Mobile phones for good governance

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Mobile phones for good governance scaling-up
issues

• Johan Hellström
• johan_at_upgraid.org

World Bank Workshop on Mobile Innovations for
Social and Economic Transformation From Pilots
to Scaled-up Implementation September 16, 2009
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what is good governance?

• relationships between three actors state, market
  and civil society
• three main concepts
• state capability the ability to get things done
• accountability institutionalised relationships
• responsiveness to act on identified needs and
  wants of the citizens (DFID, 2006)?
• role of information and communication

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why mobile phones?

• useful tool with huge potential
• access
• reach
• adoption
• interaction
• costs
• efficiency
• no other option?

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what is m-governance?

• mobile phones for good governance
• ? m-government
• interaction, reaction, action
• bottom up participation
• empowerment

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examples from East Africa

• government news / information updates
• law enforcement / safety
• employment services
• agriculture services
• health projects
• financial services
• crises management
• education services
• mobilisation, empowerment

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the Kampala riots

• 21 dead, 96 injured, 550 arrested
• radio stations closed down, TV shows censored,
  networks jammed, public transportation down
• asynchronous, biased information
• Twitter kampala
• www.ugandawitness.net (Ushahidi.com)?
• Government sending texts to reassure people?
• "Dear Ugandans, our city is safe. Do not be
  intimidated or alarmed by hooligans. Today is a
  normal working day. For God and my Country"

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huge potential, but...

• why are there so many pilots and yet so few that
  have been scaled-up?
• why do many projects start from scratch instead
  of building on existing solutions?
• why are there many subscribers but yet so few
  users of existing applications?

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identified challenges

• infrastructure
• limited network coverage, network quality,
  electricity issues
• funding and affordability
• pricing sensitivity, innovative business models
  and billing plans, total cost of ownership
• content
• creation, management and relevance

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identified challenges

• surrounding supporting systems
• trouble shooting, capacity building, user uptake,
  language and literacy issues
• existence of an enabling environment
• laws, policies, regulation
• other challenges
• segmentation, market strategies
• lack of documentation and collaboration

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policies and regulation in East Africa

• deregulated market
• fairly levelled playing field
• ICT policies and regulatory regimes are currently
  being harmonised in EA
• innovation ? regulation
• powerful operators
• customer care

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scaling-up definitions

• to efficiently increase the socioeconomic impact
  from small to a large scale of coverage (World
  Bank/Hancock, 2003)?
• a process and an outcome
• scaling-up (Jain and Brown, 2000)?
• expanding coverage and organisational size
• increasing activities
• broadening indirect impact
• enhancing organisational sustainability

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vertical/horizontal
regional/global ? national ? local ? more ?
family/kin/ ???????more communities
neighbours communities
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2 other approaches

• universalist universal generalisations that can
  be replicated, directly expanded, or adopted
  elsewhere with a simple set of rules
• examples?
• contextualist tailor made to address
  context-specific conditions
• examples?

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scaling up success factors

• design phase
• too many solutions looking for problems?
• do the homework
• end-user driven (needs)?
• fit into already existing patterns
• consider open standards/content
• involve right stakeholders from the start and use
  local capacity

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scaling up success factors

• implementation phase
• viable business model / predictable funding flows
• involve end-users in content creation where
  applicable
• educate the end-user
• proper marketing
• critical mass
• time

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scaling up - conclusion

• design itself should have scale in mind
• don't be afraid of failures
• pilots ??scaling-up?
• away from projects ??a service delivery approach
• documentation is key

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finally...

• m-government ? m-governance
• penetration ? usage
• usage ??impact
• scale ??success

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Thank you!

• Johan Hellström
• johan_at_upgraid.org

www.upgraid.com www.dsv.su.se