Re: [kictanet] Governance debates Online - Using ICT to fight graft
Alice/Bwana Ndemo, I can't agree with you more that ICTs can make a difference in addressing poor governance. Alice you raise a critical issue about digital disparity while Bwana Ndemo points to convergence of all ICT medium to allow all to participate including via sms which can help reduce this disparity. The greatest challenge is to converge all media and also incorporate multilingual capability...people must be able to express themselves in the langauge they are comfortable in. With AgendaYetu platform we attempted this - I must say it's not easy! So I join Bwana Ndemo in challenging the techies to come up with a fully converged mulitlingual platform that will mobilize ALL Kenyans to fight graft! and demand for governance reforms and monitor implementation of Agenda 4. See attached some interesting research findings of work IDRC funded on how Kenyans are using ICTs in the governance field (within the context of Agenda 4). It includes what their thoughts are on how ICTs can be used to fight corruption. This research was done after the post - election violence and just before the promulgation of the constitution in 2010. Read the section on "what did we find" after you've quickly perused the background of the study. So, I believe it's possible to mobilize Kenyans around a platform to fight corruption. which agency is ready to take the lead? Edith ________________ Edith Ofwona Adera Senior Program Specialist ICT4D Program and Climate Change & Water Program International Development Research Centre | Centre de recherches pour le développement international Regional Office for Eastern and Southern Africa Tel: +254202713160 | Fax/Téléc: +254202711063 | Skype: edithadera eadera@idrc.or.ke<mailto:eadera@idrc.or.ke> | www.idrc.ca<http://www.idrc.ca/> | www.crdi.ca<http://www.crdi.ca/> ________________________________ From: kictanet-bounces+eadera=idrc.or.ke@lists.kictanet.or.ke [kictanet-bounces+eadera=idrc.or.ke@lists.kictanet.or.ke] On Behalf Of Alice Munyua [alice@apc.org] Sent: 02 May 2011 21:26 To: Edith Adera Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions Subject: Re: [kictanet] Governance debates Online - Using ICT to fight graft Agree a great idea. As social media enables participation access, collaboration and even transparency and has great potential to enhance governance processes by way of facilitating participation from broad based stakeholders/constituencies. Some of the features can be used/applied to many aspects of governance, including feedback on anti corruption initiatives, maintaining participation, direct involvement in policy processes, deliberations, etc. However, there are some fundamental limitations we must keep in mind and deal with. To begin with, the disparity in internet access with social media services still reflects an education and/or class bias. Additionally, folks tend to join most networks as a means to an end, for example joining some lists knowing that they are more likely to get the ear of the service provider and/or government and this over reliance would in the long run ends up undermining efforts that require commitment and follow through, for those who have been members of this list will bear witness to this particularly when it comes to policy processes. So are social networks the magic bullet to participation? I also tend to think that social media sites have not really been developed for governance in the way we may be thinking, for example face book has a person cap, further, most of these sites were designed in ways to encourage participation to serve advertising revenue so perhaps we would need our very talented developers/skunks etc to begin to think about developing Social media platforms suited to our governance, anti corruption etc needs. A good example remains ushaidi. Best Alice This is actually a brilliant idea. Especially aggregating information on Social Media platforms. We already have some companies (e.g. www.gotissuez.com<http://www.gotissuez.com>) who report on such matters (corruption, poor service etc). We additionally have social media monitoring platforms that would be able to get random information on twitter about certain topics (e.g. you can monitor what people say about brand X or brand Y), many companies are already this sort of thing in place as it offers feedback on both the negative and positive aspects (many times, what is being done right is ignored). Additionally, consistent feedback that there is a problem in a particular area will point the anti corruption agencies in the right direction. Many companies use this information to monitor brand equity and customer complaints. It's just an issue of doing the same thing for the government... On Fri, Apr 29, 2011 at 8:05 PM, <bitange@jambo.co.ke<mailto:bitange@jambo.co.ke>> wrote: Lusters, I spent most of the day at KIA with other colleagues, civil society, religious groups and KEPSA to discuss strategies for fighting corruption. It was evident that as we get closer to election, the level of corruption goes up (read sugar). There was a sense of frustration that we are not making much progress. There was a dim of hope in the sense that where we have automated, revenues are up and less corruption. It was also clear that we (civil service) had sufficient delegated authority to significantly change the future of our nation. In areas where social media has been put to use, up to 60% of graft can be detected even before it is concluded. If we scale up the use of social media, a senior KACC official tells me that they would gladly embrace it. In this list we have many smart people. I need suggestions how we can integrate SMS, Twitter, Facebook and any other tool to assist in the fight against this scourge. In my considered view, the anwser lies in technology. However, One of the presenters said that the western method of fighting corruption through courts could be the problem. If you recall in 2008 at the height of the post election crisis in Mombasa, one businessman did not have to go to court to recover his goods opting to see a witch doctor. Any views would be highly appreciated. Regards Ndemo.
FYI
----- Forwarded Message ---- From: Agenda Yetu <admin@agendayetu.org<mailto:admin@agendayetu.org>> To: eadera@idrc.or.ke<mailto:eadera@idrc.or.ke> Sent: Wed, April 27, 2011 1:05:41 PM Subject: High Cost of Living in Kenya
Is the government doing enough to deal with the spiraling cost of living in Kenya?
Visit www.agendayetu.org<http://www.agendayetu.org><http://www.agendayetu.org> to take part in the discussion; and opinion poll; on “The spiraling cost of living in Kenya†.
Change Kenya …………. Be the Voice
Join the AgendaYetu Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/pages/Agenda-Yetu/149981608349201<http://www.facebook.com/home.php#%21/pages/Agenda-Yetu/149981608349201>
Follow us on twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/agendayetu<http://twitter.com/#%21/agendayetu>
Agendayetu Blog: http://www.agendayetu.org/blog/
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KICTANetiquette : Adhere to the same standards of acceptable behaviors online that you follow in real life: respect people's times and bandwidth, share knowledge, don't flame or abuse or personalize, respect privacy, do not spam, do not market your wares or qualifications.
---------------------------------------------- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by Jambo MailScanner, and is believed to be clean. --------------------------------------------- "easy access to the world" _______________________________________________ kictanet mailing list kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke<mailto:kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke> http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet Unsubscribe or change your options at http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/options/kictanet/pkariuki%40gmail.com The Kenya ICT Action Network (KICTANet) is a multi-stakeholder platform for people and institutions interested and involved in ICT policy and regulation. The network aims to act as a catalyst for reform in the ICT sector in support of the national aim of ICT enabled growth and development. KICTANetiquette : Adhere to the same standards of acceptable behaviors online that you follow in real life: respect people's times and bandwidth, share knowledge, don't flame or abuse or personalize, respect privacy, do not spam, do not market your wares or qualifications. -- With Regards, Phares Kariuki | T: +254 720 406 093 | E: pkariuki@gmail.com<mailto:pkariuki@gmail.com> | Twitter: kaboro | Skype: kariukiphares | B: http://www.kaboro.com/ | _______________________________________________ kictanet mailing list kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke<mailto:kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke> http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet Unsubscribe or change your options at http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/options/kictanet/alice%40apc.org The Kenya ICT Action Network (KICTANet) is a multi-stakeholder platform for people and institutions interested and involved in ICT policy and regulation. The network aims to act as a catalyst for reform in the ICT sector in support of the national aim of ICT enabled growth and development. KICTANetiquette : Adhere to the same standards of acceptable behaviors online that you follow in real life: respect people's times and bandwidth, share knowledge, don't flame or abuse or personalize, respect privacy, do not spam, do not market your wares or qualifications.
Thanks Edith. I came across this list of open government initiatives developed by citizens (http://shareable.net/blog/the-worlds-top-10-gov-20-initiatives). Thought it would give inspiration to our developers and institutions. *-The Australian Government* their open government policy framework through initiatives like the government 2.0 task force, they even have a gov 2.0 primer, which puts policy ideas and principles into action and providing examples of where and how agencies can engage with the public and release more data online.” *-SeeClickFix*: a map-based citizen reporting platform that enables the public to report and track non-emergency related issues via web and mobile. Co-founder Ben Berkowitz developed the idea after getting frustrated with city hall’s lack of response to graffiti in his local neighbourhood. Governments can access a dashboard to acknowledge outstanding issues and close the loop with constituents. The service is similar to the UK site fixmystreet built by open government pioneers mysociety. *-Manor Labs* innovative use of online services. has run a gov 2.0 makeover for the City of De Leon and documented the steps to enable other local towns to emulate its efforts in municipal government innovation. *-Crisis Commons*: CrisisCamp movement of volunteers who collaborate to develop open tools and aggregate crisis data to assist response organisations in civil incident management. *-Ushahidi* first developed to map reports of violence in Kenya after the post-election fallout at the beginning of 2008. The site has grown to become an important resource for citizen journalists in times of crisis like the haiti earth quake, etc. It <http://vimeo.com/17863608> provides tools for communities to crowdsource real-time information using SMS, email, Twitter and the web. *-Wikileaks*: has changed the Gov 2.0 game by exposing governments and world leaders to the powerful forces of radical transparency and giving citizens access to a body of evidence that can be used to scrutinise critical decisions made in our name. best Alice
Alice/Bwana Ndemo, I can't agree with you more that ICTs can make a difference in addressing poor governance. Alice you raise a critical issue about digital disparity while Bwana Ndemo points to convergence of all ICT medium to allow all to participate including via sms which can help reduce this disparity. The greatest challenge is to converge all media and also incorporate multilingual capability...people must be able to express themselves in the langauge they are comfortable in. With AgendaYetu platform we attempted this - I must say it's not easy! So I join Bwana Ndemo in challenging the techies to come up with a fully converged mulitlingual platform that will mobilize ALL Kenyans to fight graft! and demand for governance reforms and monitor implementation of Agenda 4. See attached some interesting research findings of work IDRC funded on how Kenyans are using ICTs in the governance field (within the context of Agenda 4). It includes what their thoughts are on how ICTs can be used to fight corruption. This research was done after the post - election violence and just before the promulgation of the constitution in 2010. Read the section on "what did we find" after you've quickly perused the background of the study. So, I believe it's possible to mobilize Kenyans around a platform to fight corruption. which agency is ready to take the lead? Edith *________________ *
*Edith Ofwona Adera *
Senior Program Specialist
ICT4D Program and Climate Change & Water Program
International Development Research Centre | Centre de recherches pour le développement international
Regional Office for Eastern and Southern Africa
Tel: +254202713160 | Fax/Téléc: +254202711063 | Skype: edithadera
eadera@idrc.or.ke <mailto:eadera@idrc.or.ke> | www.idrc.ca <http://www.idrc.ca/>| www.crdi.ca <http://www.crdi.ca/>
------------------------------------------------------------------------ *From:* kictanet-bounces+eadera=idrc.or.ke@lists.kictanet.or.ke [kictanet-bounces+eadera=idrc.or.ke@lists.kictanet.or.ke] On Behalf Of Alice Munyua [alice@apc.org] *Sent:* 02 May 2011 21:26 *To:* Edith Adera *Cc:* KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions *Subject:* Re: [kictanet] Governance debates Online - Using ICT to fight graft
Agree a great idea. As social media enables participation access, collaboration and even transparency and has great potential to enhance governance processes by way of facilitating participation from broad based stakeholders/constituencies. Some of the features can be used/applied to many aspects of governance, including feedback on anti corruption initiatives, maintaining participation, direct involvement in policy processes, deliberations, etc.
However, there are some fundamental limitations we must keep in mind and deal with. To begin with, the disparity in internet access with social media services still reflects an education and/or class bias. Additionally, folks tend to join most networks as a means to an end, for example joining some lists knowing that they are more likely to get the ear of the service provider and/or government and this over reliance would in the long run ends up undermining efforts that require commitment and follow through, for those who have been members of this list will bear witness to this particularly when it comes to policy processes.
So are social networks the magic bullet to participation? I also tend to think that social media sites have not really been developed for governance in the way we may be thinking, for example face book has a person cap, further, most of these sites were designed in ways to encourage participation to serve advertising revenue so perhaps we would need our very talented developers/skunks etc to begin to think about developing Social media platforms suited to our governance, anti corruption etc needs. A good example remains ushaidi.
Best
Alice
This is actually a brilliant idea. Especially aggregating information on Social Media platforms. We already have some companies (e.g. www.gotissuez.com <http://www.gotissuez.com>) who report on such matters (corruption, poor service etc). We additionally have social media monitoring platforms that would be able to get random information on twitter about certain topics (e.g. you can monitor what people say about brand X or brand Y), many companies are already this sort of thing in place as it offers feedback on both the negative and positive aspects (many times, what is being done right is ignored). Additionally, consistent feedback that there is a problem in a particular area will point the anti corruption agencies in the right direction.
Many companies use this information to monitor brand equity and customer complaints. It's just an issue of doing the same thing for the government...
On Fri, Apr 29, 2011 at 8:05 PM, <bitange@jambo.co.ke <mailto:bitange@jambo.co.ke>> wrote:
Lusters, I spent most of the day at KIA with other colleagues, civil society, religious groups and KEPSA to discuss strategies for fighting corruption. It was evident that as we get closer to election, the level of corruption goes up (read sugar). There was a sense of frustration that we are not making much progress. There was a dim of hope in the sense that where we have automated, revenues are up and less corruption. It was also clear that we (civil service) had sufficient delegated authority to significantly change the future of our nation. In areas where social media has been put to use, up to 60% of graft can be detected even before it is concluded.
If we scale up the use of social media, a senior KACC official tells me that they would gladly embrace it. In this list we have many smart people. I need suggestions how we can integrate SMS, Twitter, Facebook and any other tool to assist in the fight against this scourge. In my considered view, the anwser lies in technology.
However, One of the presenters said that the western method of fighting corruption through courts could be the problem. If you recall in 2008 at the height of the post election crisis in Mombasa, one businessman did not have to go to court to recover his goods opting to see a witch doctor.
Any views would be highly appreciated.
Regards
Ndemo.
> FYI > > ----- Forwarded Message ---- > From: Agenda Yetu <admin@agendayetu.org <mailto:admin@agendayetu.org>> > To: eadera@idrc.or.ke <mailto:eadera@idrc.or.ke> > Sent: Wed, April 27, 2011 1:05:41 PM > Subject: High Cost of Living in Kenya > > Is the government doing enough to deal with the spiraling cost of living > in Kenya? > > Visit www.agendayetu.org <http://www.agendayetu.org><http://www.agendayetu.org> to take part in the > discussion; and opinion poll; on “The spiraling cost of living in > Kenya†. > > Change Kenya …………. Be the Voice > > Join the AgendaYetu Facebook page: > http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/pages/Agenda-Yetu/149981608349201 <http://www.facebook.com/home.php#%21/pages/Agenda-Yetu/149981608349201> > > Follow us on twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/agendayetu <http://twitter.com/#%21/agendayetu> > > Agendayetu Blog: http://www.agendayetu.org/blog/ > > > > > ---------------------------------------------- > This message has been scanned for viruses and > dangerous content by Jambo MailScanner, and is > believed to be clean. > --------------------------------------------- > "easy access to the world" > > _______________________________________________ > kictanet mailing list > kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke <mailto:kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke> > http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet > > Unsubscribe or change your options at > http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/options/kictanet/bitange%40jambo.co.ke > > The Kenya ICT Action Network (KICTANet) is a multi-stakeholder platform > for people and institutions interested and involved in ICT policy and > regulation. The network aims to act as a catalyst for reform in the ICT > sector in support of the national aim of ICT enabled growth and > development. > > KICTANetiquette : Adhere to the same standards of acceptable behaviors > online that you follow in real life: respect people's times and bandwidth, > share knowledge, don't flame or abuse or personalize, respect privacy, do > not spam, do not market your wares or qualifications.
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The Kenya ICT Action Network (KICTANet) is a multi-stakeholder platform for people and institutions interested and involved in ICT policy and regulation. The network aims to act as a catalyst for reform in the ICT sector in support of the national aim of ICT enabled growth and development.
KICTANetiquette : Adhere to the same standards of acceptable behaviors online that you follow in real life: respect people's times and bandwidth, share knowledge, don't flame or abuse or personalize, respect privacy, do not spam, do not market your wares or qualifications.
-- With Regards,
Phares Kariuki
| T: +254 720 406 093 | E: pkariuki@gmail.com <mailto:pkariuki@gmail.com> | Twitter: kaboro | Skype: kariukiphares | B: http://www.kaboro.com/ |
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The Kenya ICT Action Network (KICTANet) is a multi-stakeholder platform for people and institutions interested and involved in ICT policy and regulation. The network aims to act as a catalyst for reform in the ICT sector in support of the national aim of ICT enabled growth and development.
KICTANetiquette : Adhere to the same standards of acceptable behaviors online that you follow in real life: respect people's times and bandwidth, share knowledge, don't flame or abuse or personalize, respect privacy, do not spam, do not market your wares or qualifications.
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The Kenya ICT Action Network (KICTANet) is a multi-stakeholder platform for people and institutions interested and involved in ICT policy and regulation. The network aims to act as a catalyst for reform in the ICT sector in support of the national aim of ICT enabled growth and development.
KICTANetiquette : Adhere to the same standards of acceptable behaviors online that you follow in real life: respect people's times and bandwidth, share knowledge, don't flame or abuse or personalize, respect privacy, do not spam, do not market your wares or qualifications.
participants (2)
-
Alice Munyua -
Edith Adera