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This is the World Bank's blog on governance and anti-corruption. It aims at providing a space for debate and knowledge sharing on this critical field of development. | Learn more...

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From m-euphoria to m-governance, thinking about the potential of mobile technology

Submitted by Alfredo on Fri, 2009-03-27 10:55

The hype about mobile technology for development work is going on the rise.  It's not for granted.  More than four billion worldwide mobile subscriptions -with the fastest growth trend in developing countries-, sounds like a great opportunity to reach and interact with broader groups of people, including the poor.  Actually, mobile penetration in Africa has expanded from about 2 to 28 subscribers (per 100 inhabitants) since 2000 (see graph at the bottom). 

This looks like a great scenario, but putting aside the m-euphoria let's explore the role for mobile technology in the field of governance.

GAC Country Diagnostics: a tool for partner countries serious about tackling the challenge of corruption

Submitted by Mark on Fri, 2008-08-01 17:34
When Pierre Nkurunziza came to power as president of Burundi in late 2005, he pledged to take serious action to address his country’s poor record on governance.  Burundi had considerable problems with official and petty corruption, and he asked the World Bank Institute (WBI) for support in developing an action plan for tackling these challenges.

 

Starting last year, WBI, working in partnership with the World Bank country team and the Government of Belgium, assisted Burundi in carrying out its first nationwide governance and anti-corruption (GAC) diagnostic survey.  Applying the same methodology that it has used in more than two dozen other countries, WBI helped Burundi create a multi-stakeholder steering group of government and civil society members. This group’s aim was to initiate and lead a process of identifying Burundi’s specific governance problems and designing an approach to address them.