Transforming governance: What role for technologies?
Read the report here
Duncan Edwards has published a summary of some key themes from a February event run by Making All Voices Count, on learning about where tech is useful in projects that try to lead to more accountable governance.
It’s worth a read because it summarises some important recent bits of research about what makes projects more likely to suceed (which we'll post on The Compiler soon). We also like that they put the report on a microsite as well as a PDF. We've summarised the summaries and highlighted a couple of questions from the report here:
'Thick and thin engagement': - Thick engagement describes small on- or offline groups where people discuss a range of views on an issue, then decide how they want to solve problems - 'Thin engagement' being mainly online activities where people can express their opinions, make choices or affiliate themselves with a particular group or cause.
Question to look into: Do too many tech-for-governance projects focus on thin engagement (which is quicker and easier), without trying hard enough to combine it with thick engagement?
Vertically integrated action means strategically engaging at many different pressure points within different structures and levels of civil society and government. For example, it could involve projects that combine policy advocacy with citizen-based protests, all acting upon the same issue in different ways.
Looking at accountability ecosystems means understanding how different groups looking at an issue interact with each other. Those groups could include multiple actors from grassroots groups to government reformers and multiple levels of government (from district- to national-level). Then, the idea is that you select multiple tools and approaches (including advocacy, monitoring, legal empowerment and investigative journalism) depending on which groups are strongest in particular areas.
Question to look into: Both approaches seem to put a lot of importance on working in coalitions or alliances, but this requires a lot of time and resources. What's best for organisations who can't afford that time, or who can't form links with best-placed actors (whether because of limited civic space, political differences or otherwise)?
