Digital government in developing countries

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Essay by Yasodara Córdova and Tiago Peixoto: “According to the World Bank’s Digital Dividends report, fewer than 20 percent of digital government projects are successes. Particularly in developing countries, these numbers are often associated with a number of challenges: limited funding, stretched implementation capacity, and political instability, to name a few. Yet, even in developing countries, despite similar conditions, some projects seem to fare better than others. Why is that? 

The projects we have worked with in the global south have followed a similar pattern. While there were successes, many projects have failed. We have learned a few things along the way, that we think relate directly to the success or failure of digital government projects. These are not scientific conclusions, they’re personal impressions based on what we’ve seen and experienced.   

1. Information first, services afterwards

A basic function of digital government is the provision of actionable information concerning public services, by they online or offline (e.g. opening hours, documents required for services, and so on). Even more so in developing countries, where most public services are in-person, paper-based, and often involve multiple steps. Yet, fueled by international rankings and benchmarks, governments are often eager to skip stages in their digital journey. This leads them to attempt, and often fail, to provide transactional digital services, before they can even learn  how to offer basic information about these services. The first step in effective transformation should be offering information to users in a simple and accessible manner. Done well, that forms a good foundation for the next step: delivering digital services.  

2. Prioritise the things that will make the biggest difference

Remember that public service delivery follows a power law distribution: a small number of services account for the vast majority of transactions with government. Which these services are will vary according to country, level of government, and models of public service delivery. When the time comes to decide where to start, don’t rely on cookie-cutter lists of services to be digitized. Instead, find out which ones are the most used, and will have the greatest impact. Start with the ones that can be delivered faster, and that are most likely to make users’ lives easier. 

3. Don’t digitise the mess

The fact that a process exists doesn’t mean it’s a good process. Transformation is an opportunity to radically rethink how things work. We’ve seen examples including, for instance, requiring multiple copies of a single document, or imposing more procedures on women than men to open a business. When there is inefficiency in a service, map the bottlenecks and think about how to streamline the process. Don’t just digitise the bottlenecks, they will keep on being an expensive problem. Resist the temptation to digitise things that should not exist in the first place. …(More)”.

The Normative Order of the Internet: A Theory of Rule and Regulation Online

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Open access book by Matthias C. Kettemann: “There is order on the internet, but how has this order emerged and what challenges will threaten and shape its future? This study shows how a legitimate order of norms has emerged online, through both national and international legal systems. It establishes the emergence of a normative order of the internet, an order which explains and justifies processes of online rule and regulation. This order integrates norms at three different levels (regional, national, international), of two types (privately and publicly authored), and of different character (from ius cogens to technical standards).

Matthias C. Kettemann assesses their internal coherence, their consonance with other order norms and their consistency with the order’s finality. The normative order of the internet is based on and produces a liquefied system characterized by self-learning normativity. In light of the importance of the socio-communicative online space, this is a book for anyone interested in understanding the contemporary development of the internet….(More)”.

Data Justice and COVID-19: Global Perspectives

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Book edited by edited by Linnet Taylor, Aaron Martin, Gargi Sharma and Shazade Jameson: “In early 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic swept the world and states of emergency were declared by one country after another, the global technology sector—already equipped with unprecedented wealth, power, and influence—mobilised to seize the opportunity. This collection is an account of what happened next and captures the emergent conflicts and responses around the world. The essays provide a global perspective on the implications of these developments for justice: they make it possible to compare how the intersection of state and corporate power—and the way that power is targeted and exercised—confronts, and invites resistance from, civil society in countries worldwide.

This edited volume captures the technological response to the pandemic in 33 countries, accompanied by nine thematic reflections, and reflects the unfolding of the first wave of the pandemic.

This book can be read as a guide to the landscape of technologies deployed during the pandemic and also be used to compare individual country strategies. It will prove useful as a tool for teaching and learning in various disciplines and as a reference point for activists and analysts interested in issues of data justice.

The essays interrogate these technologies and the political, legal, and regulatory structures that determine how they are applied. In doing so,the book exposes the workings of state technological power to critical assessment and contestation….(More)”

COVID Data Failures Create Pressure for Public Health System Overhaul

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Kaiser Health News: “After terrorists slammed a plane into the Pentagon on 9/11, ambulances rushed scores of the injured to community hospitals, but only three of the patients were taken to specialized trauma wards. The reason: The hospitals and ambulances had no real-time information-sharing system.

Nineteen years later, there is still no national data network that enables the health system to respond effectively to disasters and disease outbreaks. Many doctors and nurses must fill out paper forms on COVID-19 cases and available beds and fax them to public health agencies, causing critical delays in care and hampering the effort to track and block the spread of the coronavirus.

There are signs the COVID-19 pandemic has created momentum to modernize the nation’s creaky, fragmented public health data system, in which nearly 3,000 local, state and federal health departments set their own reporting rules and vary greatly in their ability to send and receive data electronically.

Sutter Health and UC Davis Health, along with nearly 30 other provider organizations around the country, recently launched a collaborative effort to speed and improve the sharing of clinical data on individual COVID cases with public health departments.

But even that platform, which contains information about patients’ diagnoses and response to treatments, doesn’t yet include data on the availability of hospital beds, intensive care units or supplies needed for a seamless pandemic response.

The federal government spent nearly $40 billion over the past decade to equip hospitals and physicians’ offices with electronic health record systems for improving treatment of individual patients. But no comparable effort has emerged to build an effective system for quickly moving information on infectious disease from providers to public health agencies.

In March, Congress approved $500 million over 10 years to modernize the public health data infrastructure. But the amount falls far short of what’s needed to update data systems and train staff at local and state health departments, said Brian Dixon, director of public health informatics at the Regenstrief Institute in Indianapolis….(More)”.

TraceTogether

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Case Notes by Mitchell B. Weiss and Sarah Mehta: “By April 7, 2020, over 1.4 million people worldwide had contracted the novel coronavirus (COVID-19). Governments raced to curb the spread of COVID-19 by scaling up testing, quarantining those infected, and tracing their possible contacts. It had taken Singapore’s Government Technology Agency (GovTech) and Ministry of Health (MOH) all of eight weeks to develop the world’s first nationwide deployment of a Bluetooth-based contact tracing system, TraceTogether, and deploy it in an attempt to slow the spread of COVID-19. From late January to mid-March 2020, GovTech’s Jason Bay and his team raced to create a technology that would supplement the work of Singapore’s human contact tracers. Days after its launch, Singapore’s foreign minister announced plans to open source the technology. Now, in early April, TraceTogether was a beta for the world. Whether the system would really help in Singapore, and whether other countries should adopt it was still a wide-open question….(More)”.

Governance responses to disinformation: How open government principles can inform policy options

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

OECD paper by Craig Matasick, Carlotta Alfonsi and Alessandro Bellantoni: “This paper provides a holistic policy approach to the challenge of disinformation by exploring a range of governance responses that rest on the open government principles of transparency, integrity, accountability and stakeholder participation. It offers an analysis of the significant changes that are affecting media and information ecosystems, chief among them the growth of digital platforms. Drawing on the implications of this changing landscape, the paper focuses on four policy areas of intervention: public communication for a better dialogue between government and citizens; direct responses to identify and combat disinformation; legal and regulatory policy; and media and civic responses that support better information ecosystems. The paper concludes with proposed steps the OECD can take to build evidence and support policy in this space…(More)”.

Terms of Disservice: How Silicon Valley is Destructive by Design

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Book by Dipayan Ghosh: “Designing a new digital social contact for our technological future…High technology presents a paradox. In just a few decades, it has transformed the world, making almost limitless quantities of information instantly available to billions of people and reshaping businesses, institutions, and even entire economies. But it also has come to rule our lives, addicting many of us to the march of megapixels across electronic screens both large and small.

Despite its undeniable value, technology is exacerbating deep social and political divisions in many societies. Elections influenced by fake news and unscrupulous hidden actors, the cyber-hacking of trusted national institutions, the vacuuming of private information by Silicon Valley behemoths, ongoing threats to vital infrastructure from terrorist groups and even foreign governments—all these concerns are now part of the daily news cycle and are certain to become increasingly serious into the future.

In this new world of endless technology, how can individuals, institutions, and governments harness its positive contributions while protecting each of us, no matter who or where we are?

In this book, a former Facebook public policy adviser who went on to assist President Obama in the White House offers practical ideas for using technology to create an open and accessible world that protects all consumers and civilians. As a computer scientist turned policymaker, Dipayan Ghosh answers the biggest questions about technology facing the world today. Proving clear and understandable explanations for complex issues, Terms of Disservice will guide industry leaders, policymakers, and the general public as we think about how we ensure that the Internet works for everyone, not just Silicon Valley….(More)”.

Coronavirus Compels Congress to Modernize Communication Techniques

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Congressional Management Foundation: “The Future of Citizen Engagement: Coronavirus, Congress, and Constituent Communications” explores how Members of Congress and their staff engaged with citizens while navigating the constraints posed by COVID-19, and offers examples of how Congress can substantively connect with constituents using modern technology against the backdrop of a global pandemic.

The report addresses the following questions:

  • How did congressional offices adapt their communications strategies to meet the immediate needs of their constituents during the onset of COVID-19?
  • What techniques did Members use to diversify their constituent outreach?
  • What methods of engagement is Congress using now, and likely to use in the future?

The findings are based on a survey of senior congressional staffers, comprising over 120 responses provided to CMF between May 26 and June 19, 2020. Additionally, CMF conducted 13 follow-up interviews with survey respondents who indicated they were willing to speak further about their office operations and constituent communications during COVID-19….(More)”.

How Philanthropy Can Help Governments Accelerate a Real Recovery

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Essay by Michele Jolin and David Medina: “The cracks and design flaws of our nation’s public systems have been starkly exposed as governments everywhere struggle to respond to health and economic crises that disproportionately devastate Black residents and communities of color. As government leaders respond to the immediate emergencies, they also operate within a legacy of government practices, policies and systems that have played a central role in creating and maintaining racial inequity. 

Philanthropy can play a unique and catalytic role in accelerating a real recovery by helping government leaders make smarter decisions, helping them develop and effectively use the data-and-evidence capacity they need to spotlight and understand root causes of community challenges, especially racial disparities, and increase the impact of government investments that could close racial gaps and accelerate economic opportunity. Philanthropy can uniquely support leaders within government who are best positioned to redesign and reimagine public systems to deliver equity and impact.

We are already seeing that the growing number of governments that have built data-driven “Moneyball” muscles are better positioned both to manage through this crisis and to dismantle racist government practices. While we recognize that data and evidence can sometimes reinforce biases, we also know that government decision-makers who have access to more and better information—and who are trained to navigate the nuance and possible bias in this information—can use data to identify disparate racial outcomes, understand the core problems and target resources to close gaps. Government decision-makers who have the skills to test, learn, and improve government programs can prioritize resource allocation toward programs that both deliver better results and address the complexity of social problems.

Philanthropy can accelerate this public sector transformation by supporting change led by internal government champions who are challenging the status quo. By doing so, philanthropic leaders can increase the impact of the trillions of dollars invested by governments each year. Philanthropies such as Ballmer Group, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Blue Meridian Partners, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and Arnold Ventures understand this and are already putting their money where their mouths are. By helping governments make smarter budget and policy decisions, they can ensure that public dollars flow toward solutions that make a meaningful, measurable difference on our biggest challenges, whether it’s increasing economic mobility, reducing racial disparities in health and other outcomes, or addressing racial bias in government systems.

We need other donors to join them in prioritizing this kind of systems change….(More)”.

Why Personal Data Is a National Security Issue

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by Susan Ariel Aaronson: “…Concerns about the national security threat from personal data held by foreigners first emerged in 2013. Several U.S. entities, including Target, J.P. Morgan, and the U.S. Office of Personnel Management were hacked. Many attributed the hacking to Chinese entities. Administration officials concluded that the Chinese government could cross-reference legally obtained and hacked-data sets to reveal information about U.S. objectives and strategy. 

Personal data troves can also be cross-referenced to identify individuals, putting both personal security as well as national security at risk. Even U.S. firms pose a direct and indirect security threat to individuals and the nation because of their failure to adequately protect personal data. For example, Facebook has a disturbing history of sharing personal data without consent and allowing its clients to use that data to manipulate users. Some app designers have enabled functionality unnecessary for their software’s operation, while others, like Anomaly 6, embedded their software in mobile apps without the permission of users or firms. Other companies use personal data without user permission to create new products. Clearview AI scraped billions of images from major web services such as Facebook, Google, and YouTube, and sold these images to law enforcement agencies around the world. 

Firms can also inadvertently aggregate personal data and in so doing threaten national security. Strava, an athletes’ social network, released a heat map of its global users’ activities in 2018. Savvy analysts were able to use the heat map to reveal secret military bases and patrol routes. Chinese-owned data firms could be a threat to national security if they share data with the Chinese government. But the problem lies in the U.S.’s failure to adequately protect personal data and police the misuse of data collected without the permission of users….(More)”.