I am now at the Fortune BrainstormTech, which aims to relate innovations in technology to larger world problems it can solve. The event just started, featuring fascinating evening panels with tech leaders (here). One of the sessions I will co-lead tomorrow, with Ross Mayfield of Socialtext, is on governance. In this forthcoming interactive lab we will try to advance the discussion on the interface between ICT, governance and government. One contribution I will try to make is to distinguish between e-government and m-governance, and to ask for ideas on how m-governance can be taken to the next stage.
For many years already, the IT revolution has brought about innovation supporting the modernization of the public sector, in industrialized and developing countries. The major advances took place into what’s called e-government, namely electronic government, or the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) by government agencies in the provision of public services and in interacting with their constituencies.
This has been highly valuable. But e-government, focused on government services, has under-emphasized broader aspects of governance, particularly those where citizens and institutions outside of government play a key role. People have not been at the center of e-government, and e-government applications have often been static and immobile, relying on IT infrastructure which is out of reach for most locations and citizens in developing countries.
But the good news is that recently a dynamic IT-revolution has been afoot, placing the citizen center stage. It is m-governance, or ‘Governance-on-the-Go’ (GonGo), with the focus on (mobile) governance rather than only on government. ’GonGo’ is enabling open, fluid and interactive ways for people to relate with each other and with institutions, including civil society and NGOs, the private sector, media, parliaments, and also public institutions.
This allows IT to be embedded into the mobile citizen, thanks to the breakthrough synergy of various technologies. In particular, consider what a citizen can do as s/he goes about their day, thanks to the interaction between the cellphone, SMS text messaging (or MMS for pictures and video) and
micro-blogging, such as
Twitter. These have already empowered millions of highly mobile citizens everywhere to improve governance, democracy, and peace — and also in poor and remote corners of the world.
Some examples include the use of
text-messaging during the Orange Revolution in Ukraine, the citizens protests in Philippines and Lebanon. Very recently, witness the role of of while micro-blogging, where
Twitter enabled on-time reporting of China’s earthquake, in fact a full hour before CNN or other traditional media reported it, and even before the US Geological Site had news. Or the role of text message during Burma’s crackdown on the monks of Burma (Myanmar). And I have written before on the importance of
blogging in Kenya, where m-governance has also been effectively used, with
Ushahidi,
Mashada, and
BungeSMS, among others, informing and organizing citizens during and after the post-electoral crisis.
Mobility is essential, hence the power of placing at the citizen’s fingertips an affordable and accessible cell. In Africa for instance, for each 100 inhabitants, there are almost 30 mobile subscribers (and due to sharing of cell
phones, the actual access is much larger than that), while there are only about 5 internet users, 3 fixed phone lines, and 0.2 broadband users (
here for data).
Of course, infrastructure investments also need to continue so to provide more internet and PC access to citizens. But these need to become more accessible, mobile, and embedded into the person, thus converging with handhelds and cellphony, placing citizens and their mobile needs center stage so to help them further good governance.
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watching your government, and watching each other
Thanks for making the useful distinction between e-government and e- or m-governance.
These new tools are undoubtedly democratizing the the means of media production -- the power of the individual to publish for all the world to see/hear in real time is an unprecedented occurrence -- and, as your examples demonstrate, this does suggest a potential empowerment of ordinary citizens in their interactions with government (and other powerful institutions).
(btw Here's another famous recent example: Student 'Twitters' his way out of Egyptian jail; http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/04/25/twitter.buck/)
But at the same time we are experiencing, via many of the same tools, a democratization in the means of surveillance. This is not only the means of government to surveil its citizens, but also of companies, NGOs and even citzens themselves to do this as well.
Location-based services, powered by GPS, offer opportunities for human rights activists to 'prove' that something happened in a given place, and for government to tailor services -- from disaster relief to pension payments to policing -- to its citizens based on location at a given moment in time, not just identity.
What might this mean when we are all simultaneously the watchers and the watched? What might this mean for a whole variety of government and governance issues? Do things get better, or worse? Does this put everyone in the shadow of scores of Big Brothers? Do we care?
twitter for africa and good governance
This is a brief entry that Ross Mayfield, Chairman, President and Co-founder of Socialtext, posted in his weblog after co-leading a lab session with Dani Kaufmann at the Fortune BrainstormTech.
See: http://ross.typepad.com/blog/2008/07/twitter-for-afr.html
m-governance in Myanmar and China
Fortunately mobile solutions are becoming a widely accessible and not so expensive tool to improve governance in developing countries.
To the many examples already mentioned, I will add the case of Myanmar, where cellphones and the web played a significant role to show the world the peaceful pro-democracy demonstrations that were followed by a military repression.
The article "Cell Phones, Web Spread News of Myanmar" elaborate pretty well on the topic. (http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=3656364)
What is really striking is the fact that even when there were attempts by the government to cut the cellphone service, at the end it could not entirely control technology, leaving the door open for vibrant social groups that were trying to make a difference.
In a similar way, technology (in this case blogging) is giving voice to citizens in China. (see Huge New Wave of Blogging in China
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/11/23/business/bloggers.php).
In both cases, governance is being exercised in innovative ways, most of them instantly or on-the-go. Although technology is not enough to improve governance it seems to be an efficient tool when people are really to make a change.
"Mobilizing" Governance and Development
m-Governance is indeed quickly emerging as a new frontier of e-governance and as one of its most exciting aspects. It is part of a broader phenomenon of "mobilizing" development or using mobile technologies to enable better development results, including better governance.
In theory, many government services can be now made available on a 24x7x365 basis at any place in the world covered by mobile networks, which today means almost everywhere. According to an estimate by R. Chandrashekar, Additional Secretary (e-Gov), Government of India, approximately 50%60% of government services in India can be delivered via mobile channel.
World Bank's e-Development Thematic Group takes this opportunity very seriously and that's why we organized several events on "mobile governance" and "mobile development" in the last 2 years.
More information, including many examples is available at our special web coverage on m-governance at: http://go.worldbank.org/7D28MGTQ70
GonGo initiatives can
GonGo initiatives can potentially play an important role in increasing access to government services in more equitable ways. But as recent moves by the Sri Lanka government demonstrate, there are still very real equity issues. [see Sri Lanka Bans Lending Mobile Phones to Friends, http://www.cellular-news.com/story/32523.php] In poor communities, the sharing of one mobile phone between many people is often standard practice -- banning such practices could effectively cut of these citizens from GonGo services, while not impacting more affluent citizens.
It is perhaps interesting to note that, while there have been scores of government-initiated and -sponsored initiatives around the world to help provide subsidized access to PCs (here's a illustrative list of some of them, http://infodev.org/en/Publication.108.html), there have been no comparable programs by government to widen access to mobile phones. To the contrary: many governments, especially in Africa, appear to see taxes on mobile phones, airtime, etc. as shot-term cash cows, at least if the GSMA is to be believed (see http://www.gsmworld.com/news/press_2008/press08_37.shtml).
m-government limitations
As mentioned in the article referenced by Oleg, there are several limitations to m-goverment.
While m-government has great potential to vastly expand access to public services to the poorest segments of the population in areas where wired telecommunications and ICT services do not exist, there are still limits to its capabilities. Several constrains exist which may potentially inhibit the growth of m-government services in developing nations:
1) The physical limitations of mobile technology (small screen size, limited text input, etc) may restrict the amount of information that is easily sent or received.
2) In some areas, the mobile user is charged a fee for not just for sent SMS messages but also for received messages, placing financial limitations on the amount of information governments can cost-effectively provide to citizens.
3) Though minimal in comparison with wired networks, physical infrastructure is still necessary for mobile applications and services to be available in rural areas.
4) Payment and financial options require existing financial structures which are compatible with mobile technology, such as credit cards and bank accounts
Governance and E-Government
I have been enjoying your Governance blog, especially the recent ones on Web 2.0 and governance on the go. You say that e-government has focused on the services aspect at the expense of the other aspects of governance. I completely agree. My feeling is e-government is focused on services to the exclusion of other, equally important aspects of governance because of the dominance of technology and technology experts in the field. For instance, a lot of the responses to your blog have not really responded to the points you are making regarding widening the scope of e-government, but to the promise of mobile technology. To extend the argument a bit, I would even add that work on governance has also ignored the recent trends of globalization and technology.
I don't want to under-emphasize the importance of technology and its potential. We are lucky to live in an age which is seeing huge advances in technology. To use your words, it can "turn the world upside down". But if we focus on the technology without thinking about other important aspects of good governance, our reform efforts will either fail or be less than completely effective. If our work on governance fails to take into account Web 2.0/3.0 with its resulting emergent communities then our models and our data will fail to capture the true dynamics of the situation we face today. In the same way, we cannot ignore the fact that traditional governance actors are being supplanted with non-state, collaborative entities fueled by the new Web. There is, therefore, a need for both sides to re-think their approach to global democratic governance as well as e-government (if we are to even continue calling it that). I will post a link on my CLAD paper on this subject when it is formally issued
M-government has the
M-government has the possibility to extend the reach of e-government. Mobile devices, always with the user, enable government information to be reached from more places, extending the reach of the Internet. Also, in most countries, mobile penetration is at least equal to or exceeds Internet penetration, which enables government services to be reached by more people.
Internet is a very powerful
Internet is a very powerful medium to inform and educate people. The government can use this system to widen its range of giving services to the people. It can also be a great help for our government to govern us according to laws and moral values.
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