ICT4Accountability

Interview on my work in PC TECH magazine

wouterdijkstra — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 09:42:02 +0000

PC tech interview with Wouter Dijkstra

PC TECH magazine is one of the first tech magazines in Africa and the only one in Uganda. I spoke with the editor in chief about the Trac FM platform I have been setting up in the past year. It gives a good impression of Trac FM. I am currently working on an evaluation report of the past year. Learn more about Trac FM on www.trac.pro

You can contact me directly through wdijkstra@trac.pro

Aid, Accountability and ICT4D

wouterdijkstra — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 11:56:14 +0000

Corruption is one of the biggest evils in Africa. Fundamental issues concerning development of the continent lead back to the problems surrounding influential men trying to absorb as much resources as they can get their hands on while others die of malnutrition or easily prefentable disease. Uganda is one of the most fertile countries in the world, yet, people die of hunger. During the past 5 month stay in Uganda, I did research on the way citizens in Uganda are able to check up on their leaders and their ability to hold them accountable for the management of the country. Within this question I focussed on the way (new) media technologies could play a part in monitoring and creating awareness, transparency and consequent accountability.

The people engaged in corruption are the people handling the money. To prevent the ones engaged in handling money to use it for their own benefit, monitoring of these people is a must. ‘Quis custodiet ipos custodes?’ (Old Latin saying meaning: ‘Who will watch the watchers?’). The answer to this question is: everybody. Although ICTs will not provide food, clean drinking water, medicine or good roads, they can be used to scrutinize the ones who promise these basic needs. This blog revolves around this reasoning and identifies how ICTs can help citizens to hold governments, NGOs and other organizations existing to serve the people’s interest accountable for the way they handle money and resources.

ICT4Development (ICT4D) is a wide field of study concerned with the ways in which information and communication technologies can impact development in developing nations. Within the last decade the level of interest in ICT4D from various stakeholders has grown substantially and there seems to be a “consensus on the potential of ICTs to promote economic growth, combat poverty and facilitate the integration of developing countries into the global economy” (Annan, General Assembly meeting, 2002). One particular field within ICT4D deals with the ability of ICTs to promote democracy by promoting civic engagement. In recent debates in Holland and around the world, some development analysts argue for the complete stop of development aid, in this way, African governments would be forced to run their country efficiently and would reduce corruption. This is the main argument brought forward by Dambisa Moyo, who’s book Dead Aid is discussed in “Dead Aid”: A Review. The solution to the accountability problem Moyo suggests does not seem to solve the problem that it puts forward. She advises western donors to stop direct aid to African countries and suggests that African countries should start trading with China. However, By ‘looking east’ to China, where no requirements are attached to bilateral money transactions, African despots can do what they do best: use the state for their personal benefit. (How is China Changing the Way we Think about Aid to Africa?)

Instead of looking for a Macro-Economic solution, like Moyo does, the main purpose of my blog is to approach the problem from a (New) Media perspective and argue that channels for information and feedback in the dialogue between civilians and government are obstructed leading to deficient civic engagement and an unsuccessful public debate within African nations. Furthermore, I propose a new way of approaching the problem of government accountability with the use of ICTs. A new term for this specific field of research is ICT4Accountability.

In this TED talk, you will get an overview of the problem of corruption, aid and development. Andrew Mwenda is a leading thinker on African development and runs The Independent magazine which is the leading intellectual magazine in uganda.

Civic media, Community media, Citizen media, Citizen Journalism?

wouterdijkstra — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 16:19:30 +0000

How can citizens effectively organize, share, take action and do all the other things we want to do with the new power we have acquired through our electronic networks, when we cannot even get a consensus on essential words defining our practices? What is the difference between citizen journalism, social media, community media, participatory journalism, and civic media? These are just a few names of the wide variety of new terms indicating something ‘new’ is happening in the way the average man can contribute to public debate. The big problem however, is our collective problem of structuring this debate into something valuable.

The terms mentioned above are a clear example of the problem surrounding social media practices. Without a clear overview of the basic agreements in the field, we can never reach the potential of our joint effort to reclaim a strong voice in the public debate. In order to produce an alternative sound to corporate interests being protected by corporate media, a certain level of organization and efficiency is required within the realm of civic media. A consensus on terms used in this realm is a first step in this direction.

Adding another overview of all the different terms and fields within participatory media would probably just ad up to the pile of circulating overviews. Therefore I have decided to stick to terminology used by a well established institute in the field; the MIT school for Future Civic Media. They offer a way to structure my thinking on different forms of civic media and will hopefully be embraced by everyone else interested in the field. This seems to be the only then to start using the same words for the same things and finally start to build a solid base to strengthen various initiatives.

The Center for Future Civic Media (C4FCM) is probably the best known research institute involved specifically in civic media studies. It bridges two well established programs at the Massachusetts Institute for Technology (MIT). The ‘MIT Media lab’ is known for inventing alternate technical possibilities and the ‘MIT comparative Media Studies Program’ works on identifying the cultural and social implications of media change. The center main purpose is innovating civic media tools and practices and testing them in communities. Their use of the term ‘civic media’ refers to any form of communication that strengthens the social bonds within a community or creates a strong sense of civic engagement among the area’s residents. According to Professor Henry Jenkins of the C4FCM, ‘Civic media helps provide people with the skills they need to process, evaluate, and act upon knowledge in circulation and insures a diversity of inputs and mutual respect necessary for democratic deliberation’. Another leading figure in theorizing on civic media is the more Africa-oriented Ethan Zuckerman, who is founder of the Global Voices blog and member of the Berkman center for internet and society at Harvard Law School. The challenge for civic media, according to him, is the need for democracy to be more than a special event that takes place once a year but to reform it into an everyday activity.

From the central term of civic media we can create nodes that signify different strategies within civic media. For example, one strategy is to engage people in the production and reporting of news; within this strategy we can identify citizen journalist, bloggers and commentators, all of who contribute in audio, video or written reports to produce a massive body of information as a possible alternative or addition to the established and traditional information providers. Another form of civic media could be defined as organizational or mobilizing civic media where horizontal communication and networking facilitate civilians in taking on- and off-line action. Activists are increasingly using new media to organize protests or demonstrations. Social-networking sites can act as platforms to create alliances and discuss mutual goals and actions. Good examples of this include the demonstrations organized in Seattle through Indymedia and globally orchestrated action by online social movements like Avaaz. In 2009, mass demonstrations were organized in Iran with the help of Facebook and Twitter. Under the umbrella term of civic media, sub-categories like reporting civic media and mobilizing civic media act as but a few ways of engaging citizens in information gathering, distribution and consequent action.

In this post, I do not intend to present a genealogy of civic media on which people can comment with their objections and additions. I think it is important for people with an interest in the field to stick to some basics that will lead us to a more mature and effective way of thinking about civic media. Influential institutes like the C4FCM could help by filtering out some of the academic details which feeds the jungle of sub-categories within civic media and create some basic outlines through which the growing collective of bloggers, journalists, organizers and other new media practitioners can identify themselves.

Strengthen public debate with comprehensible statistics

wouterdijkstra — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 13:46:59 +0000

In Uganda, even at the peoples parliament of Ekimeeza, where intellectuals are supposed to be gathered, there is a substantial lack of numbers, statistics and measurable facts. People have not mastered advanced counting and have no logical perception of values and numbers. 2000 – 500 = a big problem for a lot of people. So how can they fully understand the bigger picture of the situation they are in? When they are presented with a series of numbers, for instance the amount of money coming in to the country through development aid or the amount of tax money spent on government housing, there are very few who can comprehend what is meant by 400 million dollars or 700.000 Euro.

Without these countable facts, arguments may easily turn into subjective accusations. The first Ekimeeza I visited was about the constituency development fund, a rather unfortunate name for a grand of 10 million shillings (€ 3600) a year. It was perceived by most of the participants as a fund that should build the roads or start up business in the districts. That this money was not even enough to pay for the fuel used by an MP’s car was only mentioned by a visiting MP, later in the Ekimeeza. A substantial amount of people were angry at MP’s for not bringing change with their 10 million shillings and accused them of using the money for personal gain. Although this is in certain cases definitely true, the discussion lost its context because of the inability of participants to place these numbers in the wider picture.

Even well educated speakers have problems backing up their arguments with quantative data. Numbers which they want to apply in their speech are often times incomprehensible and missing accuracy. One man, an economist, who in the last Ekimeeza discussion on employment came up with numerical data, repeatedly had the argument right but the numbers wrong. Instead of 320.000 government employed people he talked about the 3200 employed. Instead of 31 million people he kept talking about just thirty one people, just if the numbers were of minor importance. This was the only participant at the Ekimeeza who took the opportunity of pointing out statistics. Even though he often made some big miscalculations, it made the discussion more understandable and the debate much more interesting. In all parts of Ugandan society there is a great lack of solid data. This makes society vulnerable to insinuations, lies, corruption, insecurity and so on. Countability is therefore an essential part of accountability.

By using numbers, claims can be strengthened and depersonalized by comprehensible, transparent and true numbers. An important issue within this practice of (ac)countability is visualization of data. With rows of numbers people cannot be convinced. They lack the capacity to place the numbers in a context and will therefore not be interested. To make the numbers potent, they should be visualized in a comprehensible way. Required are graphs, examples and recognizable symbols. ‘41%’ might not be understandable to a great number of people, However if you visualize this by drawing a pie chart, the number becomes real. Research should look into culture specific ways to clarify neccasary information to citizens in order to arm them with knowlege that enables them to hold leaders accountable.

Using info graphics, complex statistics can be put into context and lots of confusion can be eliminated. In the graphic below we see a great overview which puts things in perspective. For more infographics go to www.informationisbeautiful.net . The use of infographics in Africa should also imply research into cultural differences in interpreting graphics.

Mobile Tech in Community Radio – Still Ad hoc and One-Off. A State-of-Mobile Report | MobileActive.org

wouterdijkstra — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 18:45:36 +0000

In 2008, Bruce Girard concluded in a MobileActive.org guest post that the addition of text messaging technology into the community radio toolkit was still in its infancy. SMS use at radio stations was informal, he wrote, and the few cases of more complex use of SMS messages accompanied political crisis or natural disaster and were largely donor financed.

Two years later, Mobile Active once again delved into the state of SMS and mobile technology at community radio stations, by way of an informal survey. While advances have been made and creative projects have emerged, integration remains an ad-hoc and individual enterprise.

This report summarizes existing projects and success stories, highlighting the most popular uses of mobile technology. It concludes with a discussion of the challenges that community radio stations face in adopting SMS and mobile technology.

Read the full article on: Mobile Tech in Community Radio – Still Ad hoc and One-Off. A State-of-Mobile Report | MobileActive.org.

Aid and Accountability: Why the two don’t mix

wouterdijkstra — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 13:05:20 +0000

In this post I will dig a little deeper in the implications of current development aid and how it is related to the lack of power African citizens have over their government. Most people know this discussion through the writings of Dambisa Moyo in her recent book ‘Dead Aid’. Although I do not agree with the solutions suggested by Moyo, I do acknowledge some of the problems she puts forward.

Foreign Aid and Democracy

Democracy as we know it evolves from mutual dependency of the elite and the general public. They depend on each other in order to create a stable economy which will benefit all.

In their symbiosis, the general public produces commodities which the elite collect and distribute. When either of the two does not perform their task well, one is able to hold the other accountable for not sticking to the deal. Elites can punish civilians who do not pay tax or disobey the law, civilians can demonstrate and vote for another government if tax money is not spent according to their needs.

This extremely simplified description of modern democracy will hopefully help to explain why problems can arise from foreign aid flooding in to a state. Foreign aid can complicate and eventually erode the dependency relations between government and civilians. This disruption of dependency relations eventually leads to governments who are over sensitive when it comes to foreign investors. Citizens will not generate as much wealth as foreign parties, so accountability of government processes shift toward these investors (Aid, Chinese investments, sale of natural resources to international corporations etc.). Citizens are less valuable to the elite and in the historically weak democracies of Africa, civil society will be hesitant to demand rights they have never known. In other words; Foreign aid can ‘short circuit’ the link between government and civil society and obfuscate the democratic process.

The case of Uganda

In a concrete example we can look at Uganda, where foreign aid takes care of 43% of the revenues collected by the Ugandan treasury. On top of this direct aid is the help from various NGOs, which take care of a lot of public responsibilities from the government and thus give the state the ability to invest in other sectors. Instead of providing healthcare, education and infrastructure, public money is invested in the military, public administration (also known as patronage) or presidential jets. Of the 2006/2007 national budget, six hundred and ninety billion Uganda shillings was spent on public administration (Ministers, Presidential advisors etc.), compared to only eighteen billion which was spent on agriculture. On the military, three hundred and eighty billion was spent, whereas only forty three billion went to trade and industry (source: Andrew Mwenda at TED).

It becomes clear that the government is spending public money to strengthen its position instead of taking care of the interests of the whole nation. Public administration and the military receive disproportionate amounts of money compared to agriculture and trade. Filling the gap left behind by the mismanagement of African governments with foreign aid is promoting corruption. More importantly, it obstructs the democratic process by alienating civilians from their role in society. Instead of justifying their actions to civilians, African governments turn to foreign donors who bring more money into the state treasury than taxpayers do. In a healthy democracy, civilians give the mandate to govern to their leaders. In Africa, this mutual dependency is often obstructed by foreign aid. The disenfranchisement of civilians from political participation leaves governments with fewer incentives to provide feedback to their citizens; lack of feedback creates a politically ignorant civil society.

Lowering Taxes in Uganda
The Ugandan tax base is currently at 14% of GDP compared to 58% of GDP in for instance Sweden. In order to boost its popularity and to attract votes for the elections of 2007, the ruling party of Uganda abolished the national ‘graduated tax’. This was a small tax which had to be paid by all men above the age of eighteen, who did not attend school. The decision was welcomed by the population and awarded the ruling party enough votes from the peasant population to win the elections. The regime is able to take such irresponsible measures as abolishing tax because the deficits in the treasury will be filled up by aid in the long run. This example illustrates the way in which the Ugandan government, with the help of foreign aid, is taking away incentives for its people to perform their political role in society.

In recent years, some development agencies like DFID have taken notice of this destructive side effect of development aid and have adjusted their policy accordingly. Some development agencies are now turning away from giving aid to support schools and healthcare as this is a responsibility of governments in receiving states. More emphasis lies on transformative development in which civil society is strengthened and mechanisms of accountability are restored. Important in this process is to sensitize citizens on their democratic obligation and promote a transparency of state spending amongst the people. My research on the way ICTs can be used in this process diggs deep into these questions and comes up with some suggestions to reach these goals.

A little less internet, a little more radio please.

wouterdijkstra — Fri, 07 May 2010 10:11:05 +0000

When discussing the use, effects and possibilities of ICTs in Africa, one needs to follow the ICT4Development (ICT4D) discourse. Professor Richard Heeks coined the term in the late 90s. In a recent paper named ‘the ICT4D 2.0 Manifesto’ Professor Heeks reevaluates ICT4D and discusses the lessons learnt from 10 years of ICT4D activity. According to Professor Heeks, ICT4D is moving into a next phase where new technologies, new approaches to innovation and implementation and new intellectual perspectives will change the way ICTs are used to improve the livelihoods of the world’s poor. As one of the founding academics developing the field of ICT4D, Heeks is a heavyweight academic and has a clear and influential view on the development of the academic discourse covering ICT4D.

Professor Heeks believes that within the new approach of ICT4D 2.0, some rebalancing will take place in the way the needs of the poor will be addressed through the use of ICTs. Instead of a rigorous hands-on approach in providing ICT hardware for the poor, more recognition will be given to the importance of collaboration with local partners and issues of governance in shaping the outcomes of ICT4D. Whereas the rural tele-centre was seen as the quick and ‘off-the-shelf’ solution in the ICT4D 1.0 era, ICT4D 2.0 will use the lessons learnt from this period and adhere to the watchwords of sustainability, scalability and evaluation to avoid the trap of replicating Western ICT models for a quick fix in the development of poor countries.

The obsession of technology-as-invention and the little focus on technology-in-use which was characteristic of the initial approach to ICT4D has lead to an ‘invention-down’ approach of ICT4D instead of the more effective ‘use-up’ solutions. In practice this implies that ICT4D 2.0 will put less emphasis on the use of internet and PCs in developing countries and more emphasis on the current use of mobile, radio and television. There will be more emphasis on evaluating the way popular technologies are used and how to scale them up for maximum impact. Clearly, mobile phones, which serve two thirds of the African population, will get a preference over the PC which only links up 0.5% of the Africans. As another characteristic of ICT4D 2.0, Professor Heeks predicts a reinterpretation and re-appreciation of the use of radio and television in the context of ICT4D. With some 80% of the population in Africa having access to a radio and 50% to television, convergence of this old media into forms which make use of new media seems inevitable.

This does not suggest that New Media in Africa should be given less priority, it does suggest that in order to reach the African population radio networks should not be overlooked in the process of introducing new technologies. Information and Communication Technologies evolve over time and use older technologies as stepping stones to introduce new media. In new media literature this is referred to as remediation. Following from the shift towards a more user based development of ICT in Africa, a new way of innovation of the technologies according to the specific needs of the people will be the norm in ICT4D 2.0. Instead of innovations made on behalf of poor people, Heeks sees that collaborative innovation, where communities work alongside developers, holds the key in ICT4D 2.0. Innovation by and within communities is starting to become a possibility as we see the first ‘techies’ graduating from African universities and new business models being developed by local African entrepreneurs.

The shift to a more bottom-up perspective in the field of ICT for development is related to research methods proposed by social scientist William Easterly who, in his book ‘The White Man’s Burden’, calls for searchers instead of planners. Planners are the top down strategists who study systems and will try to implement schemes of development onto a dysfunctional society. Searchers are the ones who apply a bottom up perspective, searching for demand and homegrown solutions. Radio and mobile telephony are clearly more engrained in African society and should therefor be at the center of attention when thinking about development through ICT in Africa.

You can download the ICT4D 2.0 manifesto here.

ICT4Accountability selected for international blogging competition TH!NK3

wouterdijkstra — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 16:43:48 +0000

www.ICT4Accountability.wordpress.com , one of the blogs started by a former master student of the UvA, is officially selected to compete in the internationally renowned blogging competition’ TH!NK3’. This blogging competition, set up by the European Journalism Centre, will bring together some 100 bloggers, journalists, issue experts and students from the 27 EU member states, as well as neighborhood countries and beyond, to exchange ideas and debate sustainable development and global cooperation topics. Winners of the competition will be awarded with opportunities to travel and report from Asia and Africa. The big prize is a trip to the UN headquarters in New York in September 2010, at the time of the Millennium Development Goals summit.

The blog was set up in April 2009 by Wouter Dijkstra during fieldwork research in Uganda which focused on the way new media technologies enable Ugandan citizens to hold their leaders accountable. As corruption is one of the mayor problems in Uganda, the research observes how Ugandan civilians use new media to monitor their central and local government and strengthen the public sphere. Building on renowned theorists like Douglass North, Paul Collier, Richard Heeks, Dambisa Moyo, Michel Foucault and Jurgen Habermas, the blog examines the use of ICTs in facilitating a specific form of activism in which citizens are actively involved in creating statistical data and using this data to engage in informed dialogue with government officials. The research in Uganda revolves around popular radio talk-shows and the way in which the mobile phone is opening up platforms for civil engagement in the public debate. Visits to rural radio stations in Uganda, interviews with government officials and Ugandan journalists, and discourse analysis of some hot topics circulating on Ugandan talk-radio support a theoretical exploration towards a practical tool for development: ICT4Accountability.

Twenty blog posts will be written from March until August in which the concept and background of ICT4Accountability will be presented. Please visit the site and, if you are interested, subscribe to the blog to receive notifications of new posts by email. www.ict4accountability.wordpress.com

Inverted Panoptic Surveillance

wouterdijkstra — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 12:49:54 +0000

‘Quis custodiet ipos custodes?’
(Old Latin saying meaning: ‘Who will watch the watchers?’).

The emblem accompanying the term ICT4Accountability symbolizes the panoptic- or all-seeing prison. In his book ‘Discipline and Punish’ (1977), one of the most influential theorizers of modern society, Michel Foucault, describes the panoptic prison as a metaphor for the power relations within modern society. The prison was originally invented by Jeremy Bentham in 1785. In the architecture of the ‘panopticon’ a central guard tower is erected in the middle of the prison, the windows in the tower allows the guard to look out, but no-one is able to look into the tower (think of blinded glass). Cells are built around the central tower within sight of the guard.

Without being able to view the guard in the centrally located tower, an all-seeing gaze is marked yet masked, at once visible and invisible. Foucault’s thesis follows that, since prisoners must therefore assume that they could be at any time under the watchful eye of the tower, they begin to self-discipline their behavior. Even if the guard is not present in the central tower, prisoners will ‘the gaze’ and will behave according to the rules. Michel Foucault applies this model or ‘diagram’ to society as a whole. The presence of (central) authority should be internalized by the people, creating self-discipline.

ICT4Accountability builds on the panoptic theory. However, it proposes to ‘invert’ the direction of the gaze, thus, enabling the many to watch the few. The panoptic prison, which Foucault methaphorically uses to describe control within modern society can be used to describe the impact of social media on the contemporary political powers. New comunication technologies are used to turn the gaze around and allow citizens to monitor the ´guardians´ of society. By creating the feeling of a constant monitoring gaze among leaders, ‘inverted panoptic surveillance’ can internalize discipline and correct behavior.

The theory of inverted panoptic surveillance is closely related to synoptic surveillance, with the difference being that inverted panoptic surveillance revolves around the monitoring of incidents in society and does not attempt to constantly monitor government processes. Permanent monitoring would probably interfere with the conventional governing processes and would, if possible at all, retard decission making processes. Inverted panoptic surveillance isolates incidents that occur in the political realm and emphasizes these incidents to make leaders aware that people are watching, creating the self disciplining gaze among leaders. Key to this approach is strong and effective public condemnation of responsible individuals and appropriate punishment of central authoritharians who are caught by the public gaze. In this way public monitoring can be used to battle corruption and mismanagement in an efficient and achievable way.

ICT4Accountability in Kenya

wouterdijkstra — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 13:29:22 +0000

SMS Lessons On Common Market
(Francis Ayieko)

Nairobi — Kenya is seeking the services of leading mobile phone companies in an ambitious campaign to market the East African Community Common Market. In an Obama-inspired campaign — where ICT played a major role in galvanising public support — the country plans to educate all the 17 million Kenyans who own mobile phones on how they stand to benefit from the Common Market, whose protocol was signed a month ago.

It will do this through short text messages. Radio will also be used widely — targeting mainly rural areas. The campaign is spearheaded by the Ministry of East African Community. It will also target specific groups that stand to benefit most from the Common Market. These groups include large firms with cross-border operations, institutions of higher learning, labour unions, federation of employers, bankers association and teachers unions. Under the Common Market, citizens of the EAC partner states will move freely across the region’s borders.

Companies that choose to set up operations in one or more member states will be treated equally with local ones; those who wish to work in another partner state will compete for jobs with local people on equal terms; and those who choose to permanently live in another member country will not be treated as a foreigners. However, Kenya’s EAC Ministry fears that many Kenyans — and East Africans by extension — are still not aware of the benefits of the Common Market. “The Common Market protocol has far-reaching implications for the region in terms of free movement, investment, doing business, immigration rules and labour laws. Therefore, the people need to be sensitised. “We need to explain to them the reasoning behind the various articles in the protocol,” said EAC Ministry Permanent Secretary David Nalo.

On the evening of November 20 when the protocol was signed, the BBC was interviewed people crossing major border points like Namanga and Malaba to establish if they knew what the Common Market would mean for them. “Many of them were ignorant about it,” Mr Nalo said, adding that the ministry has developed a multipronged communication strategy to tackle this challenge. “We’ll undertake a benchmarking exercise — something like an opinion poll — across the border posts (Malaba, Isbania, Busia, Namanga, Holili and Mt Elgon). This will help us design an appropriate communication programme for various people.” Mobile phones feature prominently in the communication strategy.”They are a powerful means of communication,” Mr Nalo said. The basic information to be relayed will include simple questions such as: What is a Common Market? what is free movement of capital? and so on.