A free and independent media plays an important role in monitoring public servants and holding them accountable for their actions. In this way they promote transparency and accountability within a country. The role of media in good governance is widely acknowledged. The Worldwide Govern
American college students today show no significant loyalty to a news program, news personality or even news platform. Students have only a casual relationship to the originators of news, and in fact don’t make fine distinctions between news and more personal information. Yet student after student, in a new ICMPA study, demonstrated knowledge of specific news stories.
How did they get the information? In a disaggregated way, and not typically from the news outlet that broke or committed resources to a story.
Jean Ping, Chairperson of the African Union Commission, at the World Bank/IMF Spring Meetings on April 23, 2010:
"ICTs [Information and Communications Technology] can be the single most important tool of our generation if given the right environment."
What do you think?
Access is the big topic when people discuss ICT on this blog. The digital divide is still the biggest obstacle for using ICT in development effectively. The access issue has more than one side: It's not only about access to the technology, it's also about access to content that feeds into the technology.
A reader's response to the blog post “Open Government”: Open to Whom?:
"Excellent post! Investing in ICTs is fundamental to open and transparent governance.
I am particularly struck by the following lines, "For their part, government officials complained about the lack of recordkeeping and archiving, particularly of the digital variety. Even with the best of intentions, officials may not be able to make information available amid weak information management systems; some of the interviewees pointed out that information about existing programs goes missing, and with it lessons learned -- along with the public’s opportunity to hold agencies accountable."
The push for open government is not of course limited to Barack Obama’s White House or to the World Bank.
As part of the AudienceScapes project, InterMedia has been conducting quantitative and qualitative research in Africa, to better understand how people gather, share and shape news and public interest information. In Kenya, InterMedia conducted in-depth interviews with 15 senior members of the policy-making community.
I have spent the past few days doing research on traditional telecenter sustainability. By traditional, I mean telecenters that charge a small fee for offline (photocopying, mobile charging etc.) and online services (Internet access) to meet their costs. While the news is rather bleak, I have stumbled across some interesting sources that might be of use to others:
I start a new job next week, so more riveting (I hope) field experiences to come. For now, I wanted to introduce a few projects, most “new” in the field, that have caught my eye.
When I try to wrap my head around the role of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) for development, I usually don't get much further than "blogging" and "text messages." It was therefore enlightening to attend today's World Bank Institute Keys to Innovation Discussion Series on "Developers for Development: Using Open Source Technology in Disaster Response and Beyond." Five presenters from open source organizations introduced their projects. The relevance of those projects is painfully obvious in the aftermath of the earthquakes in Haiti and Chile.
As you can see from many of our blog posts, we're somewhat struggling with getting a good grip on Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and their role for governance and accountability. We're also somewhat split along the lines of enthusiasm and scepticism with regard to the possibilities of using ICTs to straighten out a distorted public sphere and further development. This morning I learned about eProcurement, a very particular application of ICT in the context of government accountability, that seems to me a good argument in favor of us technology enthusiasts.
The World Bank's EduTech blog, which explores the educational benefits of information and communication technologies in developing countries, is marking its first anniversary. To celebrate, it has listed the top ten posts of the year, which you can explore here.
A new paper from Vox argues that the best scholars tend to make the best university leaders (with one glaring exception):
The UNESCO Institute for Statistics is reporting that the number or researchers in developing coun
Mexican remittances have reached their lowest level since February 2005, according to the Central Bank of Mexico.
The FT's Money Supply blog reports the news, in a post entitled "As the dollar slides":
Brookings has released a report on the state of access to finance in developing countries, taking a specific look at the lessons learned from the mobile banking sector in Kenya. The report paints a troubling picture of the state of financial access in many developing countries, but then gives some reasons for optimism.
First, the bad news:
