international development

The Metric Tide

Curated on February 6, 2016August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Book by James Wilsdon: Metrics evoke a mixed reaction from the research community. A commitment to using data and evidence to inform decisions makes many of us sympathetic, even enthusiastic, about the prospect of granular, real-time analysis of our own activities. Yet we only have to look around us, at the blunt use of metrics to be reminded of the pitfalls. Metrics hold real power: they are constitutive of values, identities and livelihoods.

How to exercise that power to positive ends is the focus of this book. Using extensive evidence-gathering, analysis and consultation, the authors take a thorough look at potential uses and limitations of research metrics and indicators. They explore the use of metrics across different disciplines, assess their potential contribution to the development of research excellence and impact and consider the changing ways in which universities are using quantitative indicators in their management systems. Finally, they consider the negative or unintended effects of metrics on various aspects of research culture.

Including an updated introduction from James Wilsdon, the book proposes a framework for responsible metrics and makes a series of targeted recommendations to show how responsible metrics can be applied in research management, by funders, and in the next cycle of the Research Excellence Framework.

The metric tide is certainly rising. Unlike King Canute, we have the agency and opportunity – and in this book, a serious body of evidence – to influence how it washes through higher education and research….(More)”.

How to use research evidence to improve your work

Curated on February 3, 2016May 29, 2019 by Stefaan Verhulst

NESTA: “We’re pleased to announce the launch of the latest publication in our series of practice guides – Using Research Evidence. Created by the Alliance for Useful Evidence and Nesta, the guide has been designed to help you improve the way you work by using evidence effectively.

Evidence can help you make better decisions. Whether it’s in a police station, a school classroom or the boardroom of a charity, using research-based evidence can help improve outcomes. It is helpful not only in frontline service-delivery, but also in creating smarter organisations – charities, local authorities, government departments – and in developing national policies or charity campaigns.

It is also useful not only to you as a decision-maker, but to the citizens, voters, donors and wider public you are trying to support. Evidence can show if your services are working (or failing), save money, and align services with public needs.

The guide is aimed at those working in government, charities, voluntary organisations, professional membership bodies and local authorities. It will help you to:

Learn about evidence-informed decision-making, and why research is an essential element of it.
Understand the different scenarios in which using evidence can help you, as well as the types of evidence you might need at different stages of development.
Explore different types of evidence, how to choose the most appropriate and how to judge its quality.
Get advice on finding the right evidence to support your case, and how to get your message across once you have it….

Download the report here.”

Platform for Mumbai’s slum entrepreneurs

Curated on February 3, 2016October 23, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Springwise: “We recently saw an initiative that empowered startup talent in a Finnish refugee camp, and now Design Museum Dharavi is a mobile museum that will provide a platform for makers in the Mumbai neighborhood.

The initiative is a brainchild of artist Jorge Rubio and Creative Industries Fund NL. Taking the model of a pop-up, it will stop at various locations throughout the neighborhood. Despite being an ‘informal settlement’, Dharavi is famed for producing very little waste due to a culture of recycling and repurposing. The mobile museum will showcase local makers, enable them to connect with potential clients and run workshops, ultimately elevating the global social perception towards life in the so-called ‘slums’. Home to over a million people, Dharavi has the additional tourism pull from appearing on the film Slumdog Millionaire…..(More)”

Innovating and changing the policy-cycle: Policy-makers be prepared!

Curated on February 3, 2016October 24, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Marijn Janssen and Natalie Helbig in Government Information Quarterly: “Many policy-makers are struggling to understand participatory governance in the midst of technological changes. Advances in information and communication technologies (ICTs) continue to have an impact on the ways that policy-makers and citizens engage with each other throughout the policy-making process. A set of developments in the areas of opening government data, advanced analytics, visualization, simulation, and gaming, and ubiquitous citizen access using mobile and personalized applications is shaping the interactions between policy-makers and citizens. Yet the impact of these developments on the policy-makers is unclear. The changing roles and need for new capabilities required from the government are analyzed in this paper using two case studies. Salient new roles for policy-makers are outlined focused on orchestrating the policy-making process. Research directions are identified including understand the behavior of users, aggregating and analyzing content from scattered resources, and the effective use of the new tools. Understanding new policy-makers roles will help to bridge the gap between the potential of tools and technologies and the organizational realities and political contexts. We argue that many examples are available that enable learning from others, in both directions, developed countries experiences are useful for developing countries and experiences from the latter are valuable for the former countries…(More)”

The Smart City and its Citizens

Curated on February 2, 2016August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Carlo Francesco Capra on “Governance and Citizen Participation in Amsterdam Smart City…Smart cities are associated almost exclusively with modern technology and infrastructure. However, smart cities have the possibility to enhance the involvement and contribution of citizens to urban development. This work explores the role of governance as one of the factors influencing the participation of citizens in smart cities projects. Governance characteristics play a major role in explaining different typologies of citizen participation. Through a focus on Amsterdam Smart City program as a specific case study, this research examines the characteristics of governance that are present in the overall program and within a selected sample of projects, and how they relate to different typologies of citizen participation. The analysis and comprehension of governance characteristics plays a crucial role both for a better understanding and management of citizen participation, especially in complex settings where multiple actors are interacting….(More)”

Transparency, accountability, and technology

Curated on February 2, 2016May 29, 2019 by Stefaan Verhulst

Shanthi Kalathil at Plan International: “The recently launched Sustainable Development Goals have kicked off a renewed development agenda that features, among other things, a dedicated emphasis on peace, justice, and strong institutions. This emphasis, encapsulated in Goal #16, contains several sub-priorities, including reducing corruption; developing effective, accountable, and transparent institutions; ensuring inclusive, participatory, and representative decision-making; and ensuring access to information.

Indeed, the governance-related Goals merely stamp an official imprimatur on what have now become key buzzwords in development. Naturally, where there are buzzwords, there are “tools.” In many cases, those “tools” turn out to be information and communications technologies, and the data flows they facilitate. It’s no wonder, then, that technology has been embraced by the development community as a crucial component of the global accountability and transparency “toolkit.”

Certainly, information and communication technology for development (ICT4D) has long been a part of the development conversation. More recently, ICTs have emerged prominently in the context of good governance, transparency, and accountability. Yet – despite a growing number of studies and evaluations – there hasn’t been a field-wide deeper reckoning with technology’s role in fostering accountability. Technology often seems to promise greater transparency and empowered citizen voice, fitting seamlessly into broader goals of good governance for development. Yet the actual track record of many initiatives has been spotty, and dedicated examination has been sparse (although efforts are underway to change this). That hasn’t stemmed the enthusiasm to press ahead with tech-related applications and open-data-everything; if anything, calls for more critical examination are often treated as mere bumps on the road to progress.

One problem with the “tool for accountability” frame is that it minimizes the political, economic, and social ramifications of technology itself, including the complex web of laws, regulation, culture, norms, and power relations that accompany any form of communication. This means that, while many of these projects tackle the accountability piece using the recommended political economy lens, there is no corresponding emphasis on the communications and/or technology side of the equation. Referring to technology primarily as a “tool” to facilitate aspects of good governance, accountability, or transparency reinforces the idea that it’s merely a widget, one that doesn’t carry its own complexities. It subsumes technology as a means to a broader end, and in doing so, minimizes its ramifications. This, in turn, can lead to unintended or unsustainable outcomes.

Perhaps the answer, then, is to view accountability projects that employ technology in a different way. It’s time to ditch the “tech toolkit,” and instead embrace the emergence of a truly hybrid field with its own unique political economy. This will require a deeper engagement with the power relations that accompany the introduction of technology, and is likely to illuminate a host of issues that currently lie hidden in the planning stage and beyond. This deeper engagement will also require a rethink of current design, monitoring, and evaluation practices; so, for example, in addition to understanding the accountability challenge in question, program design will have to incorporate an equally substantive analysis of the political economy of the proposed ICT intervention, including stakeholders, potential obstacles, and an examination of all possible outcomes (intended or otherwise). While this will require substantial effort, by moving beyond the toolkit approach, we may be able to engage holistically with transparency, accountability, AND technology in ways that could lead to more sustained development impact. (Read the Report)

The Open (Data) Market

Curated on February 2, 2016August 15, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Sean McDonald at Medium: “Open licensing privatizes technology and data usability. How does that effect equality and accessibility?…The open licensing movement(open data, open source software, etc.) predicates its value on increasing accessibility and transparency by removing legal and ownership restrictions on use. The groups that advocate for open data and open sourcecode, especially in government and publicly subsidized industries, often come from transparency, accountability, and freedom of information backgrounds. These efforts, however, significantly underestimate the costs of refining, maintaining, targeting, defining a value proposition, marketing, and presenting both data and products in ways that are effective and useful for the average person. Recent research suggests the primary beneficiaries of civic technologies — those specifically built on government data or services — are privileged populations. The World Banks recent World Development Report goes further to point out that public digitization can be a driver of inequality.

The dynamic of self-replicating privilege in both technology and openmarkets is not a new phenomenon. Social science research refers to it as the Matthew Effect, which says that in open or unregulated spaces, theprivileged tend to become more privileged, while the poor become poorer.While there’s no question the advent of technology brings massive potential,it is already creating significant access and achievement divides. Accordingto the Federal Communication Commission’s annual Broadband Progressreport in 2015, 42% of students in the U.S. struggle to do their homeworkbecause of web access — and 39% of rural communities don’t even have abroadband option. Internet access skews toward urban, wealthycommunities, with income, geography, and demographics all playing a rolein adoption. Even further, research suggests that the rich and poor use technology differently. This runs counter to narrative of Interneteventualism, which insist that it’s simply a (small) matter of time beforethese access (and skills) gaps close. Evidence suggests that for upper andmiddle income groups access is almost universal, but the gaps for lowincome groups are growing…(More)”

7 Ways Local Governments Are Getting Creative with Data Mapping

Curated on January 27, 2016May 29, 2019 by Stefaan Verhulst

Ben Miller at GovTech: “As government data collection expands, and as more of that data becomes publicly available, more people are looking to maps as a means of expressing the information.

And depending on the type of application, a map can be useful for both the government and its constituents. Many maps help government servants operate more efficiently and savemoney, while others will answer residents’ questions so they don’t have to call a government worker for theanswer…..

Here are seven examples of state and local governments using maps to help themselves and the people they serve.

1. DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, IOWA GET LOCAL AND CURRENT WITH THE WEATHER

As Winter Storm Jonas was busy dropping nearly 30 inches of snow on the nation’s capital, officials in D.C. were working to clear it. And thanks to a mapping application they launched, citizens could see exactly how the city was going about that business.

The District of Columbia’s snow map lets users enter an address, and then shows what snow plows did near that address within a given range of days. The map also shows where the city received 311 requests for snow removal and gives users a chance to look at recent photos from road cameras showing driving conditions…..

2. LOS ANGELES MAPS EL NIÑO RESOURCES, TRENDS

Throughout the winter, weather monitoring experts warned the public time and again that an El Niño system was brewing in the Pacific Ocean that looked to be one of the largest, if not the largest, ever. That would mean torrents of rain for a parched state that’s seen mudslides and flooding during storms in the past.

So to prepare its residents, the city of Los Angeles published a map in January that lets users see both decision-informing trends and the location of resources. Using the application, one can toggle layers that let them know what the weather is doing around the city, where traffic is backed up, where the power is out, where they can find sand bags to prevent flood damage and more….

3. CALIFORNIA DIVES DEEP INTO AIR POLLUTION RISKS

….So, faced with a legislative mandate to identify disadvantaged communities, the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment decided that it wouldn’t just examine smog levels — it also would also take a look at the prevalence of at-risk people across the state.

The result is a series of three maps, the first two examining both factors and the third combining them. That allows the state and its residents to see the places where air pollution is the biggest problem for people it poses a greater risk to….

4. STREAMLINING RESIDENT SERVICE INFORMATION

The city of Manassas, Va., relied on an outdated paper map and a long-time, well-versed staffer to answer questions about municipal curbside pickup services until they launched this map in 2014. The map allows users to enter their address, and then gives them easy-to-read information about when to put out various things on their curb for pickup.

That’s useful because the city’s fall leaf collection schedule changes every year. So the map not only acts as a benefit to residents who want information, but to city staff who don’t have to deal with as many calls.

The map also shows users the locations of resources they can use and gives them city phone numbers in case they still have questions, and displays it all in a popup pane at the bottom of the map.

5. PLACING TOOLS IN THE HANDS OF THE PUBLIC

A lot of cities and counties have started publishing online maps showing city services and releasing government data.

But Chicago, Boston and Philadelphia stand out as examples of maps that take the idea one step further — because each one offers a staggering amount of choices for users.

Chicago’s new OpenGrid map, just launched in January, is a versatile map that lets users search for certain data like food inspection reports, street closures, potholes and more. That’s enough to answer a lot of questions, but what adds even more utility is the map’s various narrowing tools. Users can narrow searches to a zip code, or they can draw a shape on the map and only see results within that shape. They can perform sub-searches within results and they can choose how they’d like to see the data displayed.

Philadelphia’s platform makes use of buttons, icons and categories to help users sift through the spatially-enabled data available to them. Options include future lane closures, bicycle paths, flu shots, city resources, parks and more.

Boston’s platform is open for users to submit their own maps. And submit they have. The city portal offers everything from maps of bus stops to traffic data pulled from the Waze app.

6. HOUSTON TRANSFORMS SERVICE REQUEST DATA

A 311 service functions as a means of bringing problems to city staff’s attention. But the data itself only goes so far — it needs interpretation.

Houston’s 311 service request map helps users easily analyze the data so as to spot trends. The tool offers lots of ways to narrow data down, and can isolate many different kinds of request so users can see whether one problem is reported more often in certain areas.

7. GUIDING BUSINESS GROWTH

For the last several years, the city of Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., has been designing all sorts of maps through its Rancho Enterprise Geographic Information Systems (REGIS) project. Many of them have served specific city purposes, such as tracking code enforcement violations and offering police a command system tool for special events.

The utilitarian foundation of REGIS extends to its public-facing applications as well. One example is INsideRancho, a map built with economic development efforts in mind. The map lets users search and browse available buildings to suit business needs, narrowing results by square footage, zoning and building type. Users can also find businesses by name or address, and look at property exteriors via an embedded connection with Google Street View….(More)”