Book edited by Manuel Pedro Rodríguez Bolívar: “…examines the introduction of smart technologies into public administrations and the organizational issues caused by these implementations, and the potential of information and communication technologies (ICTs) to rationalize and improve government, transform governance and organizational issues, and address economic, social, and environmental challenges. Cities are increasingly using new technologies in the delivery of public sector services and in the improvement of government transparency, business-led urban development, and urban sustainability. The book will examine specific smart projects that cities are embracing to improve transparency, efficiency, sustainability, mobility, and whether all cities are prepared to implement smart technologies and the incentives for promoting implementation. This focus on the smart technologies applied to public sector entities will be of interest to academics, researchers, policy-makers, public managers, international organizations and technical experts involved in and responsible for the governance, development and design of Smart Cities….(More)”.
How open data can help the Global South, from disaster relief to voter turnout
Stefaan Verhulst and Andrew Young in The Conversation Global: “The modern era is marked by growing faith in the power of data. “Big data”, “open data”, and “evidence-based decision-making” have become buzzwords, touted as solutions to the world’s most complex and persistent problems, from corruption and famine to the refugee crisis.
While perhaps most pronounced in higher income countries, this trend is now emerging globally. In Africa, Latin America, Asia and beyond, hopes are high that access to data can help developing economies by increasing transparency, fostering sustainable development, building climate resiliency and the like.
This is an exciting prospect, but can opening up data actually make a difference in people’s lives?
Getting data-driven about data
The GovLab at New York University spent the last year trying to answer that question….
Our conclusion: the enthusiasm is justified – as long as it’s tempered with a good measure of realism, too. Here are our six major takeaways:
1. We need a framework – Overall, there is still little evidence to substantiate the enthusiastic claims that open data can foment sustainable development and transform governance. That’s not surprising given the early stage of most open data initiatives.
It may be early for impact evaluation, but it’s not too soon to develop a model that will eventually allow us to assess the impact of opening up data over time.
To that end, the GovLab has created an evidence-based framework that aims to better capture the role of open data in developing countries. The Open Data Logic Framework below focuses on various points in the open data value cycle, from data supply to demand, use and impact.
2. Open data has real promise – Based on this framework and the underlying evidence that fed into it, we can guardedly conclude that open data does in fact spur development – but only under certain conditions and within the right supporting ecosystem.
One well-known success took place after Nepal’s 2015 earthquake when open data helped NGOs map important landmarks such as health facilities and road networks, among other uses.
And in Colombia, the International Centre for Tropical Agriculture launched Aclímate Colombia, a tool that gives smallholder farmers data-driven insight into planting strategies that makes them more resilient to climate change….
3. Open data can improve people’s lives Examining projects in a number of sectors critical to development, including health, humanitarian aid, agriculture, poverty alleviation, energy and education, we found four main ways that data can have an impact….
4. Data can be an asset in development While these impacts are apparent in both developed and developing countries, we believe that open data can have a particularly powerful role in developing economies.
Where data is scarce, as it often is in poorer countries, open data can lead to an inherently more equitable and democratic distribution of information and knowledge. This, in turn, may activate a wider range of expertise to address complex problems; it’s what we in the field call “open innovation”.
This quality can allow resource-starved developing economies to access and leverage the best minds around.
And because trust in government is quite low in many developing economies, the transparency bred of releasing data can have after-effects that go well beyond the immediate impact of the data itself…
5. The ingredients matter To better understand why some open data projects fail while others succeed, we created a “periodic table” of open data (below), which includes 27 enabling factors divided into five broad categories….
6. We can plan for impact Our report ends by identifying how development organisations can catalyse the release and use of open data to make a difference on the ground.
Recommendations include:
· Define the problem, understand the user, and be aware of local conditions;
· Focus on readiness, responsiveness and change management;
· Nurture an open data ecosystem through collaboration and partnerships;
· Have a risk mitigation strategy;
· Secure resources and focus on sustainability; and
· Build a strong evidence base and support more research.
Next steps
In short, while it may still be too early to fully capture open data’s as-of-yet muted impact on developing economies, there are certainly reasons for optimism.
Much like blockchain, drones and other much-hyped technical advances, it’s time to start substantiating the excitement over open data with real, hard evidence.
The next step is to get systematic, using the kind of analytical framework we present here to gain comparative and actionable insight into if, when and how open data works. Only by getting data-driven about open data can we help it live up to its potential….(More)“
Why and How Open Data Matters for Developing Economies
“The GovLab is pleased to announce the launch of a new report that assesses and explores ways open data can be used in developing economies, “Open Data in Developing Economies: Toward Building an Evidence Base on What Works and How.” The new report co-authored by Stefaan Verhulst and Andrew Young seeks to :
(1) provides an evidence-based framework governments, NGOs, donors, and others can use to assess the impacts resulting from the use of open data in developing economies;
(2) outlines four key impact areas gleaned from 12 case studies that feature real-world examples from 12 countries, ranging from Colombia to Nepal; and
(3) identifies 27 critical factors that help to determine the success (or failure) of open data uses in developing economies, organized into a newly-created Periodic Table of Open Data, along with recommendations for both practitioners and decision-makers, including donor agencies.
The “Open Data in Developing Economies” report is the result of a months-long collaboration between The GovLab and several partners, including the U.S. Agency for International Development, FHI 360, and the World Wide Web Foundation.
The full report and cases studies are available at ODimpact.org…”
Government initiative offers Ghanaians chance for greater participation
Springwise: “Openness and transparency are key ingredients in building an accountable and effective democratic government. An “open” government is transparent, accessible to anyone, anytime, anywhere; and is responsive to new ideas and demands. The key to this is providing access to accurate data to all citizens. However, in many countries, a low rate of citizen participation and involvement has led to poor accountability from government officials. In Ghana, a new project, TransGov, is developing innovative tools to foster participation in local governance of marginalised groups, and improve government accountability to those who need it most.
TransGov’s research found that many Ghanaians were not aware of the status of local development projects, and this has led to a general public apathy, where people felt they had no influence on getting the government to work for them. TransGov created a platform to enhance information disclosure, dissemination and to create ways for citizens to engage with the local leaders in their communities. The TransGov platform allows all citizens to track the progress of government projects in their area and to publish information about those projects. TransGov has four integrated platforms, including a website, mobile app, voice response technology (IVR) and SMS – to allow the participation of people from a wide range of socio-economic backgrounds.
The organization has recently partnered with the government-sponsored Ghana Open Data Initiative, to share resources, tools, and research and hold workshops and seminars. This is aimed to strengthen various government agencies in collecting and managing data for public use. The hope is that making this information more accessible will help create more business opportunities and drive innovation, as well as increasing democratic participation. We have seen this in educational radio broadcasts in Cairo subways and an app that allows citizen feedback on city development….(More)”.
How Africa’s Data Revolution Can Deliver Sustainable Development Outcomes
Donald Mogeni at Huffington Post: “…As a demonstration of this political will, several governments in Africa are blazing the trail in numerous ways. For instance, the Government of Senegal now considers investment in data as important as it would treat investment in physical infrastructure such as roads. In Ghana and Sierra Leone, more policy-makers and legislators are now using data to inform their work and make planning is continuously evidence-based.
Despite the progressive developments, several cautionary statements are worth noting. Firstly, data is not a silver-bullet to addressing present development challenges and/or problems. To be transformative, use of data and evidence must include political agency and citizen mobilization. Thus, while data may highlight important development cleavages, it may not guarantee change if not used appropriately within the various political contexts. ‘Everyone Counts’, a new global initiative by CARE, KWANTU and World Vision (that was also showcased in the meeting) seeks to contribute to this agenda.
Secondly, there is need for data ‘experts’ to move beyond the chronic obsession with big numbers to ensure greater inclusion of marginalised and vulnerable segments of the population. Achieving this will require a ‘business unusual’ approach that devises better data collection methodologies and technologies that must collect more and better than ever before. This ‘new’ data should then be used together with administrative and open data to ensure that ‘no one is left behind’.
Thirdly, the utility of citizen-generated data is still contentious – especially within state institutions. Increasing the value of this data must therefore involve standardization of data collection tools and methodologies across the board (to the extent possible), making consideration for ethical approvals, subjecting this data to quality audits and triangulation, as well as adhering to quality assurance standards.
Fourthly, the emergence of various data communities within African countries has made the roles of National Statistical Offices in the data ecosystem even more crucial. However, significant capacity and technical disparities exist between the various National Statistical Offices (NSOs) in Africa. To realise the potential of data and statistics in achieving sustainable development outcomes, financial and human capacities of these institutions must to be enhanced….(More)”.
Open data on universities – New fuel for transformation
François van Schalkwyk at University World News: “Accessible, usable and relevant open data on South African universities makes it possible for a wide range of stakeholders to monitor, advise and challenge the transformation of South Africa’s universities from an informed perspective.
Some describe data as the new oil while others suggest it is a new form of capital or compare it to electricity. Either way, there appears to be a groundswell of interest in the potential of data to fuel development.
Whether the proliferation of data is skewing development in favour of globally networked elites or disrupting existing asymmetries of information and power, is the subject of ongoing debate. Certainly, there are those who will claim that open data, from a development perspective, could catalyse disruption and redistribution.
Open data is data that is free to use without restriction. Governments and their agencies, universities and their researchers, non-governmental organisations and their donors, and even corporations, are all potential sources of open data.
Open government data, as a public rather than a private resource, embedded in principles of universal access, participation and transparency, is touted as being able to restore the deteriorating levels of trust between citizens and their governments.
Open data promises to do so by making the decisions and processes of the state more transparent and inclusive, empowering citizens to participate and to hold public institutions to account for the distribution of public services and resources.
Benefits of open data
Open data has other benefits over its more cloistered cousins (data in private networks, big data, etc). By democratising access, open data makes possible the use of data on, for example, health services, crime, the environment, procurement and education by a range of different users, each bringing their own perspective to bear on the data. This can expose bias in the data or may improve the quality of the data by surfacing data errors. Both are important when data is used to shape government policies.
By removing barriers to reusing data such as copyright or licence-fees, tech-savvy entrepreneurs can develop applications to assist the public to make more informed decisions by making available easy-to-understand information on medicine prices, crime hot-spots, air quality, beneficial ownership, school performance, etc. And access to open research data can improve quality and efficiency in science.
Scientists can check and confirm the data on which important discoveries are based if the data is open, and, in some cases, researchers can reuse open data from other studies, saving them the cost and effort of collecting the data themselves.
‘Open washing’
But access alone is not enough for open data to realise its potential. Open data must also be used. And data is used if it holds some value for the user. Governments have been known to publish server rooms full of data that no one is interested in to support claims of transparency and supporting the knowledge economy. That practice is called ‘open washing’. …(More)”
Democracy Promotion: An Objective of U.S. Foreign Assistance
New Report by Congressional Research Service: “Promoting democratic institutions, processes, and values has long been a U.S. foreign policy objective, though the priority given to this objective has been inconsistent. World events, competing priorities, and political change within the United States all shape the attention and resources provided to democracy promotion efforts and influence whether such efforts focus on supporting fair elections abroad, strengthening civil society, promoting rule of law and human rights, or other aspects of democracy promotion.
Proponents of democracy promotion often assert that such efforts are essential to global development and U.S. security because stable democracies tend to have better economic growth and stronger protection of human rights, and are less likely to go to war with one another. Critics contend that U.S. relations with foreign countries should focus exclusively on U.S. interests and stability in the world order. U.S. interest in global stability, regardless of the democratic nature of national political systems, could discourage U.S. support for democratic transitions—the implementation of which is uncertain and may lead to more, rather than less, instability.
Funding for democracy promotion assistance is deeply integrated into U.S. foreign policy institutions. More than $2 billion annually has been allocated from foreign assistance funds over the past decade for democracy promotion activities managed by the State Department, the U.S. Agency for International Development, the National Endowment for Democracy, and other entities. Programs promoting good governance (characterized by participation, transparency, accountability, effectiveness, and equity), rule of law, and promotion of human rights have typically received the largest share of this funding in contrast to lower funding to promote electoral processes and political competition. In recent years, increasing restrictions imposed by some foreign governments on civil society organizations have resulted in an increased emphasis in democracy promotion assistance for strengthening civil society.
Despite bipartisan support for the general concept of democracy promotion, policy debates in the 115th Congress continue to question the consistency, effectiveness, and appropriateness of such foreign assistance. With the Trump Administration indicating that democracy and human rights might not be a top foreign policy priority, advocates in Congress may be challenged to find common ground with the Administration on this issue.
As part of its budget and oversight responsibilities, the 115th Congress may consider the impact of the Trump Administration’s requested FY2018 foreign assistance spending cuts on U.S. democracy promotion assistance, review the effectiveness of democracy promotion activities, evaluate the various channels available for democracy promotion, and consider where democracy promotion ranks among a wide range of foreign policy and budget priorities….(More)”.
Are innovation labs delivering on their promise?
Catherine Cheney at DEVEX: “Next month, a first-of-its-kind event will take place in Denmark, and it will draw on traditions and ways of living in one of the happiest countries in the world to unlock new perspectives on achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.
Called UNLEASH, the new initiative will gather 1,000 young people from around the world in the capital city of Copenhagen. Then the participants will be transported to “folk high schools,” which are learning institutions in the countryside aimed at adult education. There, they will break into teams to tackle issues such as urban sustainability or education and ICT. The most promising ideas will have access to resources, including mentoring, angel investors and business plan development. Finally, all UNLEASH participants will be connected through an alumni network of individuals who come together at the annual event that will move country to country until 2030.
UNLEASH is a global innovation lab. It is just one of a growing number of innovation labs, which bring people together to develop and test new methods to address challenges across the global health, international development and humanitarian response sectors. But while the initiative sounds new and exciting, the description reads much like many other initiatives springing up around the SDGs: identifying innovative, scalable, implementable solutions, supporting disruptive ideas, and accelerating development impact.
As the global development sector seeks to take on global problems as complex as those captured by the SDGs, innovation will certainly be necessary. But with the growing number of innovation labs not translating as quickly as expected to real progress on the SDGs, some in the industry are also starting to ask tough questions: How can these initiatives go beyond generating ideas, transition into growing and scaling, then go on to changing entire systems in order to, for example, achieve SDG 1 to end poverty in all its forms by 2030? Experts tell Devex the road to success will not be an easy one, but those who have tested out and improved upon models of innovation in this sector are sharing what is working, what is not, and what needs to change….(More)”.
Public servants to go on blind coffee dates for innovation
David Donaldson at The Mandarin: “Victorian public servants will have the opportunity to be randomly matched with others for coffee dates, as part of the government’s plan to foster links across silos and bolster innovation.
That is just one of many initiatives planned by Victoria in its new Public Sector Innovation Strategy, released on Tuesday.The plan acknowledges that plenty of innovative thinking is already happening, so the best way to drive further ideas is to connect people better and provide tools and case studies so they can learn from one another.
Six themes repeatedly came up in conversations around innovation in the public service, says the document:
- Leaders who enable and reward — too often new ideas are stifled by leaders who don’t support them;
- Employees who feel confident and supported;
- Learning well — pockets of innovation exist, and stronger efforts to learn and develop from them will help;
- Sharing with each other;
- Partnering with the community and other organisations;
- Delivering value — don’t innovate on random things. Focus on what makes a difference.
“This strategy helps to find, encourage and support change that adds value across the public sector. We need to unlock good intent and talent, share examples and experiences, and learn from each other,” says Chris Eccles, secretary of the Department of Premier and Cabinet.
“At our best, we all contribute our different skills and roles to generate more public value, shaped by the common purpose of creating a better society.”
To kick off progress, the government has outlined a series of actions it will undertake:
- A reverse mentoring plan to help executives learn from more junior staff. Due September 2017.
- Build on a current departmental trial that builds innovation into executive performance development plans. December 2017.
- Establish a high-profile event to recognise and reward practical innovation across government. March 2018.
- A practical innovation bank, to provide a common digital space for cross-government sharing of practical resources (case studies, contacts, templates, guides, lessons learned and so on). December 2017.
- Ideas challenge toolkit to provide guidance on how to run an ideas challenge. December 2017.
- Learning lab trial, which will provide an incubator environment for cross-government use on a project by project basis. March 2018.
- VPS Academy, a new peer to peer learning project, will go through two more pilots to build the case for scaling up. July and December 2017…(More)”.
Intelligent sharing: unleashing the potential of health and care data in the UK to transform outcomes
Report by Future Care Capital: “….Data is often referred to as the ‘new oil’ – the 21st century raw material which, when hitched to algorithmic refinement, may be mined for insight and value – and ‘data flows’ are said to have exerted a greater impact upon global growth than traditional goods flows in recent years (Manyika et al, 2016). Small wonder, then, that governments around the world are endeavouring to strike a balance between individual privacy rights and protections on the one hand, and organisational permissions to facilitate the creation of social, economic and environmental value from broad-ranging data on the other: ‘data rights’ are now of critical importance courtesy of technological advancements. The tension between the two is particularly evident where health and care data in the UK is concerned. Individuals are broadly content with anonymised data from their medical records being used for public benefit but are, understandably, anxious about the implications of the most intimate aspects of their lives being hacked or, else, shared without their knowledge or consent….
The potential for health and care data to be transformative remains, and there is growing concern that opportunities to improve the use of health and care data in peoples’ interests are being missed….
we recommend additional support for digitisation efforts in social care settings. We call upon the Government to streamline processes associated with Information Governance (IG) modelling to help data sharing initiatives that traverse organisational boundaries. We also advocate for investment and additional legal safeguards to make more anonymised data sets available for research and innovation. Crucially, we recommend expediting the scope for individuals to contribute health and care data to sharing initiatives led by the public sector through promotion, education and pilot activities – so that data is deployed to transform public health and support the ‘pivot to prevention’.
In Chapter Two, we explore the rationale and scope for the UK to build upon emergent practice from around the world and become a global leader in ‘data philanthropy’ – to push at the boundaries of existing plans and programmes, and support the development of and access to unrivalled health and care data sets. We look at member-controlled ‘data cooperatives’ and what we’ve termed ‘data communities’ operated by trusted intermediaries. We also explore ‘data collaboratives’ which involve the private sector engaging in data philanthropy for public benefit. Here, we make recommendations about promoting a culture of data philanthropy through the demonstration of tangible benefits to participants and the wider public, and we call upon Government to assess the appetite and feasibility of establishing the world’s first National Health and Care Data Donor Bank….(More)”