ICTlogy

What has MAVC learnt about supporting work in this field?
Framer: Fletcher Tembo, Programme Director, MAVC

How you actualize your theory of change as a project deploys? Can you? Should you? Testing is fundamental, and adjusting your assumptions the most clever thing to do. But not only the “theory” has to adapt, but also program management.

In such a flexible, liquid environment, trust and relationships play an important role, as they let you move quickly and with confidence. It is important to include an adequate inception phase for building an appropriate consortium.

Host: Walter Flores, CEGSS (Centre for Equity in Health Systems Governance), Guatemala
Panellists: Helena Bjuremalm, Sida; Debby Byrne, MAVC; David Sasaki, William & Flora Hewlett Foundation; Lu Ecclestone, Department for International Development; Michael Canares, Web Foundation/Open Data Lab Jakarta

How do we turn the new knowledge that we have into new practices?

How do we select people? According to the challenges? Their experience? Their capacity? Choosing is a matter of who you exclude from your project, which is hard. The usual suspects may be good, because they have proven their value in the past, but also bad, just because they are “usual”, meaning that maybe not new people or new approaches will come from them.

Are donors comfortable with experimentation? Sometimes donors find a “window of opportunity” due to some political will to foster a specific issues, and then they take the chance to try something new, with new people. The problem is that these windows of opportunity sometimes remain open for very limited time, and hence programs are designed in a rush, without taking into account all the variables that matter. On the other hand, sometimes there is a sense of urgency to foster a field and when the opportunity comes one feels like it is now or never.

New landscapes come with new approaches and tools: innovative governance work requires innovative monitoring, evaluation and learning.

Having a flexible, multilayer/multistakeholder network can be very handy. Each organization/layer can concentrate on what they do best (draw the general strategy, find the partners, develop the projects, etc.). Rigid and hierarchical structures, who want to have control over the whole program, may not be the best option. E.g. donors should commit the money and get out of the way, after participating in identifying what success looks like. In this new scenario, fostering collaboration instead of competition is the way, especially complementary collaboration.

Grant making architecture should be inclusive by design and more prone to assume risks.

Keys to design proposals: think big, think of the partners, think about the problems to be solved, think about your liaison with other civic organizations and/or individual citizens at large.

Open Government Partnership
Breakout session

What are the challenges and opportunities in trying to bring the OGP ‘closer to the people’?

There is a need to link what happens at the national level and what happens at the local level. See if there is a thread linking both (or more) levels).

What is the enabling environment that exists at the local level? Can it be transposed at other levels? (and vice-versa)

Open government is about generating new types of citizen engagement.

What role do technologies play in this?

Access to technology is an absolute priority. But effective use of access comes with specific skills and in specific cultural contexts.

The government could co-own a system with the people.

Can we have open government without open data about budgeting or expenditure?

There is a difference between seeing open government as a tool and seeing it as a governance strategy for a change of democratic culture. In this sense, it might be very different to approach open government from the transparency and accountability point of view or the collaboration (and co-management) point of view.

Open Government Partnership
Framer: Alan Hudson, Global Integrity

Political transitions and tech:

• Adapting to political tarnsitions and challenges.
• Revising assumptions and approaches to technology.

Multiple models:

• No blueprints for localising OGP.
• Evolving and tailored strategies.
• Value of learning journeys and exchanges.
• Increasing effectiveness and impact.

What might be the implications for OGP?

• Political transitions and tech.
• Multiple models, tailored approaches.
• Value of supporting real-time learning.
• … in country (sub-national) and cross-country…
• … about political (and technical ) challenges.

Host: Munyema Hasan, Open Government Partnership Support Unit
Panellists: Patrick Lim: INCITE-Gov; Maria Lauranti PRAKARSA; Suyoto Ngartep Mustaja: Regent, Bojonegoro Regency, Indonesia; Brendan Halloran, International Budget Partnership/OGP Independent Reporting Mechanism; Benjamin Diokno, Secretary of Budget and Management, Government of Philippines

While national level OGP frames the world-wide debate of open government, the sub-national level of OGP aims at being much more specific, ambitious and especially applied to the reality of citizens’ everyday life.

There is the belief, among political representatives, that transparency goes in detriment to power: “if I am transparent, people will not need the government, and I will be useless”. This is just false. On the contrary, transparency builds trust, and with trust comes legitimacy and thus more power to make decisions and to do things.

Open government — and the Open Government Partnership — is a political project, not a tool. OGP needs to be a wider project of open governance which builds openness norms to survive political transitions. Political transition is a constant. If a program is good, new governments should adopt it and improve it.

Open government is about citizen oriented governance.

Governance actors, processes and relationships
Framer: Vanessa Herringshaw, independent/MAVC

What is doing technology to intermediaries (and infomediaries) between the government and the citizens? Is technology bringing in new actors to the democratic game? The landscape of actors is increasingly complex, with new actors, new behaviors, new relationships, new tools. The days of isolated political intervention are over.

Are technological platforms for petitioning or for interrogating the government? For demanding or for collaboration? Are for public services users or for citizens? How do tech platforms reframe the way we understand citizens and citizen engagement? How does it impact on governance and politics?

Facilitator: Tim Davies, Practical Participation
Participants: Lily Tsai, MIT; Sarah Lister, UNDP Oslo Governance Centre; Gaia Gozzo, CARE; Anu Joshi, IDS; Alex Howard, Sunlight Foundation; Kate McAlpine, Community for Children’s Rights Ltd; Shandana Mohmand, IDS; Steadman Noble, VSO; Kate Bingley, Christian Aid

In the actual governance landscape, is it changing or are there just the usual suspects?

Citizens need evidence of government responsiveness before deciding to engage, so to measure the effectiveness of their engagement. Even more, sometimes citizens are punished (literally or figuratively) for engaging. Punishment sometimes sparks more participation, but many times stops people from engaging.

There is some evidence that the more democratic competition, the more information, people tend to reinforce their former beliefs. This is counter-intuitive, but it has to do with excess of information and economies of time. On the other hand, governments are more responsive when the information source is reliable or, even more, accountable.

Civil society organizations have a role in legitimizing, giving credibility to citizen-generated and citizen-owned data for governance actors, so that that data is trustworthy.

We have to think creatively on how to shift incentives of engagement.

Where are journalists in this debate? Why is there a divorce between people in NGOs and journalists?

John Gaventa, IDS

The importance of history.

In the past, most of the things that people learned from projects would get lost, forgotten. Now, there’s so many ways to report information and share knowledge that it makes it more likely that people will be able to retrieve this knowledge and apply it to their upcoming projects.

The scale of technological change is phenomenal. This is a unique moment in history… or isn’t it? Or is it just a transitional moment in history?

The current context.

Technology shapes society, and society shapes technology. But this is happening for good and for bad: new technologies are also empowering and giving voice to criminal networks.

Technology has increased the questioning of what constitutes legitimate information, legitimate voice, legitimate data… and about data, where does it come from, whose is it, etc. How do algorithms work… are algorithms legitimate voice? Are they good, bad or it depends? How do we trust new voices, human or automatic?

Technology is giving voice and it is destroying voice. Is voice truly voice or is it the echoing of what powerful people want us to hear?

How change happens.

Would we had had this meeting five years ago, would our statements, conclusions, doubts have been the same? What difference does technology make?

What is going on with society, is it due to technology? Is it not? Is our understanding of the role of technology influenced by the social context? Is it influenced by technology or the other way round?

Transparency is enabling, but it is not enough. But, maybe, if we add some other things to technology — i.e. inclusion, politics, etc. — then maybe yes there is an ongoing and transformative change.

How we think change might happen in the future?

Is there a dichotomy about technology? Or can we harness the potential of technology while being aware of its risks? It may not be “either or”, but both.

We have to work both ends of the equation.

We have to be the equation.

Breakout session: Tech as part of the mix

How can offline and online activities be better integrated?

Try not to think about online vs. offline. Try to think about the people behind participation, as the people are the same and won’t change depending on the platform or modality of participation.

An actor — facilitator, reporter — can transpose what happens offline into a digital platform and, at the same time, this facilitator or reporter can monitor what goes on online and transpose it to offline debates. The role of this bridge-actor is thus crucial.

Try not to duplicate efforts and/or tasks.

What online or offline activities can help overcome the risks of exclusion?

Combine traditional technology (e.g. radio) with newer one (e.g. social media) to keep a balance of channels and platforms.

The role of intermediaries or infomediaries becomes very important for those who cannot access some specific channels, not only online ones, but especially those.

Use both channels — online and offline — is the surest bet.

Sometimes the choice between offline and online might not be straightforward. Where some people would see online as a driver of exclusion, some might see online as safer (e.g. in violent environments where people can be physically abducted by totalitarian regimes) or more comfortable (e.g. for people that are shy or value anonymity). So, we should not consider ex-ante that offline equals old and inefficient and that online equals exclusion for some marginalized. Context matters.

Online tools should just be a part of a greater toolset, and chose the tools according to needs.

There’s a blind spot in most projects where ideology is taken as non-existent, while this is mostly not true. Technology is not neutral, and neither is the people that design any kind of participatory project: who are the beneficiaries of a project, who are the managers, what are the priorities (goals, outputs, outcomes, etc.)