Technology (ICT) for Social Accountabilitypria-academy.org/ICT/pdf/Presentation script_M3.pdfPresentation Script Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for Social Accountability

Information and Communication

Technology (ICT) for Social

Accountability

Module 03ICT tools for Enhancing Social Accountability

World BankInstitute Presentation Script

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Presentation Script

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for Social Accountability

Module 03: ICT Tools for Enhancing Social Accountability

Introduction

After reviewing the linkages between the Access to Information and the Open Data movements, in this presentation, we will introduce an overview on some ICT tools and processes that may contribute to enhance transparency, accountability, and citizen participation in your city or country.

Overview

As mentioned in the previous module, ICTs are changing the citizen‐government relationship around the world. Governments’ initiatives, such as the provision of public services and complaint handling mechanisms, are now available on ICT platforms.

Moreover, a number of websites, developed by CSOs or independent developers, function as portals to improve citizens’ access to information, participation to decision‐making processes, and registration of grievances in relation to governments’ performance and administration.

We will now present a few tools, processes and mechanisms that are implemented by many governments and also some civil society projects.

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Topic 1: How it all starts: Scraping

Data is the raw ingredient that we need to have in order to later apply ICT tools and processes to make it attractive and useful to others. However, sometimes, available public information does not follow the “Open Government Data” principles (introduced in module 1) and, therefore, some techniques should be applied to clean and present that data in a way that is complete and primary. One of those processes, or methods, is Scraping. Scraping is a technique in which a computer program extracts data from human‐readable output coming from another program.

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By extracting and cleaning government data, CSOs can help society to access information that otherwise would have been hidden. Moreover, they help the public to better understand what is happening in the public sector and also enhance their demand for accountably. For example, some of the most well‐known initiatives of ICT tools for social accountability are built on reusing government data.

There are also some tools that you can apply (without the need to reach to developers and programming specialists) when you already have the open data, but it is presented in an inconsistent and messy manner. That it is the case of Google Refine.

Topic 2: Data Visualization

Once we have the raw component, we might be dealing with thousands or even millions of rows of data. Therefore, it might become difficult to make sense of them. That is when data visualization, via maps and other graphics, plays an important role.

The main goal of data visualization is to communicate information clearly and effectively through graphical means. Thus, data visualizations expose the underlying patterns and relationships contained within the data. It could be maps or other graphics, depending on the type of data and what you would like to explain by using available data. Thus, it makes easier for the public to understand large databases, such as budget information. One example can be found in the work that OpenSpending.org is doing.

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It is worth clarifying that data visualization doesn’t need to look boring to be functional or extremely sophisticated to look beautiful. With creative data visualizing examples, data can be presented in a more organized and categorized manner.

One clear example can be found in the Mapping for Results project. It visualizes the locations of World Bank Bank‐financed projects to better monitor development impact, improve aid effectiveness and coordination, and enhance transparency and social accountability. The Mapping for Results platform provides not only geographic information of Bank‐financed programs, but also allows users to overlay disaggregated poverty, population density, and human development data.

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Topic 2: Data Visualization

Another example of data visualization can be found in “Map Kibera”, an open‐source project started in 2009 in response to the lack of information available for the Kibera district of Nairobi– one of the world’s largest slums, which neighbors a forest. It is showed on the official map as a forest. Thus, the Kenyan authorities were unable to make an informed decision about what kind of services and utilities were needed in the slum since they did not understand what was there.

The community begun mapping of the infrastructure of the slum on the map and visualizing where things were, becoming an example of community‐powered mapping succeeding in a situation where commercial mapping providers would never venture.

The project trains local residents to create community maps ‐ using OpenStreetMap tools and techniques ‐ and encourage the use of community‐generated maps in relief and development efforts.

Map Kibera equips Kibera residents with tools and techniques to generate and manage digital information. Thirteen young people, one from each village in Kibera, have been trained to use global positioning system (GPS) devices to gather data about the physical infrastructure in their communities. They upload and geolocate that data using the Open Street Map software to the Open Street Map website where it is publicly available for anyone to download and use.

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Topic 3: Crowdsourcing

With new ICT tools, the process of analyzing and interpreting (and later utilizing) public data and information could be enriched by members of society who you might have never being able to reach a few years ago. Knowledge is dispersed in society and using ICT‐based processes, like crowdsourcing, allows you to have access to it.

Thus, crowdsourcing is the act of taking a job traditionally performed by a designated agent and outsourcing it to an undefined, generally large group of people in the form of an open call.

Crowdsourcing can be applied to achieve different goals such as:

• crowdfunding (to receive funding for a project );

• to aggregate data and information from a variety of sources;

• to leverage a virtual labor pool;

• to tap creative communities for user‐generated content; and also

• to use outside resources to generate new ideas and processes.

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One of the most well‐known examples of crowdsourcing is the Ushaidi platform This platform was originally used to map incidents of violence and peace efforts throughout the Kenya based on reports submitted via the web and mobile phones. This website had 45,000 users in Kenya, and was the catalyst for developing an open source platform that could be adapted and used by others around the world.

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Since it was launched, Ushahidi was used to create similar sites to track anti‐immigrant violence in South Africa, map violence in eastern Congo, to track pharmacy stockouts in several East African countries, to monitor elections in Mexico, and to map the crisis in Haiti, among other initiatives. Thus, people send their information via mobile phone, email or social networks to the website to be later placed in a map that could help other people to have a better picture of a given situation (elections or natural disaster, among others).


When the earthquake struck Haiti, aid workers and geographers alike realized that there were no good maps of the country. A group of volunteers quickly sprang into action. Technologists around the world were creating tools to help earthquake victims in Haiti. These tools were focused around gathering and mapping the data, and broadcasting it to the relief workers on the ground.

This Ushahidi‐based platform tracked incidents, search and rescue operations and people in Haiti. A team of volunteers monitored text messages from people in Haiti who were stranded and needed food or aid. Some messages also reported news.

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Ushahidi relied on the Open Street Map project. It is worth mentioning that prior to the earthquake the Open Street Map of Haiti only contained major arterials. A day after the quake, Port‐au‐Prince was almost completely mapped as volunteers made huge progress on the maps within just one day.

Topic 4: Social Media

The recent demonstrations and protests known as the “Arab Spring” corroborate the power of social media to mobilize people to speak out about their concerns. However, to use social media to mobilize citizens and affected persons to pressure governments or corporations, is just one of the many ways to use these tools.

When data publically available are scraped, visualized, and/or crowdsourced, such information can be shared via varieties of online platforms. Social media (through the use of social networks) is the technology that allows users to share content on the web and interact easily with each other. It allows users to produce collaborative projects, share thoughts and information through Twitter, share visual contents for instance through YouTube, network as seen with Facebook and MySpace, among others.

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Topic 4: Social Media

Currently, citizens and civic groups more and more often use those commercial platforms to, for example, disseminate information about corruption or to share when public services are not properly delivered and, ultimately, to turn that communication with other citizens, and also with the government, into an interactive dialogue.

Topic 5: Mobile Phone

As all the mentioned tools developed, many of the devices through which people can access to them are becoming mobile. Mobile devices become transformative tools for governments and service providers by establishing two‐way information provision and communication platforms with citizens. This is especially important for reaching people in rural areas where internet connectivity may be poor but mobile devices are reasonably accessible.

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One example of the great impact of the mobile technology is given by the fact that:

More than 5 billion mobile subscriptions Worldwide in 2011

More than 100% penetration in developed world

More than 70% in Developing countries

Earlier mentioned, Ushahidi itself is a great example of how mobile is being used to empower citizens in places where wired Internet access is low.

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Topic 5: Mobile Phone

A lack of communication can be a major barrier for grassroots non‐governmental organizations (NGOs) working in developing countries.

One example of the tools that can be used to overcome those obstacles is FrontlineSMS. By leveraging basic tools like computers and mobile phones, this program enables instantaneous two‐way communication on a large scale.

Frontline SMS is an open source software that turns a laptop and a mobile phone into a central communications hub. Once installed, the program enables users to send and receive text messages with groups of people through mobile phones.

Examples of its use can be found in one area of Malawi where just 500 healthcare workers serve 250,000 people, and also the distance and poor roads complicate the situation. After the FrontlineSMS software was used to track outbreaks of tuberculosis, in six months, the hospital saved 1200 hours of follow‐up time from their staff and over $3,000 in motorbike fuel. Over 100 patients started tuberculosis treatment after their symptoms were noticed by volunteer community health workers and reported by text message.

Even though we have just presented a health‐related example, you can applied this sort of tools to whatever area your organization is daily working on.

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Topic 6: Joint efforts

The ICT tools introduced so far can be useful when implementing transparency, accountability, and/or participation approaches. However, many traditional CSOs working on these fields do not have the resources to develop or customize existing ICT tools. Therefore, it is important to build bridges with the members of the software developing community that are interested on working with public information (also known as “civic hackers”). In some countries, these two groups are starting to join forces to reach their common goal through collective initiatives such as hackathons and open data apps contests.

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A hackathon is an event where software developers meet, for a few days, to tackle specific problems through collaborative computer programming. Sometimes, those problems are identified with the help of traditional CSOs. In that sense, the best results are achieved when traditional CSOs and civic hackers team up to identify problems and the tools to tackle them as both actors can provide different skills to the group.

In some other cases, jurisdictions (a city, a country, or a specific public agency) challenge software developers to create apps that use their public data. In this case, developers should submit their project to compete for a prize (generally, a small one).

Topic 6: Joint efforts

Other examples of collaboration can be found when:

CSOs, developers and some government agency work together to improve a community’s quality of life, like in the case of the well‐know Checkmyschool.org . This project is a key example of collaboration between government, private sector and civil society in which the community’s use of data is facilitated through an “infomediary” that serves as a link or “bridge” between the technology and the less digitally‐able citizens in poor and far‐flung communities.

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The Department of Education in the Philippines entered into a Memorandum of Agreement with ANSA‐EAP to undertake this initiative, and in partnership with Google is making use of Google Maps technology and mobile phone messaging to facilitate citizens’ monitoring of public education services in the Philippines.

Another way of collaboration can be found when CSOs decide to take an already working platform and adapt it to its own needs (generally with the help of the creators of the original platform). Some of those examples can be found in some of the adaptations of Alaveteli or Ushahidi platforms, among others.

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Topic 7: Examples of ICT for Social Accountability in Practice

ICT tools allow for greater transparency, contributing to minimize the existing inequality in access to information. Hence, ICT tools can contribute to reduce corruption and improve service delivery by enhancing accountability through monitoring and citizen feedback mechanisms.

Now, we will reviewing some practical applications of ICT tools to monitoring and citizen feedback mechanisms for enhanced citizen participation and accountability in 3 main areas:

• Budget monitoring;

• Monitoring public service delivery; and

• Civic Complaints

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Budget monitoring

ICT can help citizen get information on public expenditures, be mobilized and participate in the budget elaboration process by providing input on budget allocations and spending. For example, ICT can enhance participatory budgeting processes by maximizing the ability of citizens to participate and by making the process more effective and more inclusive.

ICT tools can also help to build platforms where the information from national and local budgets is displayed and communicated in ways that everybody can understand and analyze. In that line, there are some interesting examples of civil society groups developing platforms to allow people to monitor government budget, for example: Where does my money go from the UK and also Public Expenditure in Argentina, among many others.

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Monitoring of Public Service Delivery

Building on the development community experience with Citizen Report Cards, ICT facilitated user satisfaction surveys can provide ongoing and real‐time feedback on citizens’ experiences and perceptions with the quality and integrity of public service delivery for better responsiveness and tracking of progress on public works and services. In these cases, as well as for the civic complaints mechanisms, it is vital the active involvement of the public sector.

Without government’s response, this kind of initiatives would not reach the desired output: improve service delivery and therefore, citizen’s quality of life.

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Some examples of monitoring public service delivery can be found in:

The Raising the Water Pressure Project in Tanzania‐ that will put pressure on local government to address problems with rural water supplies‐

Flow ‐ to record data from tens of thousands of water points around the world‐

And also the well‐known Check my School (already mentioned in the presentation) ‐where people can monitor and provide feedback about the state and quality of their schools.

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Civic Complaints

Civic Complaints systems usually facilitate online transfer of grievance to concerned departments. In that way, officials and citizens can monitor the process and the progress made on the complaints. There are numerous examples from civil society as well as from public sector.

Some of them are:

From government:

Sanjog Helpline from the Government of Orissa, India

From civil society: (in all cases, complaints should be answered by governments):

Citizens’ Voices

FixMyStreet.com

http://www.seeclickfix.com/

Module Two Conclusion

In this presentation, we introduced an overview of some ICT tools together with some initiatives using those tools to promote transparency and participation. The objective of this module was to provide you with information so you can Identify functions and possible applications of main ICT tools for greater transparency,

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accountability, and civic participation and also analyze what can be the next step in order to use such ICT tools in your future projects.

Documents

Technology (ICT) for Social Accountabilitypria-academy.org/ICT/pdf/Presentation script_M3.pdfPresentation Script Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for Social Accountability