ICT for Development e-Governance and the peace agenda

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ICT for Developmente-Governance and the peace
agenda

• ICT4D Lecture 15
• Tim Unwin

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• For millions of people across the world, war and
  violence are as much parts of daily life as are
  going to school, shopping in the supermarket, or
  surfing the Net for people in Western Europe or
  North America (Unwin, 2002)

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Outline

• War and Peace
• The Governance Agenda
• MDGs
• The UN and donor organisations
• UN e-Government
• A framework for ICT in governance
• Case Studies
• Picture me an enemy
• The use of video

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War and peace

• War and violence affect many aspects of poor
  peoples lives
• International conflicts
• Civil strife
• Domestic violence
• But what exactly is the relationship between
  poverty and violence?
• Many conflicts caused by interests of global
  capital
• US imperialism

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Governance and Government

• Governance
• The processes and systems by which a government
  or governor operates
• Government
• The institutions and people involved
• The dominant decision making arm of the state
• Also governance in the IT industry
• The processes that need to be in place for a
  successful project
• This coalescence of usages, may help explain why
  e-Governance is such a prominent concept

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The governance agenda

• Peace and good governance vital to improving the
  lives of poor people
• The Washington consensus (Williamson, 1990)
• macroeconomic discipline
• a market economy
• openness to the world.
• The twin pillars of modern capitalism
• Free market
• Liberal democracy
• And thus the importance of good governance
• Essential for enabling economic growth, and thus
  profit

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The governance agenda

• The logics of growth and governance
• If economic growth is essential to eliminate
  poverty
• Then it is crucial to have good governance to
  enable growth
• Governance is interestingly not one of the MDGs
• But donors keen on delivering macro-economic
  policy instruments see good governance as an
  essential enabler
• And it is in target 12 of Goal 8 (the catch-all)

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The governance agenda

• David Held has argued that there are many
  different kinds of democracy
• Yet worlds powerful nations are determined to
  impose one particular vision
• This is surely itself not democratic
• Democracy serves those in power
• This is not to deny that creating conditions that
  reduce conflict and violence is desirable
• But it is to argue that the motives for this need
  to be transparent
• And that we need to focus on interests of the poor

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UN e-Government Readiness report 2004

• Economic and social empowerment today rests on
  the ability to access, gather, analyze and
  utilize information and knowledge to widen
  individual choices for political, economic,
  social, cultural and behavioral decisions. ICTs
  are the conduits which transmit information and
  knowledge. By integrating technology into
  development planning, more effective and speedy
  solutions can be found for economic growth and
  sustainable human development
• (UN e-Government Readiness report, 2004
• http//www.unpan.org/egovernment4.asp)

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UN e-Government Readiness report 2004

• e-Government readiness
• Based on five stages
• Emerging presence
• Enhanced presence
• Interactive presence
• Transactional presence
• Networked presence
• E-Participation index
• Assesses the quality, relevance, usefulness and
  willingness of government websites for providing
  online information and participatory tools and
  services to the people

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UN e-Government Readiness report 2004

• Top 10 e-Government readiness
• US 0.9132
• Denmark 0.9047
• UK 0.8852
• Sweden 0.8741
• Republic of Korea 0.8575
• Australia 0.8377
• Canada 0.8369
• Singapore 0.8340
• Finland 0.8239
• Norway 0.8178

• Top 10 e-Participation
• UK 1.000
• US 0.9344
• Canada 0.9016
• Singapore 0.8361
• Netherlands 0.8033
• Mexico 0.7705
• New Zealand 0.7705
• Republic of Korea 0.7705
• Denmark 0.7377
• Australia 0.6721

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UN e-Government Readiness report 2004

• Examples of e-Government readiness
• 55th South Africa 0.4902
• 67th China 0.4356
• 86th India 0.3879
• 114th Uganda 0.3290
• 130th Zimbabwe 0.2833
• 136th Egypt 0.2653
• 140th Rwanda 0.2511
• World Average 0.4127

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ICT in governance

• UN Readiness Report ICT can help
• Improve transparency and efficiency of the
  public sector
• Create network links across service delivery
  agencies
• Cut bureaucratic red tape
• Realize vast savings
• ICTs in the public sector can engage citizens as
  participants in the overall development of the
  future

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ICT and Good Governance

• Good governance freedoms
• To access information about government
• To be represented
• To vote
• To meet collectively
• Technologies
• Internet enabling access to information
• Creating networks and communities
• Radio and TV disseminating electoral messages
• Mechanisms for being heard and commenting on
  services

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WSIS - WGIG 2003-5

• Working Group on Internet Governance
• One of the key agendas of WSIS Tunis 2005
• The terms governance and govern mean more
  than government activities
• the enabling dimension includes organized and
  cooperative activities between different
  stakeholders
• Internet governance encompasses a wider range of
  conditions and mechanisms than IP numbering and
  domain name administration.
• But at Tunis dominated by role of US in
• Public policy issues around
• Equitable distribution of resources
• Access for all
• Stable and secure functioning of the Internet
• Multilingualism

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WSIS Tunis 2005

• Considerable debate over the role of the US in
  controlling the Internet
• Internet Governance
• ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names
  and Numbers)
• To retain role as manager of domain names
• But creation of a new Internet Governance Forum
• To include government, business and civil society
  representation
• Focus on governance, SPAM, cyber crime and
  privacy

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Case Studies

• Jamaica e-Governance programme
• Information Kerala Mission
• Lesotho 2002 elections
• UPEACE

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Jamaica e-Governance programme

• Facilitation of access to information and
  knowledge, which forms the basis of decision
  making eg by way government websites, other
  online sources of information
• Automating tedious tasks such as filing tax
  forms, checking the status of applications etc.
• Providing avenues for citizens to communicate
  with government officials
• Providing a mechanism for advocacy on issues of
  public interest among disparate groups
• But issues surrounding practical delivery

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Information Kerala Mission

• Aims
• Innovative ICT-based knowledge societies at the
  grass roots level under the leadership of Local
  Self Governments
• Activities
• Samveditha web portal of 1215 local bodies in
  Kerala
• Sanchitha repository of legislations, executive
  orders and promulgations
• Swathantra information systems on 53
  municipalities
• http//www.infokerala.org/new/

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Lesotho 2002 elections

• History of contested elections
• Key issue was voter registration
• 2002 elections
• South African company Arivia provided
• Sites and software
• Voter registration, including capturing of
  biological data and fingerprints
• Photograph, signature and fingerprint of each
  voter
• Encouraged widespread acceptance of results
• But real wider issues over balance between
  government efficiency and citizens rights
• A global issue!

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UPEACE (University for Peace)

• UPEACE established in Costa Rica in 1980
• First country in modern world to abolish its army
• Revitalized by Kofi Annan in late 1990s
• Worldwide programme
• Africa Programme launched 2002
• Linking of African scholars into a knowledge
  network
• Providing access to best international peace
  education
• International, multicultural and
  multidisciplinary

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Picture me an enemy

• 1991 war in former Yugoslavia
• Documentary film told through stories
• Natasa, a Serbo-Croat from Croatia
• Tahija, a Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim)
• http//www.visavisproductions.com/

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Conclusions

• E-Governance as being highly contested
• The rights of individuals and the rights of
  states
• Considerable ethical debate
• Role of G8 and UN in promoting governance agendas
• And links with WSIS second phase
• ICT does have real potential to enhance
  transparency
• But will this necessarily be in the interests of
  poor people?