Democracy & Governance – Page 8

Anti-corruption, Civil Society, Democracy & Governance, Governances, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Make Aid Funds Transparent

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make aid transparent banner- one cartoon with money the other two with nothing

Last week, Publish What you Fund launched their Make Aid Transparent campaign, which calls on aid donors to publish information on what they are doing with their development aid.

Over forty civil society groups from twenty countries around the world, pledge to call on governments and other aid donors to publish more information on how, when, where and why their budgets are being spent.

At the center of the campaign, whose members include Oxfam International, Transparency International, ONE, and eighteen groups from developing countries, is a petition aimed at donor governments to make their aid more transparent.

The message after signing the petition clearly illustrates their overall mission:

Your action will remind donors to keep their promises to make aid more transparent. And this in turn will help citizens around the world to benefit from better aid and hold their governments to account.

All of these organizations have been working to improve the transparency on how aid money is distributed and should be mindfully spent, as any scope for corruption and inefficiency should be diminished and eliminated.

One of the best ways to do this rarely costs a thing: transparency.

Last December, the State Department and USAID launched a Foreign Assistance Dashboard that helps U.S. citizens know more about how their taxes are being spent on foreign assistance. It provides a visual presentation of, and access to, key foreign assistance budget and appropriation of data for the Department of State and USAID.

The Make Aid Transparent campaign has a similar aim, but targets the spending of civil society groups to enhance transparency and accessibility for their donors.

Making the information available can also help citizens of developing countries know how much their governments are receiving and can push for it to be spent it in ways that really meet their needs.

The first petition handover is planned to present in Paris, at a meeting of Working Party on Aid Effectiveness (WP-EFF) in early July hosted by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

The organization has other activities and actions that will take place through the year, with the campaign culminating at the High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Busan, Korea from November 29 – December 1.

June 13, 2011/by actualize

Agriculture, Anti-corruption, Democracy & Governance, Governances, Mobile, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Apps4Africa Finalist Uses Mobile to Fight Corruption

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Announced last week, an application won second place in the Apps4Africa competition allowing citizens to record and report real time information on government corruption.

Launched last July in Nairobi, the Apps4Africa competition funded by the U.S. State Department, united the brightest African developers with social problems that could benefit from innovative mobile technology.

The competition attracted 20 entrants – each offering a unique approach to improving life in the region.

The second place winners, Kleptocracy Fighters Inc., developed a mobile application empowering citizens for fighting kleptocratic government officials using mobile technology. They received $3,000 USD and a Nokia N900 for the innovation.

Kleptocracy is a term applied to government authorities taking advantage of power positions to extend their personal wealth by appropriating public funds and goods through corruption, impunity, and political power.

Government corruption runs rampant in Kenya amongst other Sub-Saharan African countries. According to the 2010 Corruption Perception Index, Kenya received a score of 2.1—on a scale from 10 being very clean, to 0 being highly corrupt.

Kleptocracy Fighters (K Fighters) seeks to offset this by lending the crowd souring potential of SMS service, mobile phone applications, and web-enabled applications to report and record real time incidences of corruption.

The citizen’s reports include audio, video, as well as text recordings, and are meant to report both positive and negative issues of public governance. The aggregated data reports are forwarded to legal and media partners to help publicize the cases of corruption, and lead to possible persecution.

This mobile application aims to help build trust, accountability, and transparency for those in developing nations lacking a trustworthy outlet.

K Fighters is an international organization headquartered in Delaware. The four founding members are from East Africa, the U.S., and Latin America, all choosing to remain anonymous for their personal integrity until the platform is finalized.

They have started pilot projects in Latin America and Africa to see if the platform is a scalable and sustainable model that can bring corrupt governments to justice.

June 10, 2011/by actualize

Agriculture, Democracy & Governance, Governances, Humanitarian Assistance, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Local Capacity & Governance in Humanitarian Assistance

people unpacking food in a humanitarian assistance mission

Photo Credit: IIE

While humanitarian response spans a wide range of operations from aid delivery and temporary shelter, to training and preparedness, a successful humanitarian operation also depends heavily on local capacity building and existing governance structures.

Yesterday at the Aid and International Development Forum, the speakers at the governance panel wholeheartedly agreed.

Jessica Vogel, Manager of Operations for International Stability Operations Association (ISOA), moderated the discussion.

She paralleled strong governance and building local capacity, with increasing the rate of success during humanitarian assistance. “Without local capacity the challenges and delivery of relief is ten fold,” Vogel emphasized.

Robert Wells, strategic consultant at Whitney, Bradley and Brown, Inc., reiterated her point. He argued that initiating and constructing partnerships on the ground are both keys to local capacity building.

Wells also stressed that the local governance should be “in the cockpit” of their own humanitarian assistance missions. By organizing constructive collaboration, he maintained, it leads to sustaining professional development.

Johanna Mendelson Forman, senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, explored a gap in local capacity: the local diaspora.

Referencing the disaster in Haiti, she asserted that the educated citizens who fled the country were those same individuals who had the most ability to revitalize their damaged country.

“It is the talent and skill of the Haitian diaspora that will recreate Haiti,” Forman stated.

Local capacity building and good governance structures are at the heart of sustaining humanitarian assistance after the temporary funding disappears.

June 9, 2011/by actualize

Civil Society, Democracy & Governance, Governances, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Brazil Govcamp Continues Gov 2.0 Global Growth

”]”]Governments from across the world are using e-government to deliver timely, accessible information to citizens while increasing the transparency and efficiency of delivering public services.

Sao Paulo, Brazil is now adopting ope n source e-government software as an early adopter of open government 2.0.

On June 8, 2011 Microsoft will be sponsoring Govcamp Brazil to facilitate the collaborative discussion and create an open learning environment to foster understanding in this emerging field.

E-governance takes the input of many parties, within the governing body, civic society, and needs the participation of private sector to service them. As a result, there has been an the technology of Government 2.0 has been highlighted, rather than the results it enables.

As former U.S. deputy CTO Beth Noveck pointed out, though, there is more to these new tools: “Gov 2.0 is a popular term but puts the emphasis on technology when our goal was to focus on changing how government institutions work for the better.”

Microsoft’s involvement in Brazil’s initiative demonstrates the global company’s exclusive and evolving role in looking outwards, where Government 2.0 and e-government is increasingly more prominent around the world.

Rodrigo Becerra of Microsoft provided this insight on the purpose of the Gov 2.0 camps:

This is a space for creating connections to happen between citizens, organizations, groups and governments that may otherwise not exist. We have done them in Berlin, Mexico City, Colombia, Moscow, Toronto, London, Sydney, Wellington, Boston, India, and we’ll sponsor the Brazil event in the coming month. We specifically have local organization committees running each event, We conduct them in all local language and invite social media, competitors and partners to revel in the discourse to help drive the progress of the Gov 2.0 movement

The open source software represents how the Government of Brazil wants to create a solution where civic society has documentation and support online.

It also generates knowledge networks, shares information, and fosters the growth of domestic technology, as the systems design can be adapted to local Brazilian needs.

June 7, 2011/by actualize

Agriculture, Civil Society, Democracy & Governance, Humanitarian Assistance, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Serious Gaming—It Plays to Develop

Screenshot of the game Peacemaker

You can now play an active role in resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as either the Israeli Prime Minister, or the Palestinian President, straight from your living room.

Will you put pressure on the United States to publicly condemn your enemy? Will you withdraw your settlements from the Gaza Strip? Your decisions will render a live computer generated response. Similar to the importance of real life, timely decisions in the Middle East, your decision will affect if the entire region will be at peace or explode in violence.

”]This is the aim of the “serious game” called the Peacemaker developed by Asi Burak, and co-founder of GamesforChange.org.

These “Serious Games” are burgeoning agents for social change being used in the development world by advocates, nonprofit groups, and technically keen academics searching for new ways to reach young people.

The main idea is the player becomes immersed in a real-world situation where human rights, economics, public policy, poverty, global conflict, news, and politics are some issues confronted in the games.

The player deliberates and makes conscious choices while they play and those actions either benefits one side or harms another, making a complete resolution difficult.

Objectively, the player can play as many times as they need to resolve the issue to win the game.

As Jarmo Petäjäaho from Finland, states in a review after playing Peacemaker, “Making the policy decisions in the game and pondering the possible ramifications on all parties really makes the issues hit home and stay with you. It is a wonderfully efficient and fun way to study the real world.”

That is the true beauty behind all the efforts: games are innately helpful in simplifying large, complex systems and teaching them to people.

Two weeks ago Tech@State had a two-day Serious Games conference where game creators, technology executives, and social entrepreneurs, exchanged ideas and experiences on the best mechanics of games for social change.

While most of the games focused on issues of international affairs, public policy and diplomacy, one group focused on how to leverage this educational tool for developing nations lacking computers.

Playpower, created by a group of programmers and researchers, is a great, simple educational tool to bring video gaming to developing nations.

By constructing a $10 TV-compatible computers out of discarded keyboards and outfitting them with cartridge-based educational games, the Playpower team aims to make learning games affordable for “the other 90%.”

The Serious Games shown at the conference is rowing as a tool used for social change, but no one knows how sustainable the method may be.

USAID is interesting in exploring the effects of the gaming venture on development.

An Innovations for Youth Capacity & Engagement (IYCE) game is currently in development with the Democracy, Conflict and Humanitarian Assistance (DCHA) Bureau in conjunction with Nethope. The game targets resolving youth and social issues in Jordan.

June 7, 2011/by actualize

Asia, Connectivity, Democracy & Governance, Legal & Regulatory, Originally posted on the GBI Portal, Where we work

ICT Access: a Human Right in Pakistan

Pakistani Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani held a press conference on Tuesday, declaring that ICT access and use is vital to the development of Pakistan. Given recent modifications in the allocation and use of USF funds in Pakistan, Gilani’s strong support for ICT investment is particularly noteworthy.

At the 24^th Board Meeting for USF Pakistani, presiding Gilani stated that ICTs potential could not be overemphasized in terms of socio-economic development and job opportunities. He went on to explain that the ability to communicate in the information driven era was a basic human right. These are strong words, especially in light of current debates about the Internet as a human right at the UN and amongst practitioners.

Gilani’s support comes just weeks after Pakistan’s USF announced an agreement with national telecommunications consultant Pakistan Telecommunications Company Limited (PTCL) to “promote development of telecom services in underserved areas.” In the partnership, PTCL will help USF to meet its targeted goals, advancing Gilani’s agenda of providing IT access as a human right.

Photo Credit: The Express Tribune News Network

The USF-PTCL partnership to focus on the underserved is important to the success of Pakistan’s efforts to provide ICT access to all its citizens. According to other reports, however, previous USF funds in Pakistan were not utilized due to the Prime Minister’s failure to attend meetings with the board and approve spending for the entire last year.

The ICT industry in Pakistan has major changes as of late. USF Pakistan terminated a contract with telecommunications giant Telenor, citing security concerns that limited project completion. Another project, to provide fiber optic cables to the Balochistan region, was approved this week. And Telenor and Boston Consulting Group also completed a study finding that mobile financial services could increase the GDP by 3%.

USF funds disbursement is not a problem unique to Pakistan. In fact, just last month, reports circulated about the U.S. FCC’s failure to disburse USF funds. Despite this, however, public-private partnerships (PPP) offer hope for more effective USF fund usage.

June 3, 2011/by actualize

Democracy & Governance, Governances, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Schedule for 2011 IGF Finalized in Geneva

Panel of the 2007 Internet governance forum in Brazil listening

2007 IGF in Brazil

Stakeholders from around the world met in Geneva last week to finalize the program for the sixth annual 2011 Internet Governance Forum (IGF) which will be held in Nairobi in September. The focus of this year’s event will be on how to govern mobile Internet.

The consultations this past week garnered consensus for the final program and agenda for September.

Participants from around the world met in Geneva with the aim of maximizing the opportunity for the IGF to enable open, inclusive dialogue and draw on their experience.

Alice Munyua, Project Director for Catalyzing Access to ICTS for the Communications Commission of Kenya (CCK), chaired the second preparatory consultations of the IGF.

The finalized program is developed through and open process that began earlier this year and is overseen by a “Multi-stakeholder Advisory Group” of experts appointed by the UN Secretary General.

This year’s theme for the 2011 IGF is, “The Internet as a Catalyst for Change: Access, Development, Freedoms and Innovation”.

The stakeholders had an extensive discussion about what workshops would be important to include on the role of mobile, Internet, technology and their contribution to development.

A question to be highlighted in the forum was posed by a representative of the International Code Council (ICC): how will governance for the mobile Internet be differentiated from the wired world?

She divulged that governing this divide must be addressed as mobile has become a crucial part of how developing regions can tap into the marketplace:

On the area of mobile services and in particular for the region, it’s really an entry point to the Internet for many points of the world. There’s a leapfrogging, in essence, into this space. And I think examples of the mobile banking have been really exemplary in that.

With more than 4 million Kenyans accessing Internet through their mobile phones, this year’s IGF will prove to be an important forum for discussing and considering these issues, how they affect people in developing regions, and how it should be governed.

“…As you know, the lack of experts in capacity in relevant Internet governance issues is hampering participation of developing countries, especially Africa, on the policies, standards and also critical issues,” a representative for the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) stated in the consultations.

During the four days of the IGF in Nairobi, the main workshops will focus on issues such as broadband and mobile access; the resources critical to the stabilization and secure operation of the Internet; cybersecurity, privacy and Internet rights; along with innovative entrepreneurship and digitalizing local content.

Additionally, the multi-stakeholder team of experts have organized over 90 workshops to cover a broad range of Internet policy and technology issues.

June 2, 2011/by actualize

Asia, Civil Society, Democracy & Governance, Originally posted on the GBI Portal, Where we work

TechCamps Converge Civil Society With Silicon Valley

Picture of a man with computer open with group of Indonesians listening

Photo Credit: U.S. Department of State

The US State Department hosted the second of its TechCamp workshops in Jakarta last month, in an effort to strengthen civil society organizations in disaster prone areas.

The idea is to take the knowledge of non-governmental (NGO) and civil society organizations (CSO) familiar with the humanitarian problems and unite them with the technology gurus who might have ground breaking ideas to solve them.

When the recent tsunami annihilated Japan, the world was able to band together on the Internet because innovative systems were created to help locate lost victims and donate funds. The State Department wants to leverage these inventive minds to help grassroots organizations around the world fight humanitarian crises.

“We saw the ability of digital natives and the networked world, using lightweight and easily iterated tools, to do something rapidly that a big organization or government would find difficult, if not impossible, to do,” Richard Boly, the State Department’s director of eDiplomacy, stated. “The question is: Can we get that same magic to happen when people aren’t dying?”

Secretary of State Clinton’s vision of Civil Society 2.0 is embodied in the Techcamps, to empower civil society groups with the digital tools and hands-on training needed to better execute their missions in the 21st century.

TechCamps focus on the challenges and needs of civil groups and then provides the technology consultations and digital literacy training to help solve them. The goal is to improve the resilience of NGOs and CSOs by increasing their literacy and connecting them with local, regional and international technology communities.

Last November, the TechCamp program piloted in Santiago, Chile as part of Secretary Hilton’s Civil Society 2.0 goal. In that gathering, NGOs and technologists from around Latin America discussed new tools to promote democracy and economic development.

Woman in discussion with group with TechCamp image in the background

Photo Credit: U.S. Department of State

TechCamp Jakarta, however, focused on disaster response and climate change.

Indonesia has a large social media presence, with the second largest number of Facebook members (after the U.S.), and like Haiti and Japan, is more susceptible to future disasters.

In addition to the change in topic, during the Techcamp in Jakarta, the State Department invited additional stakeholders—including the World Bank, USAID, and large technology corporations—so that emerging ideas would have the capital needed for a sustainable lifespan. Boly explained, “It’s a way to identify the next Ushahidi or FrontlineSMS and help them scale quickly”.

Several corporate partners signed on for the second session including Alcatel-Lucent, Novartis, Intel, Google, Microsoft, and Cisco. Leading technologists, including Josh Nesbit of MedicMobile and Kate Chapman of OpenStreetMap facilitated the discussions with Indonesian civil society leaders.

USAID is open to the new, collaborative approach. “TechCamp is all about digital development,” USAID Chief Innovation Officer Maura O’Neill asserted to Fast Company. “We are mashing up local insights and tech tools to save lives, create stable and open governments, and greater prosperity for all.”

The next TechCamp will take place in Lithuania this month to coincide with the biennial convening of the Community of Democracies. Following will be Moldova in July with a focus on open government. Another six or seven gatherings are in the works, the State Department says, to possibly take place in India, sub-Saharan Africa, and Latin America.

June 2, 2011/by actualize

Civil Society, Democracy & Governance, Governances, Originally posted on the GBI Portal, Rule of Law

Uganda Blames Food Price Protests on Media

Ugandan man throwing a brick into a fire

Photo credit: Reuters/Edward Echwalu

Protests over rising fuel and food prices continue despite Ugandan government attempts to slow them down by blocking Facebook, Twitter, and censoring media content.

Last week, President Yoweri Museveni cited social media and negative media coverage as primary proponents of fueling social unrest amid state led violence.

Protestors boycotted fuel purchases by “walking to work” for the past two months in an effort to demonstrate against the government spending at a time of heightened government expenditures.

In Uganda, the price of staples such as wheat have increased up to 40%, according to the World Bank.

UCC wrote to all ISPs last month asking them to block access to the two social media websites for 48 hours, but their request was denied.

“If someone is telling people to go and cause mass violence and kill people and uses these media to spread such messages, I can assure you we’ll not hesitate to intervene and shut down these platforms,” Godfrey Mutabazi, executive director of the Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) stated last month.

The Uganda’s communications regulator relies on Internet service providers to enforce their demands, as they cannot block access to the sites themselves.

Separately, last week Museveni described both local and international media, like the BBC, as “enemies of the state” at a time when journalists are reporting brutal assaults and harassment by security forces.

Journalists have imposed a news blackout on the Ugandan government in protest against what they described as rising brutality against covering demonstrations over the high prices. The media blackout includes official police and army functions.

Following Museveni’s warning this week, the outgoing Minister for Information, Kabakumba Masiko, told BBC’s Network Africa program that Ugandan laws would be amended to deal with any journalist who behaves as an “enemy of the state”.

She state on the program:

If you look at the way these media houses have been reporting what has been going on in our country, you realise they were inciting people and trying to show that Uganda is now ungovernable, is under fire as if the state is about to collapse.

Early last year the minister took a proposed Press and Journalist Amendment Bill to the Cabinet, where it creates a new publication offense of “economic sabotage”.

Ugandan president Museveni with paper accusing media of sabotage

Museveni accused media of sabotage in 2008 address Photo credit: Monitor

If passed, the law would give absolute dominance to Media Council, the statutory regulator, the authority to revoke the license of any media outlet that publishes “material that amounts to economic sabotage”.

The officials’ efforts are part of a recent trend by autocratic governments to block social media sites and having media blackouts to control social movements.

The US State Department spokesman issued a statement of concern in how blocking communication mediums adversely affects civil society.

“We are also concerned by reports that the Ugandan government has attempted to restrict media coverage of these protests and, on at least one occasion, block certain social networking websites,” the statement said.

The ongoing role of social media and the concurrent suppression of media freedom in anti-government protests make governments’ actions against civil society measurable and accountable.

It is clear that the future of reporting will be increasingly difficult for authoritarian countries to really control what their people see and hear.

June 1, 2011/by actualize

Civil Society, Democracy & Governance, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

How Large of a Role Did Social Media Play in the Arab Spring?

Did Facebook really fuel the revolutions: (Photo credit: Harvester Solution)

On May 5th at American University, a group of international scholars and Internet governance policymakers engaged in informed dialogue on current Internet issues at the Giganet conference.

One panel entitled “Revolution 2.0” featured two Middle Eastern Internet experts from Egypt and Tunisia arguing that social media was an aid in helping citizens topple the dictatorships, not it’s catalyst.

Khaled Koubba of the Arab World Internet Institute in Tunisia shared his experience in the revolution where 20,000 cyberactivists and opponents of the regime gathered in front of the Ministry of Interior on January 14, 2011.

“It is true that we used the 2.0 tools but it is not for sure that [it was] the 2.0 revolution or the Facebook revolution,” he stated, “it has been made by people who fight for their dignity, for their life…”

He acknowledged the message reiterated in the press that Twitter and Facebook were used to mobilize people and share information; but pressed that these social media tools also helped citizen’s regain confidence in their liberties, freedoms, and abilities to make change.

“Even after Ben Ali left, we are continuing even today to put pressure on the government [in] many ways using the 2.0 tools to make change to attain what we want to attain,” Khaled asserted.

He cited two controversial videos, currently circulating on Facebook, of Farhat Rajh, Tunisia’s current interior minister, speaking about some very contentious issues of the ex-ruling party and the elections to be held on July 24.

Nivien Saleh, an Egyptian and professor of International Studies in Texas, echoed Khaled’s sentiments that technology does not necessarily liberate.

It is the people who liberate themselves from an authoritarian government onto democracy. Social media is only one of the communication avenues that drive the mass outlook.

She maintained alternate forms of communication, such as strategies for non-violent resistance through targeted outreach, coupled the latent feeling of dissatisfaction, are the real central pillars for a population to mobilize change.

Professor Shaleh also questioned the future role that Internet governance will take in regulating the content of social media

“What standard [do] providers of social media such as Facebook decide [in terms of] what kind of content can make it onto their media platforms and what cannot,” she wondered outloud to the crowd.

She referenced the Khaled Said group on Facebook, where the government asked Facebook to remove disturbing pictures of the deceased Alexandrian martyr posted by activists.

“Facebook forced the activists to take the pictures down, even though [they were there] in the first place to protest and show that stuff like this actually happens,” Shaleh said.

It is blazingly clear from these two Middle Eastern scholars that this was not a Facebook revolution, it was a citizen’s revolution and social media was merely a channel to funnel change.

Please view the video below of the Giganet conference’s panel “Revolution 2.0: the Internet and the Middle East and North Africa” and the panelists viewpoints on the role that social media played in the Middle East’s uprisings:

May 23, 2011/by actualize

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