Open data is shaking up civic life in eastern Europe

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Anna Sienicka in the Financial Times: “I often imagine how different the world would look if citizens and social activists were able to fully understand and use data, and new technologies. Unfortunately, the entry point to this world is often inaccessible for most civil society groups…

The concept of open data has revolutionised thinking about citizens’ participation in civic life. Since the fall of communism, citizens across central and eastern Europe have been fighting for more transparent and responsive governments, and to improve collaboration between civil society and the public sector. When an institution makes its data public, it is a sign that it is committed to being transparent and accountable. A few cities have opened up data about budget spending, for example, but these remain the exception rather than the rule. Open data provides citizens with a tool to directly engage in civic life. For example, they can analyse public expenses to check how their taxes are used, track their MP’s votes or monitor the legislative process….

One of the successful projects in Ukraine is the Open School app, which provides reviews and ratings of secondary schools based on indicators such as the number of pupils who go on to university, school subject specialisations and accessibility. It allows students and parents to make informed decisions about their educational path… Another example comes from the Serbian city of Pancevo, where a maths teacher and a tax inspector have worked together to help people navigate the tax system. The idea is simple: the more people know about taxes, the less likely they are to unconsciously violate the law. Open Taxes is a free, web-based, interactive guide to key national and local taxes…(More)”

“Nudge units” – where they came from and what they can do

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Zeina Afif at the Worldbank: “You could say that the first one began in 2009, when the US government recruited Cass Sunstein to head The Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) to streamline regulations. In 2010, the UK established the first Behavioural Insights Unit (BIT) on a trial basis, under the Cabinet Office. Other countries followed suit, including the US, Australia, Canada, Netherlands, and Germany. Shortly after, countries such as India, Indonesia, Peru, Singapore, and many others started exploring the application of behavioral insights to their policies and programs. International institutions such as the World Bank, UN agencies, OECD, and EU have also established behavioral insights units to support their programs. And just this month, the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland launched its own Behavioral Economics Unit.

The Future
As eMBeD, the behavioral science unit at the World Bank, continues to support governments across the globe in the implementation of their units, here are some common questions we often get asked.

What are the models for a Behavioral Insights Unit in Government?
As of today, over a dozen countries have integrated behavioral insights with their operations. While there is not one model to prescribe, the setup varies from centralized or decentralized to networked….

In some countries, the units were first established at the ministerial level. One example is MineduLab in Peru, which was set up with eMBeD’s help. The unit works as an innovation lab, testing rigorous and leading research in education and behavioral science to address issues such as teacher absenteeism and motivation, parents’ engagement, and student performance….

What should be the structure of the team?
Most units start with two to four full-time staff. Profiles include policy advisors, social psychologists, experimental economists, and behavioral scientists. Experience in the public sector is essential to navigate the government and build support. It is also important to have staff familiar with designing and running experiments. Other important skills include psychology, social psychology, anthropology, design thinking, and marketing. While these skills are not always readily available in the public sector, it is important to note that all behavioral insights units partnered with academics and experts in the field.

The U.S. team, originally called the Social and Behavioral Sciences Team, is staffed mostly by seconded academic faculty, researchers, and other departmental staff. MineduLab in Peru partnered with leading experts, including the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), Fortalecimiento de la Gestión de la Educación (FORGE), Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA), and the World Bank….(More)”

Who serves the poor ? surveying civil servants in the developing world

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Worldbank working paper by Daniel Oliver Rogger: “Who are the civil servants that serve poor people in the developing world? This paper uses direct surveys of civil servants — the professional body of administrators who manage government policy — and their organizations from Ethiopia, Ghana, Indonesia, Nigeria, Pakistan and the Philippines, to highlight key aspects of their characteristics and experience of civil service life. Civil servants in the developing world face myriad challenges to serving the world’s poor, from limited facilities to significant political interference in their work. There are a number of commonalities across service environments, and the paper summarizes these in a series of ‘stylized facts’ of the civil service in the developing world. At the same time, the particular challenges faced by a public official vary substantially across and within countries and regions. For example, measured management practices differ widely across local governments of a single state in Nigeria. Surveys of civil servants allow us to document these differences, build better models of the public sector, and make more informed policy choices….(More)”.

Intragovernmental Collaborations: Pipedreams or the Future of the Public Sector?

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Sarah Worthing at the Stanford Social Innovation Review: “Despite the need for concerted, joint efforts among public sector leaders, those working with or in government know too well that such collaborations are rare. The motivation and ability to collaborate in government is usually lacking. So how did these leaders—some with competing agendas—manage to do it?

A new tool for collaboration

Policy labs are units embedded within the public sector—“owned” by one or several ministries—that anchor systematic public sector innovation efforts by facilitating creative approaches to policymaking. Since the inception of the first labs over a decade ago, many innovation experts and academics have touted labs as the leading-edge of public policy innovation. They can generate novel, citizen-centric, effective policies and service provisions, because they include a wide range of governmental and, in many cases, non-governmental actors in tackling complex public policy issues like social inequality, mass migration, and terrorism. MindLab in Denmark, for example, brought together government decision makers from across five ministries in December 2007 to co-create policy strategies on tackling climate change while also propelling new business growth. The collaboration resulted in a range of business strategies for climate change that were adopted during the 2009 UN COP15 Summit in Copenhagen. Under normal circumstances, these government leaders often push conflicting agendas, compete over resources, and are highly risk-adverse in undertaking intragovermental partnerships—all “poison pills” for the kind of collaboration successful public sector innovation needs. However, policy labs like MindLab, Policy Lab UK, and almost 100 similar cross-governmental units are finding ways to overcome these barriers and drive public sector innovation.

Five ways policy labs facilitate successful intragovermental collaboration

To examine how labs do this, we conducted a multiple-case analysis of policy labs in the European Union and United States.

1. Reducing potential future conflict through experiential on-boarding processes. Policy labs conduct extensive screening and induction activities to provide policymakers with both knowledge of and faith in the policy lab’s approach to policymaking. …

2. Utilization of spatial cues to flatten hierarchical and departmental differences. Policy labs strategically use non-traditional spatial elements such as moveable whiteboards, tactile and colorful prototyping materials, and sitting cubes, along with the absence of expected elements such as conference tables and chairs, to indicate that unconventional norms—non-hierarchical and relational norms—govern lab spaces….

3. Reframing policy issues to focus on affected citizens. Policy labs highlight individual citizens’ stories to help reconstruct policymakers’ perceptions toward a more common and human-centered understanding of a policy issue…

4. Politically neutral, process-focused facilitation. Lab practitioners employ design methods that can help bring together divided policymakers and break scripted behavior patterns. Many policy labs use variations of design thinking and foresight methods, with a focus on iterative prototyping and testing, stressing the need for skilled but politically neutral facilitation to work through points of conflict and reach consensus on solutions. …

5. Mitigating risk through policy lab branding….(More)”.

Systems Approaches to Public Sector Challenges

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

New Report by the OECD: “Complexity is a core feature of most policy issues today and in this context traditional analytical tools and problem-solving methods no longer work. This report, produced by the OECD Observatory of Public Sector Innovation, explores how systems approaches can be used in the public sector to solve complex or “wicked” problems . Consisting of three parts, the report discusses the need for systems thinking in the public sector; identifies tactics that can be employed by government agencies to work towards systems change; and provides an in-depth examination of how systems approaches have been applied in practice. Four cases of applied systems approaches are presented and analysed: preventing domestic violence (Iceland), protecting children (the Netherlands), regulating the sharing economy (Canada) and designing a policy framework to conduct experiments in government (Finland). The report highlights the need for a new approach to policy making that accounts for complexity and allows for new responses and more systemic change that deliver greater value, effectiveness and public satisfaction….(More)”.

Automation Beyond the Physical: AI in the Public Sector

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Ben Miller at Government Technology: “…The technology is, by nature, broadly applicable. If a thing involves data — “data” itself being a nebulous word — then it probably has room for AI. AI can help manage the data, analyze it and find patterns that humans might not have thought of. When it comes to big data, or data sets so big that they become difficult for humans to manually interact with, AI leverages the speedy nature of computing to find relationships that might otherwise be proverbial haystack needles.

One early area of government application is in customer service chatbots. As state and local governments started putting information on websites in the past couple of decades, they found that they could use those portals as a means of answering questions that constituents used to have to call an office to ask.

Ideally that results in a cyclical victory: Government offices didn’t have as many calls to answer, so they could devote more time and resources to other functions. And when somebody did call in, their call might be answered faster.

With chatbots, governments are betting they can answer even more of those questions. When he was the chief technology and innovation officer of North Carolina, Eric Ellis oversaw the setup of a system that did just that for IT help desk calls.

Turned out, more than 80 percent of the help desk’s calls were people who wanted to change their passwords. For something like that, where the process is largely the same each time, a bot can speed up the process with a little help from AI. Then, just like with the government Web portal, workers are freed up to respond to the more complicated calls faster….

Others are using AI to recognize and report objects in photographs and videos — guns, waterfowl, cracked concrete, pedestrians, semi-trucks, everything. Others are using AI to help translate between languages dynamically. Some want to use it to analyze the tone of emails. Some are using it to try to keep up with cybersecurity threats even as they morph and evolve. After all, if AI can learn to beat professional poker players, then why can’t it learn how digital black hats operate?

Castro sees another use for the technology, a more introspective one. The problem is this: The government workforce is a lot older than the private sector, and that can make it hard to create culture change. According to U.S. Census Bureau data, about 27 percent of public-sector workers are millennials, compared with 38 percent in the private sector.

“The traditional view [of government work] is you fill out a lot of forms, there are a lot of boring meetings. There’s a lot of bureaucracy in government,” Castro said. “AI has the opportunity to change a lot of that, things like filling out forms … going to routine meetings and stuff.”

As AI becomes more and more ubiquitous, people who work both inside and with government are coming up with an ever-expanding list of ways to use it. Here’s an inexhaustive list of specific use cases — some of which are already up and running and some of which are still just ideas….(More)”.

Bridging Governments’ Borders

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Robyn Scott & Lisa Witter at SSIR: “…Our research found that “disconnection” falls into five, negatively reinforcing categories in the public sector; a closer look at these categories may help policy makers see the challenge before them more clearly:

1. Disconnected Governments

There is a truism in politics and government that all policy is local and context-dependent. Whether this was ever an accurate statement is questionable; it is certainly no longer. While all policy must ultimately be customized for local conditions, it absurd to assume there is little or nothing to learn from other countries. Three trends, in fact, indicate that solutions will become increasingly fungible between countries…..

2. Disconnected Issues

What climate change policy can endure without a job-creation strategy? What sensible criminal justice reform does not consider education? Yet even within countries, departments and their employees often remain as foreign to each other as do nations….

3. Disconnected Public Servants

The isolation of governments, and of government departments, is caused by and reinforces the isolation of people working in government, who have few incentives—and plenty of disincentives—to share what they are working on…..

4. Disconnected Citizens

…There are areas of increasingly visible progress in bridging the disconnections of government, citizen engagement being one. We’re still in the early stages, but private sector fashions such as human-centered design and design thinking have become government buzzwords. And platforms enabling new types of citizen engagement—from participatory budgeting to apps that people use to report potholes—are increasingly popping up around the world…..

5. Disconnected Ideas

According to the World Bank’s own data, one third of its reports are never read, even once. Foundations and academia pour tens of millions of dollars into policy research with few targeted channels to reach policymakers; they also tend to produce and deliver information in formats that policymakers don’t find useful. People in government, like everyone else, are frequently on their mobile phones, and short of time….(More)”

 

Ireland Opens E-Health Open Data Portal

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Adi Gaskell at HuffPost: “… an open data portal has been launched by eHealth Ireland.  The portal aims to bring together some 300 different open data sources into one place, making it easier to find data from across the Irish Health Sector.

The portal includes data from a range of sources, including statistics on hospital day and inpatient cases, waiting list statistics and information around key new digital initiatives.

Open data

The resource features datasets from both the Department of Health and HealthLink, so the team believe that the data is of the highest quality, and also compliant with the Open Health Data Policy.  This ensures that the approach taken with the release of data is consistent and in accordance with national and international guidelines.

“I am delighted to welcome the launch of the eHealth Ireland Open Data Portal today. The aim of Open Data is twofold; on the one hand facilitating transparency of the Public Sector and on the other providing a valuable resource that can drive innovation. The availability of Open Data can empower citizens and support clinicians, care providers, and researchers make better decisions, spur new innovations and identify efficiencies while ensuring that personal data remains confidential,” Richard Corbridge, CIO at the Health Service Executive says.

Data from both HealthLink and the National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF) will be uploaded to the portal each month, with new datasets due to be added on a regular basis….

The project follows a number of clearly defined Open Health Data Principles that are designed to support the health service in the provision of better patient care and in the support of new innovations in the sector, all whilst ensuring that patient data is secured and governed appropriately…(More)”.

Mastercard’s Big Data For Good Initiative: Data Philanthropy On The Front Lines

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Interview by Randy Bean of Shamina Singh: Much has been written about big data initiatives and the efforts of market leaders to derive critical business insights faster. Less has been written about initiatives by some of these same firms to apply big data and analytics to a different set of issues, which are not solely focused on revenue growth or bottom line profitability. While the focus of most writing has been on the use of data for competitive advantage, a small set of companies has been undertaking, with much less fanfare, a range of initiatives designed to ensure that data can be applied not just for corporate good, but also for social good.

One such firm is Mastercard, which describes itself as a technology company in the payments industry, which connects buyers and sellers in 210 countries and territories across the globe. In 2013 Mastercard launched the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth, which operates as an independent subsidiary of Mastercard and is focused on the application of data to a range of issues for social benefit….

In testimony before the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs on May 4, 2017, Mastercard Vice Chairman Walt Macnee, who serves as the Chairman of the Center for Inclusive Growth, addressed issues of private sector engagement. Macnee noted, “The private sector and public sector can each serve as a force for good independently; however when the public and private sectors work together, they unlock the potential to achieve even more.” Macnee further commented, “We will continue to leverage our technology, data, and know-how in an effort to solve many of the world’s most pressing problems. It is the right thing to do, and it is also good for business.”…

Central to the mission of the Mastercard Center is the notion of “data philanthropy”. This term encompasses notions of data collaboration and data sharing and is at the heart of the initiatives that the Center is undertaking. The three cornerstones on the Center’s mandate are:

  • Sharing Data Insights– This is achieved through the concept of “data grants”, which entails granting access to proprietary insights in support of social initiatives in a way that fully protects consumer privacy.
  • Data Knowledge – The Mastercard Center undertakes collaborations with not-for-profit and governmental organizations on a range of initiatives. One such effort was in collaboration with the Obama White House’s Data-Driven Justice Initiative, by which data was used to help advance criminal justice reform. This initiative was then able, through the use of insights provided by Mastercard, to demonstrate the impact crime has on merchant locations and local job opportunities in Baltimore.
  • Leveraging Expertise – Similarly, the Mastercard Center has collaborated with private organizations such as DataKind, which undertakes data science initiatives for social good.Just this past month, the Mastercard Center released initial findings from its Data Exploration: Neighborhood Crime and Local Business initiative. This effort was focused on ways in which Mastercard’s proprietary insights could be combined with public data on commercial robberies to help understand the potential relationships between criminal activity and business closings. A preliminary analysis showed a spike in commercial robberies followed by an increase in bar and nightclub closings. These analyses help community and business leaders understand factors that can impact business success.Late last year, Ms. Singh issued A Call to Action on Data Philanthropy, in which she challenges her industry peers to look at ways in which they can make a difference — “I urge colleagues at other companies to review their data assets to see how they may be leveraged for the benefit of society.” She concludes, “the sheer abundance of data available today offers an unprecedented opportunity to transform the world for good.”….(More)

Building Digital Government Strategies

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Book by Rodrigo Sandoval-Almazan et al: “This book provides key strategic principles and best practices to guide the design and implementation of digital government strategies. It provides a series of recommendations and findings to think about IT applications in government as a platform for information, services and collaboration, and strategies to avoid identified pitfalls. Digital government research suggests that information technologies have the potential to generate immense public value and transform the relationships between governments, citizens, businesses and other stakeholders. However, developing innovative and high impact solutions for citizens hinges on the development of strategic institutional, organizational and technical capabilities.

Thus far,  particular characteristics and problems of the public sector organization promote the development of poorly integrated and difficult to maintain applications. For example, governments maintain separate applications for open data, transparency, and public services, leading to duplication of efforts and a waste of resources. The costs associated with maintaining such sets of poorly integrated systems may limit the use of resources to future projects and innovation.

This book provides best practices and recommendations based on extensive research in both Mexico and the United States on how governments can develop a digital government strategy for creating public value, how to finance digital innovation in the public sector, how to building successful collaboration networks and foster citizen engagement, and how to correctly implement open government projects and open data. It will be of interest to researchers, practitioners, students, and public sector IT professionals that work in the design and implementation of technology-based projects and programs….(More)”.