The goal is not only transparency, but greater accountability. The US Government hopes to streamline reporting requirements, meeting multiple requirements for a range of international and national reporting standards. The goal for USAID is making aid more useful for development.

Steve Davenport from AidData followed, giving some background on IATI itself. IATI was initially sponsored largely by DFID, but has since grown as a partnership. Over 75% of development assistance is represented by signatories to IATI now. Eight donors are now publishing and twenty-three developing countries have signed on (involving partner countries at the local level as well). Different groups are conducting pilots to see how to implement as IATI gains more traction. For this reason, it would be a good move for US INGOs and contractors to get in front of the transparency and accountability curve rather than get hit by the wave. Better transparency allows organizations to better show their results. The IATI standard can lead to better coordination among the different actors, making it easier to broaden our collective impact. This is especially important now given that aid budgets are being reduced. IATI can be thought of as a group of people, a set of commitments, and an XML standard for moving data from point a to point b. Application developers are beginning to pick this up and develop tools that allow for new ways of visualizing the data, making it actionable and improving accessibility, which can lead to better accountability.

Larry Nowels (Consultant at Hewlett, ONE campaign) spoke about Hewlett experience with IATI. Hewlett has made a large investment in transparency and accountability, supporting US and European organizations as well as startups in Africa and Asia over the past 10 years. Transparency is a key building block, so that governments and their citizens know what is being spent, where and on what, and how to make better decisions about resources and reducing waste. It also allows citizens to hold their governments accountable. Hewlett was one of the original signatories and the second publisher to the IATI standard. A key question remains: What’s in it for an organization that publishes according to the standard? For some teams, IATI makes all the sense in the world, but for others it seems to be a waste of resources. The Obama Administration (Open Government Directive, Open Government Partnership, Foreign Assistance Dashboard), all show a strong commitment to transparency. The tough part is implementation of IATI standards and details are still being worked out to find an ideal way.

Larry considers a central repository ideal, but there are issues with quality control and the Foreign Assistance Dashboard does not add data that was not already publicly available. In addition, many US Government agencies have not been added to the Dashboard yet, and getting them on board will be difficult if they are less dedicated than USAID or State. It’s critical to institutionalize IATI and related initiatives and internalize them, given that we cannot assume Obama’s will be a multi-term presidency. In the past 3 years, a number of bills around the theme of accountability and transparency have been introduced by both parties. The Poe-Berman Bill (HR 3159) provides a law to entrench the use of tools like the Dashboard. The Administration, especially the State Department, however, has not engaged Congress enough on these issues, and this has led to some roadblocks. White House pressure could help strengthen support for this initiative; however, there may be pushback by Republicans who generally oppose the US subscribing to international standards.

Discussion**

What is the overlap between the Open Government Partnership (OGP) and IATI?

IATI was a top down process; OGP is a bottom-up process. IATI may fit under a work-stream in OGP, and there will be continuing discussions about how these two initiatives can work with each other. OGP doesn’t have many practical tools yet, and IATI can be a practical implementation of OGP national action plans. The two need each other for optimal impact. (See this explanation of where some of the current aid and government transparency initiatives overlap).

What is the practical, on-the-ground use or application of IATI data? What does it look like when it is working how it should? What would it ideally look like 5 years from now?

There is enormous need for data sharing in a crisis – it is essential for coordinating and understanding the unfolding situations in real-time in order to save lives. There is much more scrutiny as well as a need for rapid coordination and response during a humanitarian crisis, so it requires a higher level of transparency than development work. One way that has been suggested for getting more organizations on board is to start sharing more information during crises and draw the lessons over to development.
A project in Mexico City has run investigative campaigns on spending. This has led to the prosecution and resignations of political figures and even some threats against staff, which demonstrates how unsettling this open information can be to the powers that be. It is not about transparency for transparency’s sake. It’s about having a tool that can be used to inform, interpret situations and hold governments and donors accountable. It opens the system up for sharing information.
Currently this type of information isn’t available to Country Governments for coordination. Countries need to plan their fiscal year budgets, but rely heavily on donors, and both run on a different fiscal calendar. If donor information were more readily available, countries could plan better.
On a 5-year horizon, we would ideally see aid tracking down to the beneficiary level. Tools like IATI can help collect data in more automated ways. Open data can help us track both where funding is allocated and also what is actually being implemented. Additional work is needed on this side; for example, training journalists to understand how to use this data, how to access it – handing them a data file isn’t a very useful thing in and of itself.

That’s great, but great for whom? What does it mean? Does this lead to better aid? Better spending? And what if it creates unrealistic timelines, where development becomes more like a for-profit company that must demonstrate impact within a fiscal quarter? We all know that development initiatives and impact take much longer than three months. Will IATI mean that we will stop doing things that take longer? Things that cannot be checked off on a checkbox? Will we actually lower the quality of our programs by doing this?

IATI, like any form of transparency, is only one element of a whole stream of things. The new USAID monitoring and evaluation system is a breakthrough for actually learning from evaluations and data. It’s a longer-term investment than Congress is used to, so it’s a matter of convincing Congress that it is worth the value. There is a better chance of USAID admitting failure in the future if the systems are in place to demonstrate these failures in hard data and learn from them. It’s about discovering why we failed – if we spend money and it doesn’t work, we can at least then identify weaknesses and build on them. Showing failures also demonstrates credibility and a willingness to move forward positively.
We can err on the side of openness and transparency and engage congress and the public, making a distinction between performance management and the long-term impact of development projects. There is no way of holding back on publishing information until it is in a format that will be readily understandable to congress and the public. This is a reality that we are going to have to live with; we have to put the data out and build on it. This can help to start important conversations. IATI is important for closing the loop, not just on public resources but also private resources (which is why Hewlett’s commitment is important). As private development resources increase, USAID becomes less dominant in the development landscape. Making sure data from many sources comes in a common format will make it easy to compare, and bring this data together to help understand what it going on. The way to visualize and think of it now is different because we are still in early days. IATI will begin to change the approach for how you evaluate impact.
IATI data itself does not tell the whole story, so it’s important to look at additional sources of information beyond it. IATI is only one part of the monitoring and evaluation effort, only one part of the transparency and accountability effort.

How do you overcome conflicts of interest? If development outcomes or data that is opened are not in the interest of the country government, how do we know the data can be trusted, or how does it feed back to the public in each country?

China’s investment in Africa, for example, may make it more difficult to understand aid flows in some ways. It will take a while to enforce the standards, particularly if it is done quickly, but we can draw the BRICs into the conversation and we are working with them on these topics.

The hard part is the implementation. So what are the time lines? How soon do we think we will see the US publish data to IATI?

At this time, the US Government hasn’t created an implementation timeline, so the first order of business is to get IATI institutionalized, and not to rush on this. It’s a larger issue than just USAID, so it must be done carefully and tactfully so it stays in place over the long term. USAID is working on getting data on the Dashboard to get the Obligation of Spending data up and project level data up. USAID is trying to balance this with consistency and quality control. How do you produce quality data when you are publishing regularly? These issues must be addressed while the systems are being developed. Once USAID puts data on the Dashboard, it will begin being converted to IATI data

IATI is still a donor-led initiative. NGOs involvement opens this data up to use by communities. Training individuals to use this information is not necessarily sufficient. Are there plans to build institutions or civil society organizations to support the data to be useful for communities and the general public?

The data can assist with the development of watchdog organizations who provide a platform for citizens to act together for accountability. Examples of organizations that are currently receiving funding to do this are Sodnet and Twaweza. There has also been support to think tanks throughout Africa to build the capacity of objective, independent policy analysts who write critiques of government initiatives.
There is a definite need to mainstream IATI and bring everyone together into one single conversation instead of setting up parallel structures.

So how do you build these institutions, watchdogs, etc? Will USAID really put out RFPs that offer funding to train people to criticize them?

This is where Hewlett and other organizations come in. They can run these trainings and build capacities. The Knight News Challenge is doing a lot of work around data-driven journalism, for example.

This is going to put a lot of pressure on people to be more efficient and might drive down resources in these spheres. There is a limited amount of incentive for organizations to involve themselves. Is there a way to incentivize it?

It will also drive some internal efficiencies, creating greater internal coherence within development organizations. It’s very hard to pinpoint impact within organizations because there isn’t an easy way to draw comparisons between projects, implementation strategies, etc. People always worry: What if we find something that makes us look bad? So IATI is just one part of a bigger effort to push for commitment to transparency across the board. Committing to IATI can lead to a mindset which focuses organizations on efficiency, transparency and accountability.
Filling out the Dashboard will be helpful in many respects, and it will make information more accessible to the general public, as well as congressional staffers, etc. It can serve multiple constituencies while making data more usable and transparent. USAID is going to be as aggressive as possible to get information on the dashboard into IATI format. There has not been a conversation about requiring implementing partners to meet IATI standards, but USAID itself is committed.

***

Thanks to IREX for hosting the Salon, our fantastic lead discussants and participants for stimulating discussion, Wayan Vota for inviting me to coordinate the Salon and Anna Shaw for sharing her Salon notes which were the basis for this blog post.

Sign up here if you’d like to be on the invitation list for future Salons.

*The Technology Salon is sponsored Inveneo in collaboration with IREX, Plan International USA, Jhpiego and ARM.

**The Salon runs by Chatham House Rule, so no attribution has been made for the discussion portion of the Salon.

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