#digitalgov

Five tools for capturing, manipulating, and visualizing data

Data Literacy Bootcamp in Freetown, Sierra Leone. Photo: Usman Khaliq, iDT Labs

Increasing evidence suggests that, to improve accountability and promote evidence-based decision making, open access to data and data literacy skills are essential. While in-person educational opportunities can be limited in parts of the developing world, free educational tools are available online to boost data literacy skills.

In June 2016, Code for Africa, with support from the World Bank’s Open Government Global Solutions Group, held a Data Literacy Bootcamp in Freetown, Sierra Leone, for 55 participants, including journalists, civil society members, and private and public sector representatives. One of the Bootcamp’s primary objectives was to build data literacy skills to nurture the homegrown development of information and communication technologies (ICT) solutions to development problems.

Here are five tools Bootcamp participants employed to help capture, manipulate, and visualize data:

African countries come together to address gaps in managing digital information for open government

While 85 percent of participating OGP countries have digitized their public records, only 16 percent are storing them in secure, professionally managed digital repositories.

On April 22 and April 29, 2016 representatives from Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, Malawi, Sierre Leone, South Africa, and Tanzania came together in a virtual South-South Knowledge exchange hosted by the World Bank in collaboration with the Open Government Partnership to discuss an issue of mounting concern: managing records and information to support open government. These countries – committed to the goal of open government, and a number with new right to information laws and open data initiatives - were motivated by increasing recognition that their commitments to make information open cannot be fully realized until they increase their capacity to manage records and information, especially the growing amount of information in digital form.

Expect no lines in front of the digital counters

While countries around the world reap the benefits of an expanding digital environment, development challenges persist, adversely impacting low-income countries from achieving that same rate of growth.

The 2016 World Development Report (PDF) recently highlighted these findings in addition to three factors that contribute to a government’s responsiveness towards these digital changes.

According to the report, public services tend to be more amenable to improvements through digital technologies if the proposed system allows for fluid feedback, a replicable development process, and an outcome that can be easily measured and identified.

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Where World Bank-funded digital technology projects are more successful

© John Stanmeyer/National Geographic Creative. Used with the permission of John Stanmeyer/National Geographic Creative. Further permission required for reuse.

In January 2016, the World Bank released World Development Report 2016: Digital Dividends.

The 330 page paper is an insightful read with brilliant analysis of how 'digital technologies have spread fast worldwide, but their digital dividends have not'.

Part of the report is about efficacy of digital technologies to improve public service delivery in developing countries.

World Development Report 2016 (WDR 2016) team analyzes 530 e-government projects in over 100 countries to determine where the digital technology projects funded by the World Bank are more successful.

Citizen engagement quiz!

Government works best when citizens are directly engaged in policymaking & public service delivery. This month we’ve been highlighting the importance of government responsiveness for fostering an active citizenry.

Think you know about citizen engagement? Take our quiz based on some of our most recent blogs and find out! And let us know how you did by sharing your score on twitter @wbg_gov!

Want to know more? Enroll for free in World Bank course on Citizen Engagement which starts on February 1 to learn how you could help improve public services.

From citizen feedback to inclusive institutions: 10 lessons

Over the last couple of years a small team of us have worked on an initiative to incorporate the regular, systematic feedback of citizens into the design and execution of World Bank programs. I would like to share some of our experiences working together with governments, civil society organizations and citizens in Latin America, Asia, the Middle East and Africa on this citizen engagement initiative.

First, citizen engagement is not new. For instance, the early work by Robert Chambers, “The Origins and Practice of Participatory Rural Appraisal and Michael Cernea’s “Putting People First” date from 1980s and early 90s and were quite inspirational for many of us who have worked issues of gathering and acting on citizen feedback.

At the same time, something important has changed. There has been an increasing demand by civil society and citizens to have a greater say in public decision-making, and a desire among many governments to be more inclusive and responsive to citizens’ needs. Also, the rise of innovations in technology has provided citizens with new and unprecedented opportunities to directly engage policy makers and demonstrated the potential to facilitate “Closing the Feedback Loop” between citizen and governments.

Lining up to support the Open Government Partnership

Daily life in Monrovia, Liberia on December 2, 2014.
Photo © Dominic Chavez/World Bank

The Open Government Partnership (OGP) just concluded its third Global Summit. Government, civil society, and development partner representatives from over one hundred countries met in Mexico City to strengthen international cooperation around the open government agenda.

This year the summit emphasized connections between the OGP mission and the slate of newly adopted Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) aimed at ending extreme poverty by 2030.

Delegates to the summit vowed to contribute to achievement of SDG Goal 16, and committed to mainstreaming open government principles such as including transparency, citizen participation, accountability and integrity, and technology and innovation into implementation of the entire 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Recognizing that collaborative, multi-sectoral approaches lead to better results, the World Bank intends to anchor its support for open government reforms and initiatives in OGP member countries’ national action plans. The result of extensive consultations with government and civil society stakeholders, OGP national action plans are country-developed strategy papers designed around the specific open government needs, demands, and goals of a given country.

As an example, the Bank’s Open Aid Partnership (OAP) has been working for four years to make information on aid-financed activities more transparent and accessible. This mission clearly fits within the umbrella of increasing government openness. Now, OAP is working to align its engagements with the OGP in joint pursuit of the Global Goals. It does this by offering specific expertise in open aid data as countries develop their national action plans and implement related transparency commitments within the OGP framework.

Lessons from the taxi industry to improve Romania’s governance

Photo: Daniel Kozak, World Bank

The first time I came to Bucharest in 2013 the Bank office offered to arrange a pick up from the airport. Being a seasoned traveler, I declined the offer. I reasoned that I had lived and worked in so many countries I could manage the transfer to the hotel without assistance. I was wrong.

I picked up my luggage to find a local cab outside the airport. A taxi driver offered me a ride. I didn’t negotiate the price upfront seeing that he had a meter in the car.

Twenty minutes later we reached the hotel. The meter read Lei 200 - at the that time about $60. That was over twice the going rate but there was little else I could do. I felt cheated as so many tourists do.

I learned from the experience, accepted offers of help from colleagues and paid more attention to rates going forward.

About a year later I returned to Bucharest to find a new system in place. An electronic kiosk had been installed at the airport. Arriving visitors could now press a button to get an estimated wait time to hail a taxi. I took my ticket. It was a smooth ride.

What made the difference?

The new taxi ordering system is now available on mobile phones mirroring, in many ways, the service provided by Uber. Passengers can rate drivers and increase accountability.

Bucharest has gone from being a difficult place to find an honest cab driver to one of the most convenient.

The change has been driven by incentives and improved technology.

What are the implications for governance reform?

How can we leverage innovations and MOOCs for citizen engagement?

Imagine a group of researchers, students, civil society organizations, development practitioners and professors from the London School of Economics all gathered together for a lively event to discuss the first World Bank MOOC on Citizen Engagement.

Development as Freedom in a Digital Age: join us for the book launch event on April 9

Cover of Development as Freedom in a Digital Age Book

The majority of the poor in the world are gaining access to these technologies for the first time. The real question remains: does having access to a cell phone, the Internet, or social media have any tangible benefits for the living conditions of the most marginalized among the poor?

Is the “digital divide” widening or narrowing the “economic divide”? Today being digital literate has become imperative for accessing economic, social, and political opportunities.

#digitalgov

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