A Tool to Help Nonprofits Find Each Other, Pursue Funding and Collaborate

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

DrexelNow: “…More than 40 percent of Philly nonprofit organizations operate on margins of zero or less, and fewer can be considered financially strong. With more than half of Philly’s nonprofits operating on a slim-to-none budget with limited support staff – one Drexel University researcher sought to help streamline their fundraising process by giving them easy access to data from the Internal Revenue Service and the U.S. Census. His goal: Create a tool that makes information about nonprofit organizations, and the communities they’re striving to help, more accessible to likeminded charities and the philanthropic organizations that seek to fund them.

When the IRS recently released millions of records on the finances and operations of nonprofit organizations in format that can be downloaded and analyzed, it was expected that this would usher in a new era of transparency and innovation for the nonprofit sector. Instead, many technical issues made the data virtually unusable by nonprofit organizations.

Single-page location intelligence tool: http://bit.ly/PhillyNPOs
Single-page location intelligence tool: http://bit.ly/PhillyNPOs

 Neville Vakharia, an assistant professor and research director in Drexel’s graduate Arts Administration program in the Westphal College of Media Arts & Design, tackled this issue by creating ImpactView Philadelphia, an online tool and resource that uses the publicly available data on nonprofit organizations to present an easy-to-access snapshot of Philadelphia’s nonprofit ecosystem.

Vakharia combined the publicly available data from the IRS with the most recent American Community Survey data released by the U.S. Census Bureau. These data were combined with a map of Philadelphia to create a visual database easily searchable by organization, address or zip code. Once an organization is selected, the analysis tools allow the user to see data on the map, alongside measures of households and individuals surrounding the organization — important information for nonprofits to have when they are applying for grants or looking for partners.

“Through the location intelligence visualizer, users can immediately find areas of need and potential collaborators. The data are automatically visualized and mapped on-screen, identifying, for example, pockets of high poverty with large populations of children as well as the nonprofit service providers in these areas,” said Vakharia. “Making this data accessible for nonprofits will cut down on time spent seeking information and improve the ability to make data-informed decisions, while also helping with case making and grant applications.”…(More)”.

To serve a free society, social media must evolve beyond data mining

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Barbara Romzek and Aram Sinnreich at The Conversation: “…For years, watchdogs have been warning about sharing information with data-collecting companies, firms engaged in the relatively new line of business called some academics have called “surveillance capitalism.” Most casual internet users are only now realizing how easy – and common – it is for unaccountable and unknown organizations to assemble detailed digital profiles of them. They do this by combining the discrete bits of information consumers have given up to e-tailers, health sites, quiz apps and countless other digital services.

As scholars of public accountability and digital media systems, we know that the business of social media is based on extracting user data and offering it for sale. There’s no simple way for them to protect data as many users might expect. Like the social pollution of fake news, bullying and spam that Facebook’s platform spreads, the company’s privacy crisis also stems from a power imbalance: Facebook knows nearly everything about its users, who know little to nothing about it.

It’s not enough for people to delete their Facebook accounts. Nor is it likely that anyone will successfully replace it with a nonprofit alternativecentering on privacy, transparency and accountability. Furthermore, this problem is not specific just to Facebook. Other companies, including Google and Amazon, also gather and exploit extensive personal data, and are locked in a digital arms race that we believe threatens to destroy privacy altogether….

Governments need to be better guardians of public welfare – including privacy. Many companies using various aspects of technology in new ways have so far avoided regulation by stoking fears that rules might stifle innovation. Facebook and others have often claimed that they’re better at regulating themselves in an ever-changing environment than a slow-moving legislative process could be….

To encourage companies to serve democratic principles and focus on improving people’s lives, we believe the chief business model of the internet needs to shift to building trust and verifying information. While it won’t be an immediate change, social media companies pride themselves on their adaptability and should be able to take on this challenge.

The alternative, of course, could be far more severe. In the 1980s, when federal regulators decided that AT&T was using its power in the telephone market to hurt competition and consumers, they forced the massive conglomerate to break up. A similar but less dramatic change happened in the early 2000s when cellphone companies were forced to let people keep their phone numbers even if they switched carriers.

Data, and particularly individuals’ personal data, are the precious metals of the internet age. Protecting individual data while expanding access to the internet and its many social benefits is a fundamental challenge for free societies. Creating, using and protecting data properly will be crucial to preserving and improving human rights and civil liberties in this still young century. To meet this challenge will require both vigilance and vision, from businesses and their customers, as well as governments and their citizens….(More).

A New Model for Industry-Academic Partnerships

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Working Paper by Gary King and Nathaniel Persily: “The mission of the academic social sciences is to understand and ameliorate society’s greatest challenges. The data held by private companies holds vast potential to further this mission. Yet, because of its interaction with highly politicized issues, customer privacy, proprietary content, and differing goals of firms and academics, these data are often inaccessible to university researchers.

We propose here a new model for industry-academic partnerships that addresses these problems via a novel organizational structure: Respected scholars form a commission which, as a trusted third party, receives access to all relevant firm information and systems, and then recruits independent academics to do research in specific areas following standard peer review protocols organized and funded by nonprofit foundations.

We also report on a partnership we helped forge under this model to make data available about the extremely visible and highly politicized issues surrounding the impact of social media on elections and democracy. In our partnership, Facebook will provide privacy-preserving data and access; seven major politically and substantively diverse nonprofit foundations will fund the research; and the Social Science Research Council will oversee the peer review process for funding and data access….(More)”.

Selected Readings on Data Responsibility, Refugees and Migration

Curated on Posted on by Andrew Young

By Kezia Paladina, Alexandra Shaw, Michelle Winowatan, Stefaan Verhulst, and Andrew Young

The Living Library’s Selected Readings series seeks to build a knowledge base on innovative approaches for improving the effectiveness and legitimacy of governance. This curated and annotated collection of recommended works on the topic of Data Collaboration for Migration was originally published in 2018.

Special thanks to Paul Currion whose data responsibility literature review gave us a headstart when developing the below. (Check out his article listed below on Refugee Identity)

The collection below is also meant to complement our article in the Stanford Social Innovation Review on Data Collaboration for Migration where we emphasize the need for a Data Responsibility Framework moving forward.

From climate change to politics to finance, there is growing recognition that some of the most intractable problems of our era are information problems. In recent years, the ongoing refugee crisis has increased the call for new data-driven approaches to address the many challenges and opportunities arising from migration. While data – including data from the private sector – holds significant potential value for informing analysis and targeted international and humanitarian response to (forced) migration, decision-makers often lack an actionable understanding of if, when and how data could be collected, processed, stored, analyzed, used, and shared in a responsible manner.

Data responsibility – including the responsibility to protect data and shield its subjects from harms, and the responsibility to leverage and share data when it can provide public value – is an emerging field seeking to go beyond just privacy concerns. The forced migration arena has a number of particularly important issues impacting responsible data approaches, including the risks of leveraging data regarding individuals fleeing a hostile or repressive government.

In this edition of the GovLab’s Selected Readings series, we examine the emerging literature on the data responsibility approaches in the refugee and forced migration space – part of an ongoing series focused on Data Responsibiltiy. The below reading list features annotated readings related to the Policy and Practice of data responsibility for refugees, and the specific responsibility challenges regarding Identity and Biometrics.

Data Responsibility and Refugees – Policy and Practice

International Organization for Migration (IOM) (2010) IOM Data Protection Manual. Geneva: IOM.

  • This IOM manual includes 13 data protection principles related to the following activities: lawful and fair collection, specified and legitimate purpose, data quality, consent, transfer to third parties, confidentiality, access and transparency, data security, retention and personal data, application of the principles, ownership of personal data, oversight, compliance and internal remedies (and exceptions).
  • For each principle, the IOM manual features targeted data protection guidelines, and templates and checklists are included to help foster practical application.

Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre / OCHA (eds.) (2008) Guidance on Profiling Internally Displaced Persons. Geneva: Inter-Agency Standing Committee.

  • This NRC document contains guidelines on gathering better data on Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), based on country context.
  • IDP profile is defined as number of displaced persons, location, causes of displacement, patterns of displacement, and humanitarian needs among others.
  • It further states that collecting IDPs data is challenging and the current condition of IDPs data are hampering assistance programs.
  • Chapter I of the document explores the rationale for IDP profiling. Chapter II describes the who aspect of profiling: who IDPs are and common pitfalls in distinguishing them from other population groups. Chapter III describes the different methodologies that can be used in different contexts and suggesting some of the advantages and disadvantages of each, what kind of information is needed and when it is appropriate to profile.

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Model agreement on the sharing of personal data with Governments in the context of hand-over of the refugee status determination process. Geneva: UNHCR.

  • This document from UNHCR provides a template of agreement guiding the sharing of data between a national government and UNHCR. The model agreement’s guidance is aimed at protecting the privacy and confidentiality of individual data while promoting improvements to service delivery for refugees.

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) (2015). Policy on the Protection of Personal Data of Persons of Concern to UNHCR. Geneva: UNHCR.

  • This policy outlines the rules and principles regarding the processing of personal data of persons engaged by UNHCR with the purpose of ensuring that the practice is consistent with UNGA’s regulation of computerized personal data files that was established to protect individuals’ data and privacy.
  • UNHCR require its personnel to apply the following principles when processing personal data: (i) Legitimate and fair processing (ii) Purpose specification (iii) Necessity and proportionality (iv) Accuracy (v) Respect for the rights of the data subject (vi) Confidentiality (vii) Security (viii) Accountability and supervision.

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) (2015) Privacy Impact Assessment of UNHCR Cash Based Interventions.

  • This impact assessment focuses on privacy issues related to financial assistance for refugees in the form of cash transfers. For international organizations like UNHCR to determine eligibility for cash assistance, data “aggregation, profiling, and social sorting techniques,” are often needed, leading a need for a responsible data approach.
  • This Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA) aims to identify the privacy risks posed by their program and seek to enhance safeguards that can mitigate those risks.
  • Key issues raised in the PIA involves the challenge of ensuring that individuals’ data will not be used for purposes other than those initially specified.

Data Responsibility in Identity and Biometrics

Bohlin, A. (2008) “Protection at the Cost of Privacy? A Study of the Biometric Registration of Refugees.” Lund: Faculty of Law of the University of Lund.

  • This 2008 study focuses on the systematic biometric registration of refugees conducted by UNHCR in refugee camps around the world, to understand whether enhancing the registration mechanism of refugees contributes to their protection and guarantee of human rights, or whether refugee registration exposes people to invasions of privacy.
  • Bohlin found that, at the time, UNHCR failed to put a proper safeguards in the case of data dissemination, exposing the refugees data to the risk of being misused. She goes on to suggest data protection regulations that could be put in place in order to protect refugees’ privacy.

Currion, Paul. (2018) “The Refugee Identity.” Medium.

  • Developed as part of a DFID-funded initiative, this essay considers Data Requirements for Service Delivery within Refugee Camps, with a particular focus on refugee identity.
  • Among other findings, Currion finds that since “the digitisation of aid has already begun…aid agencies must therefore pay more attention to the way in which identity systems affect the lives and livelihoods of the forcibly displaced, both positively and negatively.”
  • Currion argues that a Responsible Data approach, as opposed to a process defined by a Data Minimization principle, provides “useful guidelines,” but notes that data responsibility “still needs to be translated into organisational policy, then into institutional processes, and finally into operational practice.”

Farraj, A. (2010) “Refugees and the Biometric Future: The Impact of Biometrics on Refugees and Asylum Seekers.” Colum. Hum. Rts. L. Rev. 42 (2010): 891.

  • This article argues that biometrics help refugees and asylum seekers establish their identity, which is important for ensuring the protection of their rights and service delivery.
  • However, Farraj also describes several risks related to biometrics, such as, misidentification and misuse of data, leading to a need for proper approaches for the collection, storage, and utilization of the biometric information by government, international organizations, or other parties.  

GSMA (2017) Landscape Report: Mobile Money, Humanitarian Cash Transfers and Displaced Populations. London: GSMA.

  • This paper from GSMA seeks to evaluate how mobile technology can be helpful in refugee registration, cross-organizational data sharing, and service delivery processes.
  • One of its assessments is that the use of mobile money in a humanitarian context depends on the supporting regulatory environment that contributes to unlocking the true potential of mobile money. The examples include extension of SIM dormancy period to anticipate infrequent cash disbursements, ensuring that persons without identification are able to use the mobile money services, and so on.
  • Additionally, GMSA argues that mobile money will be most successful when there is an ecosystem to support other financial services such as remittances, airtime top-ups, savings, and bill payments. These services will be especially helpful in including displaced populations in development.

GSMA (2017) Refugees and Identity: Considerations for mobile-enabled registration and aid delivery. London: GSMA.

  • This paper emphasizes the importance of registration in the context of humanitarian emergency, because being registered and having a document that proves this registration is key in acquiring services and assistance.
  • Studying cases of Kenya and Iraq, the report concludes by providing three recommendations to improve mobile data collection and registration processes: 1) establish more flexible KYC for mobile money because where refugees are not able to meet existing requirements; 2) encourage interoperability and data sharing to avoid fragmented and duplicative registration management; and 3) build partnership and collaboration among governments, humanitarian organizations, and multinational corporations.

Jacobsen, Katja Lindskov (2015) “Experimentation in Humanitarian Locations: UNHCR and Biometric Registration of Afghan Refugees.” Security Dialogue, Vol 46 No. 2: 144–164.

  • In this article, Jacobsen studies the biometric registration of Afghan refugees, and considers how “humanitarian refugee biometrics produces digital refugees at risk of exposure to new forms of intrusion and insecurity.”

Jacobsen, Katja Lindskov (2017) “On Humanitarian Refugee Biometrics and New Forms of Intervention.” Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, 1–23.

  • This article traces the evolution of the use of biometrics at the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) – moving from a few early pilot projects (in the early-to-mid-2000s) to the emergence of a policy in which biometric registration is considered a ‘strategic decision’.

Manby, Bronwen (2016) “Identification in the Context of Forced Displacement.” Washington DC: World Bank Group. Accessed August 21, 2017.

  • In this paper, Bronwen describes the consequences of not having an identity in a situation of forced displacement. It prevents displaced population from getting various services and creates higher chance of exploitation. It also lowers the effectiveness of humanitarian actions, as lacking identity prevents humanitarian organizations from delivering their services to the displaced populations.
  • Lack of identity can be both the consequence and and cause of forced displacement. People who have no identity can be considered illegal and risk being deported. At the same time, conflicts that lead to displacement can also result in loss of ID during travel.
  • The paper identifies different stakeholders and their interest in the case of identity and forced displacement, and finds that the biggest challenge for providing identity to refugees is the politics of identification and nationality.
  • Manby concludes that in order to address this challenge, there needs to be more effective coordination among governments, international organizations, and the private sector to come up with an alternative of providing identification and services to the displaced persons. She also argues that it is essential to ensure that national identification becomes a universal practice for states.

McClure, D. and Menchi, B. (2015). Challenges and the State of Play of Interoperability in Cash Transfer Programming. Geneva: UNHCR/World Vision International.

  • This report reviews the elements that contribute to the interoperability design for Cash Transfer Programming (CTP). The design framework offered here maps out these various features and also looks at the state of the problem and the state of play through a variety of use cases.
  • The study considers the current state of play and provides insights about the ways to address the multi-dimensionality of interoperability measures in increasingly complex ecosystems.     

NRC / International Human Rights Clinic (2016). Securing Status: Syrian refugees and the documentation of legal status, identity, and family relationships in Jordan.

  • This report examines Syrian refugees’ attempts to obtain identity cards and other forms of legally recognized documentation (mainly, Ministry of Interior Service Cards, or “new MoI cards”) in Jordan through the state’s Urban Verification Exercise (“UVE”). These MoI cards are significant because they allow Syrians to live outside of refugee camps and move freely about Jordan.
  • The text reviews the acquirement processes and the subsequent challenges and consequences that refugees face when unable to obtain documentation. Refugees can encounter issues ranging from lack of access to basic services to arrest, detention, forced relocation to camps and refoulement.  
  • Seventy-two Syrian refugee families in Jordan were interviewed in 2016 for this report and their experiences with obtaining MoI cards varied widely.

Office of Internal Oversight Services (2015). Audit of the operations in Jordan for the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Report 2015/049. New York: UN.

  • This report documents the January 1, 2012 – March 31, 2014 audit of Jordanian operations, which is intended to ensure the effectiveness of the UNHCR Representation in the state.
  • The main goals of the Regional Response Plan for Syrian refugees included relieving the pressure on Jordanian services and resources while still maintaining protection for refugees.
  • The audit results concluded that the Representation was initially unsatisfactory, and the OIOS suggested several recommendations according to the two key controls which the Representation acknowledged. Those recommendations included:
    • Project management:
      • Providing training to staff involved in financial verification of partners supervise management
      • Revising standard operating procedure on cash based interventions
      • Establishing ways to ensure that appropriate criteria for payment of all types of costs to partners’ staff are included in partnership agreements
    • Regulatory framework:
      • Preparing annual need-based procurement plan and establishing adequate management oversight processes
      • Creating procedures for the assessment of renovation work in progress and issuing written change orders
      • Protecting data and ensuring timely consultation with the UNHCR Division of Financial and Administrative Management

UNHCR/WFP (2015). Joint Inspection of the Biometrics Identification System for Food Distribution in Kenya. Geneva: UNHCR/WFP.

  • This report outlines the partnership between the WFP and UNHCR in its effort to promote its biometric identification checking system to support food distribution in the Dadaab and Kakuma refugee camps in Kenya.
  • Both entities conducted a joint inspection mission in March 2015 and was considered an effective tool and a model for other country operations.
  • Still, 11 recommendations are proposed and responded to in this text to further improve the efficiency of the biometric system, including real-time evaluation of impact, need for automatic alerts, documentation of best practices, among others.

International Development Doesn’t Care About Patient Privacy

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Yogesh Rajkotia at the Stanford Social Innovation Review: “In 2013, in southern Mozambique, foreign NGO workers searched for a man whom the local health facility reported as diagnosed with HIV. The workers aimed to verify that the health facility did indeed diagnose and treat him. When they could not find him, they asked the village chief for help. Together with an ever-growing crowd of onlookers, the chief led them to the man’s home. After hesitating and denying, he eventually admitted, in front of the crowd, that he had tested positive and received treatment. With his status made public, he now risked facing stigma, discrimination, and social marginalization. The incident undermined both his health and his ability to live a dignified life.

Similar privacy violations were documented in Burkina Faso in 2016, where community workers asked partners, in the presence of each other, to disclose what individual health services they had obtained.

Why was there such a disregard for the privacy and dignity of these citizens?

As it turns out, unbeknownst to these Mozambican and Burkinabé patients, their local health centers were participating in performance-based financing (PBF) programs financed by foreign assistance agencies. Implemented in more than 35 countries, PBF programs offer health workers financial bonuses for delivering priority health interventions. To ensure that providers do not cheat the system, PBF programs often send verifiers to visit patients’ homes to confirm that they have received specific health services. These verifiers are frequently community members (the World Bank callously notes in its “Performance-Based Financing Toolkit” that even “a local soccer club” can play this role), and this practice, known as “patient tracing,” is common among PBF programs. In World Bank-funded PBF programs alone, 19 out of the 25 PBF programs implement patient tracing. Yet the World Bank’s toolkit never mentions patient privacy or confidentiality. In patient tracing, patients’ rights and dignity are secondary to donor objectives.

Patient tracing within PBF programs is just one example of a bigger problem: Privacy violations are pervasive in global health. Some researchers and policymakers have raised privacy concerns about tuberculosis (TB), human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), family planning, post-abortion care, and disease surveillance programs. A study conducted by the Asia-Pacific Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS found that 34 percent of people living with HIV in India, Indonesia, Philippines, and Thailand reported that health workers breached confidentiality. In many programs, sensitive information about people’s sexual and reproductive health, disease status, and other intimate health details are often collected to improve health system effectiveness and efficiency. Usually, households have no way to opt out, nor any control over how heath care programs use, store, and disseminate this data. At the same time, most programs do not have systems to enforce health workers’ non-disclosure of private information.

In societies with strong stigma around certain health topics—especially sexual and reproductive health—the disclosure of confidential patient information can destroy lives. In contexts where HIV is highly stigmatized, people living with HIV are 2.4 times more likely to delay seeking care until they are seriously ill. In addition to stigma’s harmful effects on people’s health, it can limit individuals’ economic opportunities, cause them to be socially marginalized, and erode their psychological wellbeing….(More)”.

How Incorporating Behavioral Science into Cash Transfer Programs Is Changing Lives

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Josh Martin and Laura Rawlings at Next Billion: “…Today, a new generation of cash transfer programs – currently being piloted in several countries in Africa – uses behavioral insights to help beneficiaries decide how to spend their cash and follow through on those plans. But the circumstances under which they receive the funds—like how long they have to wait on payment day or how close the local market is to the payment site—impact whether they put that intention into action. Other often-overlooked program design factors, such as the frequency of payments or how the purpose of the cash is framed, can disproportionately affect how people spend (or save) their money. Insights from behavioral science show that people act in predictable ways—and we can use that knowledge to design cash transfer programs that support people’s goals and continue to set them up for success.

For example, in our work, we have found that the way payments are made often caters more to administrators’ convenience than beneficiaries’ needs. But some innovators are already changing the timing, location and frequency of payments to suit recipients. For instance, GiveDirectly, a nonprofit that provides unconditional cash transfers, is experimenting with allowing beneficiaries in Kenya to choose when they’d prefer their payments to occur. This is important because getting money at the wrong time can actually increase stress. When cash arrives infrequently, it forces recipients to stretch funds until the next payment. But if it is transferred too often, recipients must save slowly over time, pulling their attention away from other critical tasks. While it isn’t always possible to pay everyone according to their ideal schedule, even offering some payment flexibility may help recipients achieve their goals more quickly.

A simple prompt for beneficiaries to consider how they’d like to use their money right before receiving it can also support their financial goals. Other tactics include reminders to follow through on plans, systems to provide feedback to people on their savings progress, and wallets to help them physically separate (and thus mentally separate) what they want to spend routinely from what they want to set aside for the future. Many inexpensive options exist that are fairly easy to put in place.

To bring more of these solutions to cash transfer programs, ideas42 and the World Bank, with financial support from the Global Innovation Fund, are launching a new initiative, Behavioral Design for Cash Transfer Programs. Working with government partners to identify the best options for incorporating behavioral designs in cash transfer programs across several African nations is a critical next step in improving this anti-poverty tool. We can then work to make behavioral science an automatic part of any social protection program that features a cash transfer….(More)”.

Anthology on Democratic Innovation

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Report by Democracy Lab: “Democratic systems are in a phase of systemic transition: from the post-war understanding of what democracy is – and how it works – towards a different, deeper democracy. In regards to the numerous challenges democracies faces, we need to question how to make democracies more resilient and to explore what the next steps towards a new form of democracy could be. It seems unlikely that today’s challenges, such as the destruction of our ecosystem or structural inequality, can be solved with the paradigms, structures and processes that helped produce them.

Democratic systems need to be able to shape an increasingly complex world and respond to the socio-economic, cultural, technological, and ecological transformation processes that societies are going through. Public discourse about the future of democracy often solely focuses on democratic reforms in order to improve existing structures and processes within the parameters of postwar democracy.

Many ideas and experiments thus aim at improving the “status quo of politics”. From citizens’ assemblies to digital tools for deliberation and participation, there is an abundance of ideas and tools that could help update our democratic systems. In his book “Realizing Democracy”, Harvard scholar Alberto Mangabeira Unger adds a new element to this “update” with his idea of radical reform: In his words, “reform is radical when it addresses and changes the basic arrangements of a society; its formative structure of its institutions and enacted beliefs; it is reform because it deals with one discrete part of this structure at a time.” According to Unger, societies must work on both the radical and incremental level of political reform. In addition to changes at policy level, societies must be willing to also reflect on what would make a difference and open up to a more fundamental perspective and self-reflection on why democracy is needed, and how its structures can be rebuild within the boundaries of the ecosystem….

The Anthology on Democratic Innovation presents a selection of the projects and ideas discussed during the Conference. It gives decision-makers, academia, journalists and civil society a glimpse into the vast array of ideas that are “already out there” in order to improve liberal democracies and make them fit for the 21st century….(More)”.

Could the open government movement shut the door on Freedom of Information

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

,  and  in The Conversation: “For democracy to work, citizens need to know what their government is doing. Then they can hold government officials and institutions accountable.

Over the last 50 years, Freedom of Information – or FOI – laws have been one of the most useful methods for citizens to learn what government is doing. These state and federal laws give people the power to request, and get, government documents. From everyday citizens to journalists, FOI laws have proven a powerful way to uncover the often-secret workings of government.

But a potential threat is emerging – from an unexpected place – to FOI laws.

We are scholars of government administration, ethics and transparency. And our research leads us to believe that while FOI laws have always faced many challenges, including resistance, evasion,  and poor implementation and enforcement, the last decade has brought a different kind of challenge in the form of a new approach to transparency….

The open government movement could help FOI implementation. Government information posted online, which is a core goal of open government advocates, can reduce the number of FOI requests. Open government initiatives can explicitly promote FOI by encouraging the passage of FOI laws, offering more training for officials who fill FOI requests, and developing technologies to make it easier to process and track FOI requests.

On the other hand, the relationship between open government and FOI may not always be positive in practice.

First, as with all kinds of public policy issues, resources – both money and political attention – are inherently scarce. Government officials now have to divide their attention between FOI and other open government initiatives. And funders now have to divide their financial resources between FOI and other open government initiatives.

Second, the open government reform movement as well as the FOI movement have long depended on nonprofit advocacy groups – from the National Freedom of Information Coalition and its state affiliates to the Sunlight Foundation – to obtain and disseminate government information. This means that the financial stability of those nonprofit groups is crucial. But their efforts, as they grow, may each only get a shrinking portion of the total amount of grant money available. Freedominfo.org, a website for gathering and comparing information on FOI laws around the world, had to suspend its operations in 2017 due to resources drying up.

We believe that priorities among government officials and good government advocates may also shift away from FOI. At a time when open data is “hot,” FOI programs could get squeezed as a result of this competition. Further, by allowing governments to claim credit for more politically convenient reforms such as online data portals, the open government agenda may create a false sense of transparency – there’s a lot more government information that isn’t available in those portals.

This criticism was leveled recently against Kenya, whose government launched a high-profile open data portal for publishing data on government performance and activities in 2011, yet delayed passage of an FOI law until 2016.

Similarly, in the United Kingdom, one government minister said in 2012,“I’d like to make Freedom of Information redundant, by pushing out so much data that people won’t have to ask for it.”…(More)”

Will Blockchain Disrupt Government Corruption?

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Carlos Santiso in Stanford Social Innovation Review: “Will blockchain technology be the next disrupting technology to revolutionize government? Probably not. Can it be a game changer in the global fight against corruption? Possibly so. New technologies are disrupting our lives and transforming government. Governments around the world are going digital, embracing digital innovations to modernize their bureaucracies and recast their relations with citizens. Technology is changing how governments are expected to meet the rising expectations of citizens in terms of quality, speed, and integrity. Digital citizens are expecting more from their governments, demanding better services and greater accountability. Governments struggle to catch up.

Technology has become the greatest ally of transparency, as it allows one to leverage the insights that can be gleaned from the exponential growth of data. Digitally savvy citizens are far less tolerant about corruption and have more means to uncover it. There are heightened and even inflated expectations about the potential of blockchain to improve the delivery of public services and strengthen integrity in government. Pilots and proofs of concept are mushrooming, driven by a myriad of technology-driven start-ups in a wide variety of industries. This enthusiasm is generating intense debate, and an “expectations bubble” is building up rapidly.

Given the hype, it is important to assess both the promises and the pitfalls of blockchain, thinking through what it can and cannot do, based on hard evidence. Initiatives such as blockchan.ge by New York University’s Governance Lab are starting to look closer at whether and how blockchain technologies can be used for social change. Blockchain has emerged first in the financial industry, building on cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin. The requirements and implications of blockchain in the public sector, however, are yet to be fully understood. Key issues include being clearer about the problems it is expected to address, its advantages compared to alternative digital solutions, its fitness-for-purpose in different institutional contexts, and, ultimately, the value it could add to existing institutions….(More)”

Data Science Landscape

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Book edited by Usha Mujoo Munshi and Neeta Verma: “The edited volume deals with different contours of data science with special reference to data management for the research innovation landscape. The data is becoming pervasive in all spheres of human, economic and development activity. In this context, it is important to take stock of what is being done in the data management area and begin to prioritize, consider and formulate adoption of a formal data management system including citation protocols for use by research communities in different disciplines and also address various technical research issues. The volume, thus, focuses on some of these issues drawing typical examples from various domains….

In all, there are 21 chapters (with 21st Chapter addressing four different core aspects) written by eminent researchers in the field which deal with key issues of S&T, institutional, financial, sustainability, legal, IPR, data protocols, community norms and others, that need attention related to data management practices and protocols, coordinate area activities, and promote common practices and standards of the research community globally. In addition to the aspects touched above, the national / international perspectives of data and its various contours have also been portrayed through case studies in this volume. …(More)”.