Transparency

A few weeks ago Obama went to Ghana and delivered a major speech to Africa.  He spoke candidly about the dire governance challenges faced by many countries in the continent.  I also noted that Obama was not explicit about the implications of his message for rethinking donor aid strategies to the continent. Hopefully such revamp in donor aid will be part of the follow through of his speech, if there is follow through.

A month before his momentous trip to Accra to address the Ghanian Parliament, Obama had gone to Cairo to deliver a major address to the Arab world.  It is a speech, which is also worth studying in depth.  But it was more muted and unfocused, refraining from being too direct on the governance and freedom deficits in the Arab world. For one, Obama is not seen as a prodigal son there, in contrast with how he is regarded by Africa...

-courtesy: @chadelund Quote of the day- #iranelection

In a previous blog entry, I wrote about how Web 2.0 is improving governance, with or without the help of the government in question, and irrespective of whether the country is developed or not.

Throwing traditional wisdom to the winds, the Web 2.0 story is continuing to unfold in a way that was not predicted by researchers and experts of the development community and outside.   When I last wrote my blog entry on this issue, it was specifically to explore how Bangladeshi citizens, independently of the government, NGOs, or media were sharing their experience of the BDR mutiny and its results.  This shone a light into the situation in Bangladesh to many who would have been otherwise left in the dark about the BDR revolt.

Then Iran happened.  The situation in Iran has many interesting parallels with Bangladesh and the BDR revolt – both related to the citizen-fuelled proliferation of news, occurring independently of the Government, and in Iran, even inspite of the opposition of the Government.

San Francisco is setting the US standard for using technology to improve accountability.  The Mayor recently announced the launch of a 311 Call Center through Twitter. Check out the site here.  San Francisco is the first US city to roll out a major service such as this on Twitter.

Blogs have changed the way people put into practice concepts such as voice and freedom of expression.  In a matter of minutes, anyone who has access to a computer with internet connection can create a blog and start posting ideas, experiences, opinions, pictures and videos that will be become available to more than 1.5 billion internet users in the world.

Also, blogs' features enable two-way communication and interaction between users, very different to the "static" dynamic of traditional websites. Most important, people can do all of these things at no cost.

However, the expansion of the blogosphere has also triggered negative reactions, especially in environments where censorship and control of information still prevail. Touching on several of these reactions, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) launched a special report in which it highlights the "10 worst countries to be a blogger."