Stefaan Verhulst
Kathrin Frauscher, Karolis Granickas and Leigh Manasco at the Open Contracting Partnership: “…Ukraine is one of our Showcase and Learning (S&L) projects, and we’ve already shared several stories about the success of Prozorro. Each S&L project tests specific theories of change and use cases. Through the Prozorro platform, Ukraine is revolutionizing procurement by digitizing the process and unlocking data to make it available to citizens, CSOs, government, and business. The theory of change for this S&L project hypothesizes that transparency and the implementation of the Open Contracting Data Standard (OCDS), combined with multi-stakeholder collaboration in the design, promotion and monitoring of the procurement system, is having an impact on value for money, fairness and integrity.
The reform introduced other innovations, including electronic reverse auctions and a centralized procurement database that integrates with private commercial platforms. We co-created a monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL) plan with our project partners to quantify and measure specific progress and impact indicators, while understanding that it is hard to attribute impacts to distinct aspects of the reform. The indicators featured in this blog are particularly related to our theory of change.
We are at a crucial moment in this S&L project as our first round of comprehensive MEL baseline and progress data are coming in. It’s a good time to reflect on key takeaways and challenges that arose when defining and analyzing these data, and how we are using them to inform the Prozorro reform.
Openness can result in more competition and competition saves money.
One of the benefits of open contracting appears to be improving market opportunity and efficiency. Market opportunity focuses on companies being able to compete for business on a level playing field.
From January 2015 to March 2017, the average number of bids per tender lot rose by 15%, demonstrating an increase in competition. Even more notable, the average number of unique suppliers during that same time grew by 45% for each procuring entity, meaning that agencies are now procuring from more and more diverse suppliers….
High levels of responsiveness can benefit procuring entities.
Those agencies that leverage their opportunities to interact with business and citizens throughout the contracting cycle, by actively responding to questions and complaints via the online platform, tend to conduct procurement more smoothly, without high levels of amendments or cancellations, than those who don’t. Tenders with a 100% response rate to feedback have a 66% success rate, while those with no response, show a 52% success rate. The portal provides procuring entities with the resources needed to address questions and problems, saving time, effort and money throughout the contracting process.
People are beginning to trust the public procurement process and data more.
According to a survey of 300 entrepreneurs conducted by USAID, most respondents believed that Prozorro significantly (27%) or partially (53%) reduces corruption. Additionally, fewer respondents who participated in procurement said they faced corruption when using the new platform (29%) compared to the old system (54%). These numbers only tell a part of the story, as we do not know what those outside of the procurement system think, but they are a necessary first step towards measuring increased levels of trust for the public procurement process. We will continue looking at trust as one of the proxies for health of an open procurement process.
Citizens are actively seeking out procurement information.
Google search hits grew from 680 in the month of January 2015 to more than 191,000 in the month of February 2017 (tracking 43 related keywords). This means the environment is shifting to one where people are recognizing that this data has value; that there is interest and demand for it. Implementing open contracting processes is just one part of what we want to see happen. We also strive to nurture an environment where open contracting data is seen as something that is worthwhile and necessary.
The newly established www.dozorro.org monitoring platform also shows promising results…..
The main one is feedback loops. We see that procuring entities’ responsiveness to general questions results in better quality procurement. We also see that only one out of three claims (request to a procuring entity to amend, cancel or modify a tender in question) is successfully resolved. In addition, there are some good individual examples, such as the ones in Dnypro and Kiev. While we do not know if these numbers and instances are sufficient for an effective institutional response mechanism, we do know that business and citizens have to trust redress mechanisms before using them. We will continue trying to identify the ideal level of institutional response to secure trust and develop better metrics to capture that….(More)”.
“USAFacts is a new data-driven portrait of the American population, our government’s finances, and government’s impact on society. We are a non-partisan, not-for-profit civic initiative and have no political agenda or commercial motive. We provide this information as a free public service and are committed to maintaining and expanding it in the future.
We rely exclusively on publicly available government data sources. We don’t make judgments or prescribe specific policies. Whether government money is spent wisely or not, whether our quality of life is improving or getting worse – that’s for you to decide. We hope to spur serious, reasoned, and informed debate on the purpose and functions of government. Such debate is vital to our democracy. We hope that USAFacts will make a modest contribution toward building consensus and finding solutions.
There’s more to USAFacts than this website. We also offer an annual report, a summary report, and a “10-K” modeled on the document public companies submit annually to the SEC for transparency and accountability to their investors…(More).”
UNDG Guidance Note: “This document sets out general guidance on data privacy, data protection and data ethics for the United Nations Development Group (UNDG) concerning the use of big data, collected in real time by private sector entities as part of their business offerings1 , and shared with UNDG members for the purposes of strengthening operational implementation of their programmes to support the achievement of the 2030 Agenda.
The Guidance Note is designed to:
• Establish common principles across UNDG to support the operational use of big data for achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs);
• Serve as a risk-management tool taking into account fundamental human rights; and
• Set principles for obtaining, retention, use and quality control for data from the private sector. The data revolution was recognized as an enabler of the Sustainable Development Goals, not only to monitor progress but also to inclusively engage stakeholders at all levels to advance evidence-based policies and programmes and to reach the most vulnerable.
The 2030 Agenda asserts that “Quality, accessible, timely and reliable disaggregates data will be needed to help with the measurement of progress (SGDs) and to ensure that no one is left behind. Such data is key to decision making.” At the same time, there are legitimate concerns regarding risks associated with handling and processing of big data, particularly in light of the current fragmented regulatory landscape and in the absence of a common set of principles on data privacy, ethics and protection. These concerns continue to complicate efforts to develop standardized and scalable approaches to risk management and data access. A coordinated approach is required to ensure the emergence of frameworks for safe and responsible use of big data for the achievement of the 2030 Agenda.
The guidance described in this document acknowledges and is based on the UN Guidelines for the Regulation of Computerized Personal Data Files, adopted by the UN General Assembly resolution 45/95, and takes into account both existing international instruments and relevant regulations, rules and policies of UNDG member organizations concerning data privacy and data protection. This Guidance Note is based on standards that have withstood the test of time, reflecting the strength of their core values….(More)”.
Paper by Daxton Stewart: “In the early weeks of the new presidential administration, White House staffers were communicating among themselves and leaking to journalists using apps such as Signal and Confide, which allow users to encrypt messages or to make them vanish after being received. By using these apps, government officials are “going dark” by avoiding detection of their communications in a way that undercuts freedom of information laws. In this paper, the author explores the challenges presented by encrypted and ephemeral messaging apps when used by government employees, examining three policy approaches – banning use of the apps, enhancing existing archiving and record-keeping practices, or legislatively expanding quasi-government body definitions – as potential ways to manage the threat to open records laws these “killer apps” present….(More)”.
Handbook edited by David Courpasson and Steven Vallas: “Occupy. Indignados. The Tea Party. The Arab Spring. Anonymous. These and other terms have become part of an emerging lexicon in recent years, signalling an important development that has gripped many parts of the world: millions of people are increasingly involved, whether directly or indirectly, in movements of resistance and protestation.
However, resistance and its conceptual “companions”, protest, contestation, opposition, disobedience and mobilization, all seem to be still mostly seen in public and private discourses as illegitimate and problematic forms of action. The time is, therefore, ripe to delve into the concerns, themes and legitimacy.
The SAGE Handbook of Resistance offers theoretical essays enabling readers to forge their own perspectives of what “is” resistance and emphasizes the empirical and experiential dimension of resistance – making strong choices in terms of how contemporary topics related to resistance help to rethink our societies as “protest societies”…(More)”.
This article reviews the reasons scholars hold that driverless cars and many other AI equipped machines must be able to make ethical decisions, and the difficulties this approach faces. It then shows that cars have no moral agency, and that the term ‘autonomous’, commonly applied to these machines, is misleading, and leads to invalid conclusions about the ways these machines can be kept ethical. The article’s most important claim is that a significant part of the challenge posed by AI-equipped machines can be addressed by the kind of ethical choices made by human beings for millennia. Ergo, there is little need to teach machines ethics even if this could be done in the first place. Finally, the article points out that it is a grievous error to draw on extreme outlier scenarios—such as the Trolley narratives—as a basis for conceptualizing the ethical issues at hand…(More)”.
Book by Nagy K. Hanna: “This book considers the opportunities and challenges of harnessing digital technologies for improved public services and governance. It focuses on the challenges of applying digital technologies in developing countries, where dramatic results can be realized. It addresses questions like these: How can digital technologies help enhance transparency, accountability, and participation to improve service design and delivery? Where are the opportunities to enhance key areas of governance and public service delivery? What are the promising practices to strengthen supply and mobilize demand for good governance and service delivery? What are the emerging lessons from recent experience? The author explains with real cases how ICT can be deployed to improve public sector efficiency and accountability for resource management; improve access and quality of public services for citizens; enhance transparency and reduce costs of government-business transactions, support entrepreneurship, attract private investment, and reduce the burden of regulation; and enhance the effectiveness of political oversight and policy institutions. This book details the importance of understanding the social, political, and institutional contexts and the policies that might scale up ICT for governance and public service improvement….(More)”
Paper by J. Ojasalo and L. Tähtinen as part of the INTED2017 Proceedings: “The purpose of this paper is to increase knowledge of participation in collaborative innovation of cities with digital channels, as well as propose a model of digital participation system in an open innovation platform of a city. There is very little knowledge of this area is available in the existing research literature. This paper empirically addresses this knowledge gap and contributes to the literature on digital participation in collaborative innovation, innovation intermediaries and platforms, as well as urban development and Smart City literature. The results of this study have also clear practical implications particularly to urban policy makers and developers, companies and third sector organization collaborating with cities, as well as educators in the field of innovation and urban development. The empirical research method is qualitative and draws on data from in-depth interviews and co-creative multi-actor workshops. As the result, it proposes a model which shows the main methods of digital participation in an open innovation platform, namely information dissemination, actor recruitment, and idea generation, explains their nature….(More)”
Martí Cuquet, Guillermo Vega-Gorgojo, Hans Lammerant, Rachel Finn, Umair ul Hassan at ArXiv: “This paper presents the risks and opportunities of big data and the potential social benefits it can bring. The research is based on an analysis of the societal impacts observed in a set of six case studies across different European sectors. These impacts are divided into economic, social and ethical, legal and political impacts, and affect areas such as improved efficiency, innovation and decision making, changing business models, dependency on public funding, participation, equality, discrimination and trust, data protection and intellectual property rights, private and public tensions and losing control to actors abroad. A special focus is given to the risks and opportunities coming from the legal framework and how to counter the negative impacts of big data. Recommendations are presented for four specific legal frameworks: copyright and database protection, protection of trade secrets, privacy and data protection and anti-discrimination. In addition, the potential social benefits of big data are exemplified in six domains: improved decision making and event detection; data-driven innovations and new business models; direct social, environmental and other citizen benefits; citizen participation, transparency and public trust; privacy-aware data practices; and big data for identifying discrimination. Several best practices are suggested to capture these benefits…(More)”.
Meg Miller at Co.Design: “If there’s one issue that this divided nation can agree upon, it’s a common hatred of the federal government’s dizzying, overly complicated tax forms. Show me one person who enjoys digging up last year’s return and embarking on a byzantine quest through tax credits, deductions, exemptions, and withholdings, all for a measly return, and I’ll show you a masochist. Surely, simplifying the forms and the process—shifting the burden from individual taxpayers to the tax specialists at the Internal Revenue Service—is a bipartisan issue that we can all get behind.
Alas, it is not.
Since the government already has all of the information that we put on our tax forms, it would be completely feasible for the IRS to hand us prefilled tax forms that we could review and modify if needed—eliminating most of the headache of filing. Countries like Sweden, Finland, and Spain do it already. Yet in the U.S., some moneyed third-party tax preparers oppose government tax preparation—because, according to Propublica, it poses a risk to their business. The nonprofit news organization, which has covered this topic for years, reports that big private tax companies like H&R Block and Intuit, which owns TurboTax, have been lobbying against simplifying the filing process for nearly a decade. (For its part, Intuit denies that these assertions are factually accurate.)
Regardless, all of this means that taxpayers in the U.S. are faced with a choice: file online through a tax preparer service like TurboTax or H&R Block At Home, hire an accountant, or try to navigate this mess on your own.
In fact, each year, consulting giant PricewaterhouseCoopers ranks 189 countries by the complexity of their taxes—and this year, the U.S. came in 35th….
Another indicator of a tax process that doesn’t disproportionately put the onus on the filer is the design of the tax form itself….
For example, Finland’s tax forms are divided neatly into columns and each section is boxed off for clarity. The portions the filer needs to fill are highlighted in a faint baby blue. It’s seven pages of clear language and guiding visual signifiers.
Oh and also—it’s filled out for you, so that all you need to do is review and approve or modify. That’s true user-friendly design.
The true indicator of a simple tax form, then, isn’t the graphic design of the form—this is very clearly a UX problem. The forms I found online varied from clearly legible to impossible to understand, regardless of the country. In that way, tax policy is what would benefit most from a redesign, especially given that the users, in this case, are tax-paying citizens….(More)”