Toward WSIS 3.0: Adopting Next-Gen Governance Solutions for Tomorrow’s Information Society

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Lea Kaspar  & Stefaan G. Verhulst at CircleID: “… Collectively, this process has been known as the “World Summit on the Information Society” (WSIS). During December 2015 in New York, twelve years after that first meeting in Geneva and with more than 3 billion people now online, member states of the United Nations unanimously adopted the final outcome document of the WSIS ten-year Review process.

The document (known as the WSIS+10 document) reflects on the progress made over the past decade and outlines a set of recommendations for shaping the information society in coming years. Among other things, it acknowledges the role of different stakeholders in achieving the WSIS vision, reaffirms the centrality of human rights, and calls for a number of measures to ensure effective follow-up.

For many, these represent significant achievements, leading observers to proclaim the outcome a diplomatic victory. However, as is the case with most non-binding international agreements, the WSIS+10 document will remain little more than a hollow guidepost until it is translated into practice. Ultimately, it is up to the national policy-makers, relevant international agencies, and the WSIS community as a whole to deliver meaningful progress towards achieving the WSIS vision.

Unfortunately, the WSIS+10 document provides little actual guidance for practitioners. What is even more striking, it reveals little progress in its understanding of emerging governance trends and methods since Geneva and Tunis, or how these could be leveraged in our efforts to harness the benefits of information and communication technologies (ICT).

As such, the WSIS remains a 20th-century approach to 21st-century challenges. In particular, the document fails to seek ways to make WSIS post 2015:

  • evidence-based in how to make decisions;
  • collaborative in how to measure progress; and
  • innovative in how to solve challenges.

Three approaches toward WSIS 3.0

Drawing on lessons in the field of governance innovation, we suggest in what follows three approaches, accompanied by practical recommendations, that could allow the WSIS to address the challenges raised by the information society in a more evidence-based, innovative and participatory way:

1. Adopt an evidence-based approach to WSIS policy making and implementation.

Since 2003, we have had massive experimentation in both developed and developing countries in a number of efforts to increase access to the Internet. We have seen some failures and some successes; above all, we have gained insight into what works, what doesn’t, and why. Unfortunately, much of the evidence remains scattered and ad-hoc, poorly translated into actionable guidance that would be effective across regions; nor is there any reflection on what we don’t know, and how we can galvanize the research and funding community to address information gaps. A few practical steps we could take to address this:….

2. Measure progress towards WSIS goals in a more open, collaborative way, founded on metrics and data developed through a bottom-up approach

The current WSIS+10 document has many lofty goals, many of which will remain effectively meaningless unless we are able to measure progress in concrete and specific terms. This requires the development of clear metrics, a process which is inevitably subjective and value-laden. Metrics and indicators must therefore be chosen with great care, particularly as they become points of reference for important decisions and policies. Having legitimate, widely-accepted indicators is critical. The best way to do this is to develop a participatory process that engages those actors who will be affected by WSIS-related actions and decisions. …These could include:…

3. Experiment with governance innovations to achieve WSIS objectives.

Over the last few years, we have seen a variety of innovations in governance that have provided new and often improved ways to solve problems and make decisions. They include, for instance:

  • The use of open and big data to generate new insights in both the problem and the solution space. We live in the age of abundant data — why aren’t we using it to inform our decision making? Data on the current landscape and the potential implications of policies could make our predictions and correlations more accurate.
  • The adoption of design thinking, agile development and user-focused research in developing more targeted and effective interventions. A linear approach to policy making with a fixed set of objectives and milestones allows little room for dealing with unforeseen or changing circumstances, making it difficult to adapt and change course. Applying lessons from software engineering — including the importance of feedback loops, continuous learning, and agile approach to project design — would allow policies to become more flexible and solutions more robust.
  • The application of behavioral sciences — for example, the concept of ‘nudging’ individuals to act in their own best interest or adopt behaviors that benefit society. How choices (e.g. to use new technologies) are presented and designed can be more powerful in informing adoption than laws, rules or technical standards.
  • The use of prizes and challenges to tap into the wisdom of the crowd to solve complex problems and identify new ideas. Resource constraints can be addressed by creating avenues for people/volunteers to act as resource in creating solutions, rather than being only their passive benefactors….(More)

The Power of the Nudge to Change Our Energy Future

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Sebastian Berger in the Scientific American: “More than ever, psychology has become influential not only in explaining human behavior, but also as a resource for policy makers to achieve goals related to health, well-being, or sustainability. For example, President Obama signed an executive order directing the government to systematically use behavioral science insights to “better serve the American people.” Not alone in this endeavor, many governments – including the UK, Germany, Denmark, or Australia – are turning to the insights that most frequently stem from psychological researchers, but also include insights from behavioral economics, sociology, or anthropology.

Particularly relevant are the analysis and the setting of “default-options.” A default is the option that a decision maker receives if he or she does not specifically state otherwise. Are we automatically enrolled in a 401(k), are we organ donors by default, or is the flu-shot a standard that is routinely given to all citizens? Research has given us many examples of how and when defaults can promote public safety or wealth.

One of the most important questions facing the planet, however, is how to manage the transition into a carbon-free economy. In a recent paper, Felix Ebeling of the University of Cologne and I tested whether defaults could nudge consumers into choosing a green energy contract over one that relies on conventional energy. The results were striking: setting the default to green energy increased participation nearly tenfold. This is an important result because it tells us that subtle, non-coercive changes in the decision making environment are enough to show substantial differences in consumers’ preferences in the domain of clean energy. It changes green energy participation from “hardly anyone” to “almost everyone”. Merely within the domain of energy behavior, one can think of many applications where this finding can be applied:  For instance, default engines of new cars could be set to hybrid and customers would need to actively switch to standard options. Standard temperatures of washing machines could be low, etc….(More)”

Democracy Reinvented: Participatory Budgeting and Civic Innovation in America

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Book by Hollie Russon Gilman: “Democracy Reinvented is the first comprehensive academic treatment of participatory budgeting in the United States, situating it within a broader trend of civic technology and innovation. This global phenomenon, which has been called “revolutionary civics in action” by the New York Times, started in Brazil in 1989 but came to America only in 2009.  Participatory budgeting empowers citizens to identify community needs, work with elected officials to craft budget proposals, and vote on how to spend public funds.

Democracy Reinvented places participatory budgeting within the larger discussion of the health of U.S. democracy and focuses on the enabling political and institutional conditions.  Author and former White House policy adviser Hollie Russon Gilman presents theoretical insights, in-depth case studies, and interviews to offer a compelling alternative to the current citizen disaffection and mistrust of government. She offers policy recommendations on how to tap online tools and other technological and civic innovations to promote more inclusive governance.

While most literature tends to focus on institutional changes without solutions, this book suggests practical ways to empower citizens to become change agents. Democracy Reinvented also includes a discussion on the challenges and opportunities that come with using digital tools to re-engage citizens in governance….(More)”

DemTools: Cultivating Democracy

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

DemTools by NDI Tech: “Democratic activists and human rights organizers aren’t computer geeks.And they don’t have to be.

The internet is changing the relationships between citizens and governments around the world — but many political institutions are hobbled by a lack of access to empowering web technologies.

DemTools harnesses the power of free, open-source software to provide civic organizations, legislatures, and political parties with the capabilities to effectively engage 21st century citizens and build better democracies.

Download the DemTools Guide Book…

Meet DemTools:

 Civi: Powerful, flexible contact management and citizen engagement
DKAN: Organize, Store, Graph, Map and Share Your Data

To reduce economic inequality, do we need better democracy?

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Matt Leighninger at Public Agenda: “When people have a say in the decisions that affect their lives, they will be better off economically as well as politically.

This idea has intrigued community development experts, foundation executives, public officials and academic researchers for many years. It has also animated some of the work people and governments are undertaking to address inequality, both in the United States and (especially) in the Global South.

But can a participatory democracy lead to greater economic opportunity? We are just beginning to amass evidence that this idea is true, understand how and why it works, and figure out how to make it happen better and faster.

Over the last two decades we have witnessed a quiet revolution in how governments and other institutions engage the public. Public officials, technologists, engagement practitioners, community organizers and other leaders have developed hundreds of projects, processes, tools and apps that boost engagement.

While they differ in many ways, these strategies and resources have one common thread: they treat citizens like adults rather than the clients (or children) of the state. They give people chances to connect, learn, deliberate, make recommendations, vote on budget or policy decisions, take action to solve public problems or all of the above. The principles behind these practices embody and enable greater political equality.

This wave of experimentation has produced inspiring outcomes in cities all over the world, but it has been particularly productive in Brazil and other parts of the Global South, where engagement has been built into the way that many cities operate. In these places, it is increasingly clear that when people have a legitimate voice in the institutions that govern their communities, and when they have support through various kinds of social and political networks, their economic fortunes improve.

The best-documented cases come from cities in Brazil, where Participatory Budgeting and other forms of engagement have been built into a much more robust “civic infrastructure” than we have in most American cities. In other words, people in these places have a wider variety of ways to participate on a broader range of issues and decisions. Their chances for engagement include online opportunities as well as face-to-face meetings. Many are social events as much as political ones: people participate because they get to see their neighbors and feel like they are part of a community, in addition to being able to weigh in on a public decision.

In these cities, the gap between rich and poor has narrowed, much more so than in similar cities without vibrant local democracies. In addition, governments are more likely to complete planned projects; public finances are better managed and less prone to corruption; people exhibit increased trust in public institutions and are more likely to pay their taxes; public expenditures are more likely to benefit low-income people; public health outcomes, such as the rate of infant mortality, have improved; and poverty has been reduced.

The connection between democratic innovation and greater economic equity raises many questions ripe for research:….(More)”

Engaging Citizens: A Review of Eight Approaches to Civic Engagement

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

 at User Experience: “Twenty years ago, Robert Putnam wrote about the rise of “bowling alone,” a metaphor for people participating in activities as individuals instead of groups that can lead to community. This led to the decline in social capital in America. The problem of individual participation as opposed to community building has become an even bigger problem since the invention of smartphones, the Internet as the source of all information, social networking, and asynchronous entertainment. We never need to talk to anyone anymore and it often feels like an imposition when we ask for an answer we know we could find online.

Putnam posited that the decline in social capital is a cause for decline in civic engagement and participation in democracy. If we aren’t engaged socially with the people around us, we don’t have as much incentive to care about what is going on that might affect them. Local elections have low voter turnout in part because people aren’t aware of or engaged in local issues.

In an attempt to chip away at this problem, platforms that attempt to encourage people to engage in civic life with government and local communities have been popping up. But how well do they actually engage people? These platforms are often criticized for producing “slacktivists” who are applying the minimum amount of effort possible and not really effecting change. Several of these platforms were evaluated to see how they work and to determine how well they actually promote civic engagement.

Measuring Civic Engagement

Code for America is an organization that works to increase engagement with local governments by putting together “brigades” of local volunteers to solve local problems using technology. They have developed an Engagement Standard that attempts to measure how well a government enables citizens to engage in civic life.

Elements of Code for America’s Engagement Standard include:

  • Reach: Defining the constituency you are trying to reach, with an emphasis on identifying those whose voices aren’t already represented.
  • Channels: Making use of a diversity of spaces, both online and off, that meet people where they are.
  • Information: Providing relevant information that is easy to find and understand, and speak with an authentic voice.
  • Productive Actions: Identifying clear, concrete, and meaningful actions residents can take to reach desired outcomes.
  • Feedback Loops: Making sure the public understands the productive impact of their participation and that their actions have value.

These elements form a funnel, shown in Figure 1, which starts with reaching the right audience and ends with providing feedback to that audience on the effects of their actions. Platforms that have low engagement tend to get stuck at the top of the funnel and platforms that foster more engagement meet all the standards in the funnel.

Funnel of engagement showing reach, channels, information, productive actions, and feedback loops.

Eight Approaches to Civic Engagement

Each of the platforms described below attempts to engage citizens in civic actions. However, each platform has a different approach….(More)”

The Upside of Slacktivism

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

 in Pacific Standard: “When you think of meaningful political action, you probably think of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, or perhaps ACT-UP‘s 1990 protests in San Francisco. You probably don’t think of clicking “like” or “share” on Facetwitstagram—though a new study suggests that those likes and shares may be just as important as marching in the streets, singing songs, and carrying signs.

“The efficacy of online networks in disseminating timely information has been praised by many commentators; at the same time, users are often derided as ‘slacktivists’ because of the shallow commitment involved in clicking a forwarding button,” writes a team led by Pablo Barberá, a political scientist at New York University, in the journal PLoS One.

In other words, it’s easy to argue that sharing a post about climate change and whatnot has no value, since it involves no sacrifice—no standoffs with angry police, no going to jail over taxes you didn’t pay because you opposed the Mexican-American War, not even lost shoes.

On the other hand, maybe sacrifice isn’t the point. Maybe it’s getting attention, and, Barberá and colleagues suggest, slacktivism is actually pretty good at that part—a consequence of just how easy it is to spread the word with the click of a mouse.

The team reached that conclusion after analyzing tens of millions of tweets sent by nearly three million users during the May 2013 anti-government protests in Gezi Park, Istanbul. Among other things, the team identified which tweets were originals rather than retweets, who retweeted whom, and how many followers each user had. That meant Barberá and his team could identify not only how information flowed within the network of protesters, but also how many people that information reached.

Most original tweets came from a relatively small group of protestors using hashtags such as #gezipark, suggesting that information flowed from a core group of protestors toward a less-active periphery. Geographic data backed that up: Around 18 percent of core tweeters were physically present for the Gezi Park demonstrations, compared to a quarter of a percent of peripheral tweeters…..(More)”

Five Studies: How Behavioral Science Can Help in International Development

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

 in Pacific Standard: “In 2012, there were 896 million people around the world—12.7 percent of the global population—living on less than two dollars a day. The World Food Programestimates that 795 million people worldwide don’t have enough food to “lead a healthy life”; 25 percent of people living in Sub-Saharan Africa are undernourished. Over three million children die every year thanks to poor nutrition, and hunger is the leading cause of death worldwide. In 2012, just three preventable diseases (pneumonia, diarrhea, and malaria) killed 4,600 children every day.

Last month, the World Bank announced the launch of the Global Insights Initiative (GINI). The initiative, which follows in the footsteps of so-called “nudge units” in the United Kingdom and United States, is the Bank’s effort to incorporate insights from the field of behavioral science into the design of international development programs; too often, those programs failed to account for how people behave in the real world. Development policy, according to the Bank’s 2015 World Development Report, is overdue for a “redesign based on careful consideration of human factors.” Researchers have applauded the announcement, but it raises an interesting question: What can nudges really accomplish in the face of the developing world’s overwhelming poverty and health-care deficits?

In fact, researchers have found that instituting small program changes, informed by a better understanding of people’s motivations and limitations, can have big effects on everything from savings rates to vaccination rates to risky sexual behavior. Here are five studies that demonstrate the benefits of bringing empirical social science into the developing world….(More)”

New York City BigApps Winners Show How Civic Tech Is Maturing

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Alexander Howard at Huffington Post: “Winners of the latest version of New York City’s BigApps Challenge, announced Thursday, show how tough lessons from the first generation of city apps contests are now helping to creating civic value and community.

New York’s experience will help demonstrate to mayors around the world how to get the most social impact and economic value from government data: Start with the civic problem you want to target, then find the data, partners and community to make the changes….

The evolution brings civic apps contests a long way from the Washington, D.C., local government’s “Apps for Democracy” contest in 2008, which hinted at the promise of opening up data for public benefit, but failed to deliver meaningful long-term social change or services.

Below are this year’s BigApps winners for affordable housing, zero waste, connecting cities, and civic engagement, each of which will receive $25,000, and two judge’s choice winners, each of which will receive $10,000.

….Winning BigApps doesn’t mean that a given idea will work out in the long term. Some past winners of New York’s contest, including Embark,HealthyOut, Ontodia and Poncho, have endured. Many others have not — as is the case for many startups.

When asked about the longer-term sustainability issues that have plagued apps developed in these kinds of contests, Springer emphasized the endurance of apps like Hopscotch, which helps kids learn how to code, and HeatSeak, which is being installed in buildings across the city. ….(More)

Forging Trust Communities: How Technology Changes Politics

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Book by Irene S. Wu: “Bloggers in India used social media and wikis to broadcast news and bring humanitarian aid to tsunami victims in South Asia. Terrorist groups like ISIS pour out messages and recruit new members on websites. The Internet is the new public square, bringing to politics a platform on which to create community at both the grassroots and bureaucratic level. Drawing on historical and contemporary case studies from more than ten countries, Irene S. Wu’s Forging Trust Communities argues that the Internet, and the technologies that predate it, catalyze political change by creating new opportunities for cooperation. The Internet does not simply enable faster and easier communication, but makes it possible for people around the world to interact closely, reciprocate favors, and build trust. The information and ideas exchanged by members of these cooperative communities become key sources of political power akin to military might and economic strength.

Wu illustrates the rich world history of citizens and leaders exercising political power through communications technology. People in nineteenth-century China, for example, used the telegraph and newspapers to mobilize against the emperor. In 1970, Taiwanese cable television gave voice to a political opposition demanding democracy. Both Qatar (in the 1990s) and Great Britain (in the 1930s) relied on public broadcasters to enhance their influence abroad. Additional case studies from Brazil, Egypt, the United States, Russia, India, the Philippines, and Tunisia reveal how various technologies function to create new political energy, enabling activists to challenge institutions while allowing governments to increase their power at home and abroad.

Forging Trust Communities demonstrates that the way people receive and share information through network communities reveals as much about their political identity as their socioeconomic class, ethnicity, or religion. Scholars and students in political science, public administration, international studies, sociology, and the history of science and technology will find this to be an insightful and indispensable work….(More)”