In Brazil, missing persons posters automatically print in nearby homes

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Springwise: “In Brazil, 200,000 people go missing each year and posters are still one of the most effective ways of locating them. Now, Mães da Sé NGO — the nonprofit dedicated to helping families find missing people — has partnered with HP for the Print for Help campaign. Using HP’s ePrint technology, which facilitates mobile and email printing, the campaign will help spread the word about missing individuals by automatically producing posters through nearby homes printers.

By registering printers with citizens’ email addresses and zip codes, Mães da Sé is able to email and automatically print posters in the area where a person went missing. Citizens can then assist with the search effort by displaying the poster in busy areas in their neighborhood, and create a network of helpers. By streamlining and speeding up the process of poster printing, the efforts in the first few hours, which are crucial in a search, can be maximized….(More)”.

Introducing the Governance Data Alliance

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“The overall assumption of the Governance Data Alliance is that governance data can contribute to improved sustainable economic and human development outcomes and democratic accountability in all countries. The contribution that governance data will make to those outcomes will of course depend on a whole range of issues that will vary across contexts; development processes, policy processes, and the role that data plays vary considerably. Nevertheless, there are some core requirements that need to be met if data is to make a difference, and articulating them can provide a framework to help us understand and improve the impact that data has on development and accountability across different contexts.

We also collectively make another implicit (and important) assumption: that the current state of affairs is vastly insufficient when it comes to the production and usage of high-quality governance data. In other words, the status quo needs to be significantly improved upon. Data gathered from participants in the April 2014 design session help to paint that picture in granular terms. Data production remains highly irregular and ad hoc; data usage does not match data production in many cases (e.g. users want data that don’t exist and do not use data that is currently produced); production costs remain high and inconsistent across producers despite possibilities for economies of scale; and feedback loops between governance data producers and governance data users are either non-existent or rarely employed. We direct readers to http://dataalliance.globalintegrity.org for a fuller treatment of those findings.

Three requirements need to be met if governance data is to lead to better development and accountability outcomes, whether those outcomes are about core “governance” issues such as levels of inclusion, or about service delivery and human development outcomes that may be shaped by the quality of governance. Those requirements are:

  • The availability of governance data.
  • The quality of governance data, including its usability and salience.
  • The informed use of governance data.

(Or to use the metaphor of markets, we face a series of market failures: supply of data is inconsistent and not uniform; user demand cannot be efficiently channeled to suppliers to redirect their production to address those deficiencies; and transaction costs abound through non-existent data standards and lack of predictability.)

If data are not available about those aspects of governance that are expected to have an impact on development outcomes and democratic accountability, no progress will be made. The risk is that data about key issues will be lacking, or that there will be gaps in coverage, whether country coverage, time periods covered, or sectors, or that data sets produced by different actors may not be comparable. This might come about for reasons including the following: a lack of knowledge – amongst producers, and amongst producers and users – about what data is needed and what data is available; high costs, and limited resources to invest in generating data; and, institutional incentives and structures (e.g. lack of autonomy, inappropriate mandate, political suppression of sensitive data, organizational dysfunction – relating, for instance, to National Statistical Offices) that limit the production of governance data….

What A Governance Data Alliance Should Do (Or, Making the Market Work)

During the several months of creative exploration around possibilities for a Governance Data Alliance, dozens of activities were identified as possible solutions (in whole or in part) to the challenges identified above. This note identifies what we believe to be the most important and immediate activities that an Alliance should undertake, knowing that other activities can and should be rolled into an Alliance work plan in the out years as the initiative matures and early successes (and failures) are achieved and digested.

A brief summary of the proposals that follow:

  1. Design and implement a peer-to-peer training program between governance data producers to improve the quality and salience of existing data.
  2. Develop a lightweight data standard to be adopted by producer organizations to make it easier for users to consume governance data.
  3. Mine the 2014 Reform Efforts Survey to understand who actually uses which governance data, currently, around the world.
  4. Leverage the 2014 Reform Efforts Survey “plumbing” to field customized follow-up surveys to better assess what data users seek in future governance data.
  5. Pilot (on a regional basis) coordinated data production amongst producer organizations to fill coverage gaps, reduce redundancies, and respond to actual usage and user preferences….(More) “

Advancing Collaboration Theory: Models, Typologies, and Evidence

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New book edited by John C. Morris, Katrina Miller-Stevens: “The term collaboration is widely used but not clearly understood or operationalized. However, collaboration is playing an increasingly important role between and across public, nonprofit, and for-profit sectors. Collaboration has become a hallmark in both intragovernmental and intergovernmental relationships. As collaboration scholarship rapidly emerges, it diverges into several directions, resulting in confusion about what collaboration is and what it can be used to accomplish. This book provides much needed insight into existing ideas and theories of collaboration, advancing a revised theoretical model and accompanying typologies that further our understanding of collaborative processes within the public sector.

Organized into three parts, each chapter presents a different theoretical approach to public problems, valuing the collective insights that result from honoring many individual perspectives. Case studies in collaboration, split across three levels of government, offer additional perspectives on unanswered questions in the literature. Contributions are made by authors from a variety of backgrounds, including an attorney, a career educator, a federal executive, a human resource administrator, a police officer, a self-employed entrepreneur, as well as scholars of public administration and public policy. Drawing upon the individual experiences offered by these perspectives, the book emphasizes the commonalities of collaboration. It is from this common ground, the shared experiences forged among seemingly disparate interactions that advances in collaboration theory arise.

Advancing Collaboration Theory offers a unique compilation of collaborative models and typologies that enhance the existing understanding of public sector collaboration….(More)”

Architecting Transparency: Back to the Roots – and Forward to the Future?

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Paper by Dieter Zinnbauer: “Where to go next in research and practice on information disclosure and institutional transparency? Where to learn and draw inspiration from? How about if we go back to the roots and embrace an original, material notion of transparency as the quality of a substance or element to be see-through? How about, if we then explore how the deliberate use and assemblage of such physical transparency strategies in architecture and design connects to – or could productively connect to – the institutional, political notions of transparency that we are concerned with in our area of institutional or political transparency? Or put more simply and zooming in on one core aspect of the conversation: what have the arrival of glass and its siblings done for democracy and what can we still hope they will do for open, transparent governance now and in the future?

This paper embarks upon this exploratory journey in four steps. It starts out (section 2.1) by revisiting the historic relationship between architecture, design and the build environment on the one side and institutional ambitions for democracy, openness, transparency and collective governance on the other side. Quite surprisingly it finds a very close and ancient relationship between the two. Physical and political transparency have through the centuries been joined at the hip and this relationship – overlooked as it is typically is – has persisted in very important ways in our contemporary institutions of governance. As a second step I seek to trace the major currents in the architectural debate and practice on transparency over the last century and ask three principal questions:

– How have architects as the master-designers of the built environment in theory, criticism and practice historically grappled with the concept of transparency? To what extent have they linked material notions and building strategies of transparency to political and social notions of transparency as tools for emancipation and empowerment? (section 2.2.)

– What is the status of transparency in architecture today and what is the degree of cross-fertilisation between physical and institutional/political transparency? (section 3)

– Where could a closer connect between material and political transparency lead us in terms of inspiring fresh experimentation and action in order to broaden the scope of available transparency tools and spawn fresh ideas and innovation? (section 4).

Along the way I will scan the fragmented empirical evidence base for the actual impact of physical transparency strategies and also flag interesting areas for future research. As it turns out, an obsession with material transparency in architecture and the built environment has evolved in parallel and in many ways predates the rising popularity of transparency in political science and governance studies. There are surprising parallels in the hype-and-skepticism curve, common challenges, interesting learning experiences and a rich repertoire of ideas for cross-fertilisation and joint ideation that is waiting to be tapped. However, this will require to find ways to bridge the current disconnect between the physical and institutional transparency professions and move beyond the current pessimism about an actual potential of physical transparency beyond empty gestures or deployment for surveillance, notions that seems to linger on both sides. But the analysis shows that this bridge-building could be an extremely worthwhile endeavor. Both the available empirical data, as well as the ideas that even just this first brief excursion into physical transparency has yielded bode well for embarking on this cross-disciplinary conversation about transparency. And as the essay also shows, help from three very unexpected corners might be on the way to re-ignite the spark for taking the physical dimension of transparency seriously again. Back to the roots has a bright future….(More)“

Exploring Open Energy Data in Urban Areas

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The Worldbank: “…Energy efficiency – using less energy input to deliver the same level of service – has been described by many as the ‘first fuel’ of our societies. However, lack of adequate data to accurately predict and measure energy efficiency savings, particularly at the city level, has limited the realization of its promise over the past two decades.
Why Open Energy Data?
Open Data can be a powerful tool to reduce information asymmetry in markets, increase transparency and help achieve local economic development goals. Several sectors like transport, public sector management and agriculture have started to benefit from Open Data practices. Energy markets are often characterized by less-than-optimal conditions with high system inefficiencies, misaligned incentives and low levels of transparency. As such, the sector has a lot to potentially gain from embracing Open Data principles.
The United States is a leader in this field with its ‘Energy Data’ initiative. This initiative makes data easy to find, understand and apply, helping to fuel a clean energy economy. For example, the Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) open application programming interface (API) has more than 1.2 million time series of data and is frequently visited by users from the private sector, civil society and media. In addition, the Green Button  initiative is empowering American citizens to have access to their own energy usage data, and OpenEI.org is an Open Energy Information platform to help people find energy information, share their knowledge and connect to other energy stakeholders.
Introducing the Open Energy Data Assessment
To address this data gap in emerging and developing countries, the World Bank is conducting a series of Open Energy Data Assessments in urban areas. The objective is to identify important energy-related data, raise awareness of the benefits of Open Data principles and improve the flow of data between traditional energy stakeholders and others interested in the sector.
The first cities we assessed were Accra, Ghana and Nairobi, Kenya. Both are among the fastest-growing cities in the world, with dynamic entrepreneurial and technology sectors, and both are capitals of countries with an ongoing National Open Data Initiative., The two cities have also been selected to be part of the Negawatt Challenge, a World Bank international competition supporting technology innovation to solve local energy challenges.
The ecosystem approach
The starting point for the exercise was to consider the urban energy sector as an ecosystem, comprised of data suppliers, data users, key datasets, a legal framework, funding mechanisms, and ICT infrastructure. The methodology that we used adapted the established World Bank Open Data Readiness Assessment (ODRA), which highlights valuable connections between data suppliers and data demand.  The assessment showcases how to match pressing urban challenges with the opportunity to release and use data to address them, creating a longer-term commitment to the process. Mobilizing key stakeholders to provide quick, tangible results is also key to this approach….(More) …See also World Bank Open Government Data Toolkit.”

The Civic Organization and the Digital Citizen

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New book by Chris Wells: “The powerful potential of digital media to engage citizens in political actions has now crossed our news screens many times. But scholarly focus has tended to be on “networked,” anti-institutional forms of collective action, to the neglect of advocacy and service organizations. This book investigates the changing fortunes of the citizen-civil society relationship by exploring how social changes and innovations in communication technology are transforming the information expectations and preferences of many citizens, especially young citizens. In doing so, it is the first work to bring together theories of civic identity change with research on civic organizations. Specifically, it argues that a shift in “information styles” may help to explain the disjuncture felt by many young people when it comes to institutional participation and politics.

The book theorizes two paradigms of information style: a dutiful style, which was rooted in the society, communication system and citizen norms of the modern era, and an actualizing style, which constitutes the set of information practices and expectations of the young citizens of late modernity for whom interactive digital media are the norm. Hypothesizing that civil society institutions have difficulty adapting to the norms and practices of the actualizing information style, two empirical studies apply the dutiful/actualizing framework to innovative content analyses of organizations’ online communications-on their websites, and through Facebook. Results demonstrate that with intriguing exceptions, most major civil society organizations use digital media more in line with dutiful information norms than actualizing ones: they tend to broadcast strategic messages to an audience of receivers, rather than encouraging participation or exchange among an active set of participants. The book concludes with a discussion of the tensions inherent in bureaucratic organizations trying to adapt to an actualizing information style, and recommendations for how they may more successfully do so….(More)”

Citizen-Driven Innovation : A Guidebook for City Mayors and Public Administrators

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Guidebook by Eskelinen, Jarmo; Garcia Robles, Ana; Lindy, Ilari; Marsh, Jesse; Muente-Kunigami, Arturo:  “… aims to bring citizen-driven innovation to policy makers and change agents around the globe, by spreading good practice on open and participatory approaches as applied to digital service development in different nations, climates, cultures, and urban settings. The report explores the concept of smart cities through a lens that promotes citizens as the driving force of urban innovation. Different models of smart cities are presented, showing how citizen-centric methods have been used to mobilize resources to respond to urban innovation challenges in a variety of situations, objectives, and governance structures. The living lab approach strengthens these processes as one of the leading methods for agile development or the rapid prototyping of ideas, concepts, products, services, and processes in a highly decentralized and user-centric manner. By adopting these approaches and promoting citizen-driven innovation, cities around the world are aiming to alleviate the demand for services, increase the quality of delivery, and promote local entrepreneurship. This guidebook is structured into seven main sections: an introductory section describes the vision of a humanly smart city, in order to give an idea of the kind of result that can be attained from opening up and applying citizen-driven innovation methods. Chapter one getting started helps mayors launch co-design initiatives, exploring innovation processes founded on trust and verifying the benefits of opening up. Chapter two, building a strategy identifies the key steps for building an innovation partnership and together defining a sustainable city vision and scenarios for getting there. Chapter three, co-designing solutions looks at the process of unpacking concrete problems, working creatively to address them, and following up on implementation. Chapter four, ensuring sustainability describes key elements for long-term viability: evaluation and impact assessment, appropriate institutional structuring, and funding and policy support. Chapter five, joining forces suggests ways to identify a unique role for participation in international networks and how to best learn from cooperation. Finally, the report provides a starter pack with some of the more commonly used tools and methods to support the kinds of activities described in this guidebook….(More)”

Why Technology Hasn’t Delivered More Democracy

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Collection of POVs aggregated by Thomas Carothers at Foreign Policy: “New technologies offer important tools for empowerment — yet democracy is stagnating. What’s up?…

THe current moment confronts us with a paradox. The first fifteen years of this century have been a time of astonishing advances in communications and information technology, including digitalization, mass-accessible video platforms, smart phones, social media, billions of people gaining internet access, and much else. These revolutionary changes all imply a profound empowerment of individuals through exponentially greater access to information, tremendous ease of communication and data-sharing, and formidable tools for networking. Yet despite these changes, democracy — a political system based on the idea of the empowerment of individuals — has in these same years become stagnant in the world. The number of democracies today is basically no greater than it was at the start of the century. Many democracies, both long-established ones and newer ones, are experiencing serious institutional debilities and weak public confidence.

How can we reconcile these two contrasting global realities — the unprecedented advance of technologies that facilitate individual empowerment and the overall lack of advance of democracy worldwide? To help answer this question, I asked six experts on political change, all from very different professional and national perspectives. Here are their responses, followed by a few brief observations of my own.

1. Place a Long Bet on the Local By Martin Tisné

2. Autocrats Know How to Use Tech, Too By Larry Diamond

3. Limits on Technology Persist By Senem Aydin Düzgit

4. The Harder Task By Rakesh Rajani

5. Don’t Forget Institutions By Diane de Gramont

6. Mixed Lessons from Iran By Golnaz Esfandiari

7. Yes, It’s Complicated byThomas Carothers…(More)”

The Data That’s Hiding in Plain Sight

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Beth Noveck in Governing: “What makes open data a powerful tool for governing better is the ability of people inside and outside of institutions to use the same data to create effective policies and useful tools, visualizations, maps and apps. Open data also can provide the raw material to convene informed conversations about what’s broken and the empirical foundation for developing solutions. But to realize its potential, the data needs to be truly open: not only universally and readily accessible but also structured for usability and computability.

One area where open data has the potential to make a real difference — and where some of its current limitations are all too apparent — is in state-level regulation of nonprofits. In May, a task force comprising the Federal Trade Commission together with 58 agencies from all 50 states and the District of Columbia filed a lawsuit against the Cancer Fund group of nonprofits and the individuals who run them. The complaint alleges that the groups are sham charities that spend “the overwhelming majority of donated funds supporting the Individual Defendants, their families and friends, and their fundraisers.” State officials spotted telltale signs of abuse and fraud by studying information the organizations had submitted in their federal nonprofit tax returns and state-by-state registration forms.

Nonprofit tax returns and registration forms are the public’s (and government’s) primary window into the workings of America’s enormous and economically impactful nonprofit sector. Every year in the United States, approximately 1.5 million registered tax-exempt organizations file a version of the federal Form 990, the tax return for tax-exempt organization, with the Internal Revenue Service and state tax authorities. These forms collect details on the organizations’ financial, governance and organizational structure to the end of ensuring that they are deserving of their tax-exempt status. All but 10 states also require that nonprofits file state-specific registration forms. The information these filings contain about executive compensation, fundraising expenses and donation activities can help regulators spot possible bad actors and alert each other to targets for further investigation.

Yet despite the richness and utility of the information contained in these filings, major barriers prevent regulators from efficiently sharing and analyzing the data..(More)”

Nudging hits Berlin

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Hanno Burmester, Philipp Sälhoff  and Marie Wachinger at Policy Network: “Despite suspicion, the nudge theory may have a place in the process of party reform. Ever since Germany’s Kanzleramt published a job ad in 2014 to recruit three behavioural scientists, “nudging” has become a political buzzword in Berlin. For people outside the Berlin bubble, this may come as a surprise: the British government established its Behavioural Insights Team in 2010 (the less Orwellian nickname is the Nudge Unit). The city of Copenhagen followed soon after and started experimenting with the concept in 2012. Still, nudging seems to have only hit Berlin in recent months, sparking fierce debate among political experts, as well as the German public….

It is not surprising, therefore, that the notions of nudging and libertarian paternalism has quickly found its enemies in the German political debate. Libertarianism here is understood as a radical political ideology which, with the disappearance from federal politics of the centre-right liberal FDP with its partly libertarian agenda, has no representatives at all on the national political stage. Paternalism evokes negative political connotations as well. Moreover, in contrast to the United States, extensive government regulation enjoys widespread public acceptance. At the same time, Germans harbour a deep distrust against opaque and/or seemingly manipulative government actions. The concept of nudging, which explicitly acknowledges that its subjects can be unaware of being consciously influenced, thus feeds into a cultural distrust that, with regards to German and European history, is more than understandable.

Interestingly, however, the political left seems less averse to the idea of stimulating behavioural change through government action. For instance, the German minister of justice and consumer protection, the Social Democrat, Heiko Maas, lauded the approach in an op-ed, saying that it would be wise to acknowledge that citizens do not act rationally all the time. Nudging thus could be a wise compromise “between over-regulation of everyday affairs and laissez-faire politics”.

Nudging is more than a tool for governments, though. We believe it offers advantages in fields that, from an ethical perspective, are less controversial. One of those is the reform of political parties. Since August 2014 we have been  developing new approaches and to party reform in our projectLegitimation and Self-efficacy: Impulses for the Future of Party Democracy. The past decades have shown how hard it is to implement structural reforms in political parties, irrespective of the national context. On the left, for instance, the German Social Democratic party shows a remarkable institutional immunity to change, despite a widespread desire for parties to reflect the demands of rapidly changing societies.

Nudging may provide a tool to identify and analyse current practices of exerting political influence, thereby opening new prospects for changing organisational structures….(More)”