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Draft-1/20/15

Opening Up Development-

Towards a More Open, Collaborative and Inclusive Paradigm

Bjorn-Soren Gigler1, World Bank Katherine H. Mann, Georgetown University

Abstract:

Enhancing transparency and accountability mechanisms that directly empower citizens to better

participate in decision-making processes of government and international donors is an imperative

to achieving better and more sustainable development results on the ground. Free and open

access to information and development data has the potential to empower citizens to better hold

governments and international donors accountable. Rapid innovations in information and

communication technologies provide unique opportunities to democratize development by

breaking down barriers to participation and by broadening the reach of development programs,

including traditionally excluded groups. The emerging Open Development paradigm has the

potential to be a real game changer for development by making government and donor

institutions more open, responsive and inclusive. However, the real impact is still to be seen.

There are critical challenges and obstacles to connecting the transparency, technology, and

responsiveness. The article investigates to what extent such a paradigm shift is under way. It

provides concrete case studies of open governance programs that enhance the transparency and

accountability of development agencies and foster the collaboration among all development

actors in order to achieve better development outcomes and enhance the well-being of the poor.

Can open governance approaches facilitated by innovations in technologies help to make

development programs more open, responsive and inclusive to citizens’ needs?

1 Senior Governance Specialist, Governance and Inclusive Institutions, World Bank. The views presented are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the view of the World Bank or its executive directors, or the countries that they represent. The author can be contacted at: bgigler@worldbank.org

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I. Introduction

Open government, transparency, social media, new technologies: these are the hype words of the

moment. Many experts are currently discussing the transformational potential of open government programs and new technologies to enhance accountability from governments and international donors. However, the discussion generally focuses on the potential rather than the

realized impact of openness facilitated by new technologies on improved governance and socio-economic development. An Open Development approach is emerging; however there exists an

important lack in terms of its theoretical underpinnings and the empirical evidence about the impact of such an approach on development outcomes. Thus, a series of important questions remain unanswered.

How do we define this new paradigm? What is truly open and collaborative? To what extent can

the openness agenda strengthen existing governance and the social accountability process and result in meaningful changes the relationship between citizens, governments and donors? How does this new approach help to deliver and enhance the quality of public services? Which entities

should drive this process: governments, donors or civil society? What is the specific role that innovations in technologies play in fostering such a new approach to development? Ultimately,

a key question emerges: Is Open Development a new paradigm or is it just old wine in new glasses?

The main objective of the paper is to contribute to this current discussion by (i) developing a theoretical framework for Open Development, (ii) investigating the role new technologies can

play in shortening the route to accountability, and (iii) presenting several case studies that apply the approach in praxis. To address these questions, the paper will have the following format: first, it will review the literature on transparency, technology, and accountability. Secondly, the

paper will develop an Open Development framework: the principles, the components, and the stages of the model. The framework applies the public sector literature about ‘co-produced

government to international development. Using the framework, the paper will also examine the concept of citizen-centered aid effectiveness; how can the emerging Open Development approach be applied to aid effectiveness? Additionally, the paper will examine the “how to”

factors of accountability reforms and the enabling factors and barriers of implementing an open development approach. Directly on technology, the paper will analyze its role as an embedded

facilitator for policy reforms towards a more open, collaborative and inclusive development approach. Adopting the Open Development framework, the paper will examine various case studies, such as Mapping for Results, Open Aid Partnership, and ICT-enabled citizen feedback

programs, to investigate the on the ground impact of the paradigm. Finally, the paper concludes with early lessons learnt and the challenges and obstacles these Open Development programs are

facing in praxis.

II. An Emerging New Paradigm?

This new paradigm starts with the hypothesis that enhanced openness and accountability to

improve the delivery and quality of public services. The poor disproportionally depend on public services compared to other income groups. The World Development Report 2004 Making

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Services Work for Poor People, emphasized citizen wellbeing and that poor people in particular are critically dependent on governments’ performance; they are particularly vulnerable to

governmental inefficiency and the abuse of public office (World Bank, 2004). The poor depend on governments for services; however, government’s lack of accountability to deliver effective

and quality services continues. Ultimately, improving service delivery and the quality of accountability is critical to addressing poverty (Joshi and Moore, 2004).

Open Development is based on a political commitment to openness, accountability and goes beyond the mere provision of open data sets to collective and collaborative governance (Pradhan

and Odugbemi, 2011). The initial step however is the opening of data and improved access to information, accountability, a vertical distribution of information, and the greater participation of citizens in the public processes. It creates a “networked” society and a space for horizontal

collaboration through this development (Smith, Elder and Emdon, 2011). Enabled through free, open, and easy access to development information and data, Open Development aims to

empower all stakeholders in the development process to participate in a meaningful ma nner in development programs.

Transparency is, however, only the initial step towards accountability, transplanting obscured and opaque processes to public scrutiny. Too often an automatic mechanism that transparency

produces accountability is being assumed. Experiences have demonstrated that enhanced transparency does not necessary lead to improved accountability (Kuriyan, et al, 2011). At the same time improved openness facilitated through ICTs can reduce the distance between

governments and citizens creating multiple flows of information and translating into a short path to accountability (Wittemyer, et. al, 2014). Openness however remains often contentious

depending on the type of licensing agreement; open data conflicts over intellectual property rights and free commercial access and reuse of the data (Stranburg et al. 2014).

In “The Impact of Transparency and Accountability Initiatives”, Gaventa and McGee (2013) review the relative success of transparency and accountability initiatives. The authors examine

the greater access to data enables the push for accountability coupled with the government push from government openness to development outcomes. Critics highlight that this agenda is a reaction to the pressure from the public, particularly in donor countries, that development

agencies demonstrate greater results, rather than being based on a broader effort to change the way development programs are being designed. The authors note that the evidence does not truly

demonstrate impact. Furthermore, globally, projects are unevenly distributed. Also, the key for both supply and demand side success is context, from democratization levels to capabilities. Examining the current evidence, assumptions underlie these statements and these assertions fail

to discuss the negative side to transparency and accountability initiatives. Finally, for future determinations of success, “there are synergies to be gained from developing more cross-cutting

strategies and networks across these initiatives; and from an impact assessment point of view, far more comparative and holistic analysis” (Gaventa and McGee, 2013, p. 27).

At the center of this new paradigm is how to address the struggle for accountability and how to respond to increased demand for more voice and participation in development for citizens, as

highlighted by the Arab Spring. Fox (2014) asserts the importance of bringing supply and demand sides together: “Social accountability strategies try to improve institutional performance

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by bolstering both citizen engagement and the public responsiveness of states and corporations” (Fox, 2014, p. 7). Thus, social accountability is citizen- led oversight. Again, the issue is

verification of this concept with tangible results rather than theory. For evaluation, a disconnect exists between top down and bottom up initiative. Bottom up monitoring lacks strength. At the

same time, growing research indicates local elite capture of top down initiatives. Fox also goes into the differences between tactical and strategic approaches to social accountability. The tactical approach to social accountability has a narrow focus: “localized, voice-only, tactical

interventions test extremely weak versions of [social accountability] (Fox, 2014, p.23). The locus is only demand side and constrained to the local level. In contrast, the strategic approach

leverages a broader and amplified scope, such as complementing the demand and supply side capacities (Fox, 2014). Fung and Wright (2003) examine the variations of participatory democracy; connecting citizens with governments to create empowered participatory

governance.

Rapid innovations of technologies, particularly the spread of the mobile phone, are relatively recent phenomena and add a new dimension to the governance agenda. By harnessing the new ICTs, easing access to information and opening the development process, can we democratize

development (Anstey, 2011)? Open Development leverages technology to broaden and shorten the route of accountability of international donors. Can the use of ICTs enhance the

responsiveness of donors and governments to citizens needs and close the feedback loop (Gigler 2012b)? In the end, how new is this concept? In the 1990s, the development literature argued that development programs improved greatly with local and contextual embedded participation and

civic engagement; local voices are key (Chambers, 1995, 1998; Holland and Blackburn and Hickey and Mohan, 2004). If these concepts existed in the 1990s, is Open Development a true

paradigm shift? To create meaningful change and sustainable impact, technology and participation should be used in tandem. Open Development has the potential to broaden and progress the development conversation (Gigler, 2012b).

Open Development faces multiple challenges. The process does not occur in a vacuum. What are

the major barriers to this process? Can this openness bridge the accountability gap among stakeholders (Gigler, 2012b)? Ultimately, who will benefit from this openness or will it further exclude marginalized groups? Can this openness lead to more effective and inclusive

development or translated into helping traditionally marginalized groups? Essentially, how do these concepts and themes link with actual development results? Where is the evidence of a

tangible impact? What is the role that new technologies can play in promoting such a new Open Development approach?

The following section, will lay out an open development framework that bring both the demand and supply side of enhanced governance and accountability together. It furthermore, investigates

to what extent innovations in new technologies can serve as a link between the social accountability programs that aim to enhance citizen voices and citizen participation in decision-making processes and accountability and governance reforms initiated by government and

international donors agencies. It needs to be stressed however that the use of ICTs cannot be seen in a void; local environment have to be taken into account. Open development approaches

need to be embedded into a much broader political economy context of government/donor reforms, social movements, citizen’s movements, and civic engagement.

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III. Towards a Open Development Framework

Open Development principles Leading to the framework: what is the Open Development model? The following guiding

principles structure the conversation and the model’s development: i) free, open, and easy access to development information and data as a global public good ii) it is citizen-centered where

citizens become active agents iii) based on a distributive and decentralized community networks (Smith, Elder, and Emdon, 2011); iv) enabled through technology v) and leverages multi-stakeholder coalitions for change, these include coalitions within the government, between

governments and donors, civil society and citizens, and with the private sector (Pradhan and Odugbemi, 2011) vi) has an iterative and adaptive approach that incorporates near real time

citizen feedback in project design and implementation (Bovaird, 2007).

Figure 1: Bridging the Gap Between the Supply and Demand Sides of Accountability

Source: Adapted from Gigler, 2013

Accompanying the guiding principles are the framework’s central components and actors. The major components and aspects of this model are a) transparency, b) participation, c) collaboration, and d) empowerment. It moves from a closed and opaque world to one with

transparency and one where: “sunlight is the best disinfectant. We need a lot of sunlight in this troubled world” (Walters, 2012).

Supply Side- Towards free, open and easy access to development data and information As shown in figure 1, the major actors of the emerging open development approach come from both the supply and the demand side of governance and accountability. As shown on the left side of figure 1, on the supply side, or push side, are the institutional processes of governments and

donor reforms. Open Data programs play a critical role in enhancing the transparency of both

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governments and international donors. The emphasis of these programs is to enable citizens and the public in general to have free, open and easy access to key development data and information

A key aspect of open data initiatives is that the use of data should not be restricted in any means and that users are empowered both to access and reuse the obtained data for both commercial and

non-commercial uses without any legal restrictions. An example of a far-reaching reform in terms of opening up development data is the World Bank’s Open Data Initiative (www.data.worldbbank.org). Since April 2010 the World Bank has for the first time opened

up key development data and made available to the public 7,000 development indicators. It

allows users access to a wide range of information, such as project data and indicators. The indicators are free and available in a user-friendly format to download, analyze and re-use without any restrictions (World Bank Group, 2012).

However, the supply side of these open governance programs should move beyond the simple

release of open data to provide users with easily comprehensible and manageable data. The design of these programs has to move away from an organizational perspective to user’s needs. At the moment, programs often are not user-centered; programs should be informed by real

information and data needs of civil society and citizens rather than development in isolation (Barder, 2011a). The aforementioned program, among others to be discussed in a later section,

indicates an important institutional and cultural change is necessary so that these initiatives have a larger impact on institutional reform. First, so that these programs can be scaled up and mainstreamed into donor operations. Also, in the long-term, these programs should not only be

reactive to accountability demands from the outside, however should be part of much more comprehensive accountability and governance reforms within governments and international

donors. These initiatives have the potential to become part of a much broader institutional change process towards a citizen-centered development approach.

Demand side- Strengthen Social Accountability mechanisms Simultaneously to enhancing the free and open access to development data and information, it is

critical to strengthen the demand side of accountability processes. There is a renewed demand for civil voice and participation in the development processes. With right to information laws and

civil-society led programs, citizens are making more requests to engage with the data, to participate in political decision-making processes and to act up the information provided. The big shift is that citizens are not only passive recipients and consumers of data and development

information; citizens also play a role in increasingly making their voices heard and also to take the lead in the generation of data. For example, a current initiative that focuses on the demand-

side of open data and emphasizes the critical role that citizen generated data play for opening up the development process, is the Big Development Data Shift initiatives by CIVICUS. The platform places citizens at the center of monitoring and accountability. The program aims to

leverage a multi-stakeholder platform to develop citizen generated and context centric data with a global framework for comparison and empowerment. The program builds on existing formats and standardizations, but the data comes from citizens rather than governments or donor agencies

(CIVICUS, DataShift, 2014). It is critical to see open data and governance programs in the broader context of existing social accountability mechanisms. Experiences form the Middle East

and around the world have shown that citizens and civic movements increasingly are demanding to have open and free access to key information, to make their voices heard and to fully participate in political decision-making processes of governments and international donors.

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For Open Development to be successful, it is critical to strengthen both the capacity of civil

society and citizen groups to access, process, and evaluate government and donor information and data as well as the capacity of donor agencies and government institutions to liberate data

and effectively respond to requests and feedback from citizens A key challenge within this process is how to strengthen the informational capabilities of citizens and particularly the poor communities to translate the improved access to information into concrete steps to enhance their

economic and social well-being. Civil society organizations play a central role in this process, since they can act as infomediaries facilitating improved access to information for citizens and

enhancing their human capabilities to process and act upon the information and data obtained. At the same time, donor agencies should assist governments to strengthen their technical capacity within key institutions to effectively respond to feedback received from citizens. At the same

time government and donors alike should establish clear internal business processes across different ministries or departments so that they are able to engage in a meaningful way in a

dialogue with citizens. Thus, the demand-side and the supply side of open development programs can in fact not be separated from each other, however to be strengthened simultaneously.

Linking the Demand-Side with the Supply-side through ICT Innovations As shown in figure 1, ICT innovations have the potential to connect the demand and supply side of social accountability and governance reforms with each other. New technologies can under

certain conditions be leveraged to become key enablers of institutional change as well as strengthen the capacity of citizens and civic groups to make their voices heard in policy debates. On the supply side technology innovations have the potential to be disruptive inside government

institutions or international donors and amplify existing reforms towards enhanced openness, transparency and responsiveness. In principle, the nature of recent technological innovations,

based on the open source movement, is highly democratic and collaborative. A key characteristic of such open source technologies is that there is no central node, rather platforms are based on a truly open, distributive, and decentralized system where by each element can facilitate certain

aspects of the projects. Technology can contribute towards a flat, open, and more democratic structure. For instance, the Open Street Map community has demonstrated the power of such a

distributive and collaborative networking in the development of interactive maps in response to natural disasters such as crisis mapping in Haiti, Pakistan, Chile and many other places. Another aspect of such a crowdsourcing approach is the collective action of thousands of volunteers that

analyze processes, evaluate data, and contribute to a common and open platform that can be reused by any user.

These technology innovations demonstrated that it is possible to open-up the development process whereby citizens become active producers of development data instead of passive

recipients of official development information and statistics. These experiences from the crisis mapping and Open Street Maps have furthermore demonstrated that they can lead to a generative

process of open collaboration between volunteer technical communities and development experts within international donor agencies. In this sense such an approach, based on citizen-generated data and crowdsourcing, implies an important cultural change towards a genuine partnership

among civil society, the private sector, grassroots groups, international donors and governments. Critical to applying crowdsourcing approaches to international development is the recognition

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that knowledge and experiences are many times vastly distributed among all stakeholders and not concentrated inside donor agencies alone.

New technologies and the principles of user-centered design and crowdsourcing, foster the

rethinking of development programs towards putting citizen needs at the center of the programs. If technology innovations are closely embedded into a much broader governance reform agenda they can present unprecedented opportunities to closing the accountability gap by connecting

citizens directly to decision makers of international donors and governments.

At the same time, there are significant differences and challenges for applying such an approach at the local level depending on the distinct sociopolitical context and enabling environment in each developing country. Often, technology only plays a minor role in determining whether open

governance initiatives succeed in a certain context; however, regulatory, political, social, and cultural aspects represent important barriers to determining whether development processes can

in fact become more open, democratic, and inclusive. To advance in this open development agenda, it is critical to engage into more systematic and long-term social accountability processes and to strengthen multi-stakeholder coalitions that support more systematic reforms. Civil

society organizations play a central role in such a process. They are critical ‘infomediaries’ between governments/ international donors and citizens and thus can facilitate improved

dialogues between policy-makers and citizens. They furthermore, they can play a critical role in strengthening the capacity of poor communities to access and use of development information and data. The private sector plays a central role in developing specific technology solutions, like

apps or open access platforms and data visualizations that empower a broad base of users to use and apply the information in their daily development challenges on the ground. The

accountability loop can only be closed if all actors collaborate and contribute their individual expertise within a more collaborative and prolonged process of governance reforms.

Moving Beyond Openness to Collaborative Governance After discussing the principles and components, a critical question remains: how to move beyond

improved openness and transparency to a more collaborative and inclusive model of governance? Furthermore, to what extent can the emerging Open Development approach leverage new

technologies to move towards a collaborative governance model and to empower citizens to play a proactive and critical role within the development process. The Open Development framework inverts the development model to placing citizens at the center of the process and aims to

establish a relationship of trust between citizens, governments, and donors which builds the basis for co-designing programs (Pradhan and Odugbemi, 2011).

Building on the concept of open data, which aims to enhance government accountability through publically publishing government data. With this data available, citizens have the potential to

engage directly with government decisions. Of course, contentious issues arise from publically available information and citizen capacity to handle this data. Also, differences in capacity levels

persist between a developed and developing country (“ICTD 2012”, 2012). Ultimately, however there is a new vision with all stakeholders involved in the process:

collective governance. Enabled by rapid developments in data technology, stakeholders have the potential and opportunity for informed decisions. Technology can under certain conditions

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enable all stakeholders to make their voices be heard. Thus Open Development is a type of collective or collaborative governance (Pradhan and Odugbemi, 2011). The following section

lays out the different stages of the Open Development Framework and applies the public sector reform literature on ‘co-production’ to the openness agenda

Stages of the Approach The process of implementing Open Development can be broken down into four stages which progressively close the gap between the supply (donors/government) and demand (citizens/civil society) sides, leveraging the technology available (figure 2). Adapting from the Loch Ness

model of government (Gigler, Bailur, and Anand, 2014), the first step in the process is ‘transparent development’. In this initial stage, donors proactively open up development data and

information on donor activities through open data and transparency initiatives. As only the beginning of the process, this is just a one way flow of information ra ther than a two-way interaction (Gigler, Bailur, and Anand, 2014).

The second stage is ‘participatory development.’ This moves beyond mere transparent data sets

“toward fostering the full and meaningful participation of citizens” with governments and donors (Gigler, Bailur, and Anand, 2014, p. 8). In this case, ICTs garner feedback from citizens so governments and donors can respond effectively. The third stage is ‘collaborative development.’

Citizens move beyond responding and participating in programs to becoming involved in developing and designing the programs throughout all phases of the program’s cycle. At this

stage, the two-way flow of information is firmly established. Donor and international agencies act more as facilitators for citizen participation; however, limitations continue as the main

Figure 2: Stages of the Open Development Framework

Source: Adapted from the Loch Ness Model by Gigler, Bailur, and Anand (2014)

decision-making endures with policymakers rather than citizens. Also, important information asymmetries between decision-makers and citizens often remain (Gigler, Bailur, and Anand, 2014).

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The final stage, as defined in the introduction is ‘co-produced development': Ostrom (1996, p.1073) defines co-production as “…the process through which inputs used to provide a good or

service are contributions by individuals who are not ‘in’ the same organization.” Developing from this definition, Joshi and Moore further refine the concept: “we use a more exact term –

institutionalized co-production – to refer to organisational arrangements, which implicate clients in effective service delivery, on a sustained, regular basis. Institutionalised co-production is the provision of public services (broadly defined, to include regulation) through regular, long-term

relationships between state agencies and organised groups of citizens, where both make substantial resource contributions” (Joshi and Moore, 2004, pp. 39-40).

Furthermore, “Coproduction does not simply involve managing relationships between one provider and a set of service users…Once clients and community activists become engaged in

the coplanning and codelivery of services alongside professional staff, the networks created may behave as complex adaptive systems, with very different dynamics from provider-centric

services” (Bovaird, 2007, p. 848). Through this interaction, government provides quality public services while building citizen and government capacity over time (Mitlin, 2008). Thus, co-production aims to develop a more effective system of quality and delivery where users have a

two-way dialogue with the providers and movement towards a collective model rather than a dependent provider—client model (Needham, 2008).

Yet, there are constraints on co-production. Most of the application of co-production focuses on project delivery rather than incorporating the larger issues of power redistribution between

governments and citizens. Co-production enables citizen engagement to improve the state’s accountability and governance of the country (Mitlin, 2008). When citizens are the drivers of

change, co-production becomes a political issue which can question the balances within democracy types and blur boundaries between the various entities involved in policy (Bovaird, 2007).

A key question however remains: Can this creation of a collaborative and jointly developed

development produce more effective, efficient, and better quality aid? To address this critical issue, the following section will discuss the ‘how to’ of reforms, analyze the sequencing of open governance programs and discuss the enabling environment for such a process to take place.

The “How To” of Reforms The framework lays out the main aspects of the Open Development approach, but how would a

process towards opening up development occur? The first and critical step is the political commitment of key policymakers to the core principles of openness, transparency and accountability. Alongside the opening up of development information and data a culture and

institutional change towards more collaborative governance needs to take place within governments and donor agencies. In particular, there needs to be a change of incentives and for

policymakers, government officials and development experts to support collaborative development approaches. It is important that such an approach combines both a high level political commitment from the top and the support of technica l experts to support the

implementation of concrete open development programs. Herby it is essential that policymakers gradually recognize that collaborative governance models can be effective mechanisms to

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address development challenging For example, in the case of access to information laws it is both critical to have the support of senior policymakers so the laws can be passed by parliaments,

however it is equally important that government institutions are also applying the law in practice in their daily interactions with citizens. It is furthermore important to demonstrated the improved

access to information can lead to key improvements in development outcomes, for instance in the improved delivery of education or health services.

The second step is the recognition that citizen generated and crowdsourced data can be a powerful tool in decision-making. Through triangulation of official and crowdsourced data,

policymakers and donors improve governments and donors to take well- informed decisions. Also crowdsourced data offers a reality check or independent evaluation from the field. For instance, crowdsourced data can function as an independent verification to check the satisfaction of

service and aid beneficiaries. In particular, this type of data generated by community-based monitoring programs can help identify the quality of services and projects. Going beyond simple

access to the data, it brings citizen satisfaction into the implementation and adaptation of programs. For such a process to work, governments and donors however have to be proactive in listening and engaging with citizens and to recognize the important value citizen generated data

has for taking decisions.

In a third step is it is critical to form multi-stakeholder coalitions in order to gain the necessary support for the reforms within and outside of government and donors. It is critical to highlight that governments and donors are not homogeneous entities and that it is it key to identify reform-

minded champions within key institutions, who can provide the necessary political support fot eh reforms. Coalitions within government, as well as coalitions with external actors (such as donors,

the private sector, and civil society) align incentives and overlap the individual actor’s interests with the common objectives of the coalition. The same can be said with donors: coalitio ns with various stakeholders further the collaborative development agenda. Within the coalitions, the

champions need to be strengthened. Finally, with the free flow of data, there can be better decision-making across internal departments and ministries. These internal and external

coalitions can be leveraged to assist and further internal reforms. At the same time, enabling factors provide the context for institutional change. On the supply

side, there are both internal and external drivers of change and movement towards this co-produced, Open Development model. Internally, institutional change will take time. It will be a

long and sustained cultural change towards this Open Development model. Another enabling factor on the government’s side is a crisis of legitimacy with protests from citizen movements to have a greater voice and influence. Governance reforms tend to be a reaction to those instances.

Many of these initiatives develop in response to increased civil society pressure and movements. Several countries, as the Arab Spring demonstrated, face a severe legitimacy crisis; countries

such as Tunisia and Morocco are embracing open and accountable government in order to embrace the demands from citizens and civic movements. The Open Development approach aims to bring the supply and demand side of social accountability mechanisms together to an

integrated approach and thus to bridge the accountability gap between citizens and governments/ donors (Pradhan and Odugbemi, 2011).

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Enhanced by multiple data flows is a decentralization of decision-making. For governments, this indicates that there is a greater flow between national governments and lower levels. A critical

aspect of an Open Development approach is a decentralized network where solutions can originate from any part of the network. A powerful historical example is the sea faring

navigation of latitude and longitude. For years the ability to measure latitude and longitude at sea eluded the experts on navigation and geography. Ultimately the breakthrough came from outside the expert community: a clockmaker (The OpenLearn Team, 2007). Questioning the experts in

the field, this decentralized network allows anyone to voice creative solutions to development problems.

Strengthening citizen capacity is the key to the demand side. Civil society organizations play a critical role in this collaborative governance framework as infomediaries and strengthening

awareness and participation. Civil society is strengthening from all sides; there is pull from both citizens within donor countries as well the citizens in the recipient countries. Donor citizens

demand more transparency, and accountability from development aid. With scarce resources for development aid, donor citizens pressure for effectiveness. From both sides, civil society organizations hold donors and agencies more accountable. Various mechanisms, including

citizen scorecards, participatory budgeting, and redress tools strengthen the demand side for good governance—for governments and donors. However, the initiatives run parallel rather than

in conjunction. Programs exist at the grassroots level and at the donor/government levels yet there is little coordination between them.

Technology as an Enabling Factor? How effective are ICTs in this paradigm? To what extent are these ICTs transformational,

democratizing, and enhance networking and collaboration? Technology plays an integral role cementing the various elements of Open Development. With technology, the knowledge on development is more open, available, and horizontal. It connects the various stakeholders and

enables effectual two-way connections and responsiveness. However, technology has its own constraints, including an unused website intended for feedback. Moreover, what are the

informational capabilities of different stakeholders. Thus, to what extent can technology be transformational?

In general, technology can trigger and accelerate the process of institutional reform and change. It strengthens citizen voices and the overall demand side of the equation. In particular it reduces

the time- lag in terms of access to information. Crowdsourcing enabled through technology enables policy-makers, citizen and the general public to access to information in almost real-time. A frequently quoted example is the story of Mohamed Bouazizi, a street vendor from

Tunisia who burned himself on December 17, 2010 in protest of government corruption; when the video was posted online the news spread around globe at an incredible speed (Fisher, 2011).

This was only possible with the advent of new technology. New technologies played a key role in Tunisia to democratize the access to information and to enable citizens and civil society to form strong networks and collaborate to promote governance reforms. Technology permits large

numbers of citizens to collaborate online and develop collective action; it brings vertical and horizontal collaboration. It reduces the geographic distance to collaboration and enables instant

feedback.

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Technology furthermore enhances the display of data from governments. Many governments simply present data intended for an expert audience rather than general consumption. With

mapping and data visualization, it has the potential to democratize data. For example, from geocoding projects to see exactly where donors are funding projects to citizen feedback

programs (Gigler and Innovations in Governance Team, 2013). In this digestible format, the data is much more accessible to a broader audience, particularly in places with low literacy rates and formal education. Technology lowers the costs, it has become ubiquitous and it can harness real

time data. Finally, a vast amount of data can be collected and sorted rapidly.

Moving to donors, technology plays a role in the traceability of aid down the chain of project delivery: from the donor funds to the direct project execution (aidinfo, 2010). In this way, technology helps to follow the money and citizens report directly on funding. Furthering the

traceability of aid, is the ability for donor country citizens to view the allocation of aid while beneficiary state citizens can see the execution and breakdown of that aid (Barder, 2011a).

For instance, the World Bank’s Open Development Technology Alliance (ODTA) aims to enhance connections between project teams at the World Bank with the rich ICT experiences of

citizens, civil society, academia, foundations and the private sector in order to enhance the delivery and quality of basic services to the poor (Gigler, 2011c). The program fully

acknowledges that innovations and development solutions can come from any source, whether that is inside donor institution or from citizens, grassroots innovators or the private sector who are often much closer to specific development challenges on the ground (Gigler, 2011c).

Transformations are taking place across the globe as social media and technology come to the fore; new technology mobilizes and gives a microphone to citizen voices. New voices of

formally marginalized communities can participate in the government’s actions: “Governments can share what they are doing, solicit views on the budget, and ask their help in monitoring its implementation. Citizens can now share their feedback on the quality of services they receive,

and get help resolving problems” (Gigler, 2011c). Technology enables the Open Development paradigm; however, the practical impact of technology remains elusive. Again, the experts

devote significant discussion to the potential of technology to be the connection among stakeholders but how has this scenario actually played out in case studies?

Similarly, the Open and Smart Paradigm (OSI) presents the concept of smart services which are client-centered and driven within OSI. From services (the quality, responsiveness, monitoring

and feedback) to infrastructure, there is a potential for the development of performance and smart growth. Through ICTs, this potential is feasible ; ICTs enable a new smarter infrastructure that can enhance services across sectors. Regardless of location, talent can be harnessed from any

point on the globe in this network and enhance productivity. Also, OSI can be implemented in any size country. With crowdsourcing, as in the Loch Ness model described here, the technology

collaboration in real time and on a significantly larger scale than before. Not only will it include citizens and governments, but also the private sector as social intermediaries on the demand side. Thus, these social intermediaries can develop demand side capabilities; it is not just the question

of open data but the capability of citizens to use this data (Hanna, 2012a.; Hanna, 2012b; Gigler, Bailur, and Anand, 2014).

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IV. Citizen-Centered Aid Effectiveness

The question arises, what would citizen-centered aid effectiveness look like? How can we apply the model to aid effectiveness? Can aid effectiveness and state governance be strengthened at the

same time? The various accountabilities should be taken into account. Both horizontal and vertical

accountability need to be strengthened together. Horizontal accountability is the checks and balances within and among government institutions. Parliaments act as a political counterbalance

to the executive branch. Similarly, supreme audit institutions, with independent review of public accounts, act as financial checks on the central government. With decentralization develops local government accountability. Vertical accountability, the accountability between governments and

citizens, can be held through direct elections. Non-state actors such as the private sector, the media, and civil society also play a role in holding the government accountable. The private

sector can request government accountability. An independent media can hold governments accountable as well as inform and mobilize citizens. At the same time, the local context and access to information laws must be taken into account; is there an enabling environment where

the information is available and how easily can a citizen claim the information that the law legally says the citizen can claim (DFID, 2008).

Beyond basic horizontal and vertical accountability are the various and complex inter-accountabilities among donors, agencies, governments, and citizens. Winters explains five sets of

accountabilities. The first accountability is the implementing agency to the users of the service. It is the accountability of the agency implementing the service, this can be a government agency or

an outside NGO, to the users of the service. However, Winters questions how the users can hold these agencies accountable when there are usually few alternatives and the users lack an exit strategy. Most user participation comes in the form of choosing the initial project and should be

expanded into monitoring and auditing. Secondly, implementing agencies have an accountability to national governments. Again, the implementing agency may be a government entity or an

outside agency. If the implementing agency is from the government, then incentives should be crafted to bring greater results. However, creating these incentives will be a difficult innately political exercise rather than a simple implementation. Thirdly, the national government is

accountable to its users/citizens. It is a basic form of accountability of a government to its citizen. It can be suggested that donors who are too involved in program design could undermine

this accountability as it may slow the government’s own response to citizen needs. Another accountability is the government to the donors. This is the government’s own accountability to implement the aid as it was intended by the donor. Governments do not always use aid for its

intended investment purpose, instead using it for consumption. This questions how much donors can punish these governments who misuse aid? Also, how far can donors push before

government accountability to its citizens becomes undermined? Finally, donors are accountable to both governments and citizens. In particular, this accountability follows the need for predictability in aid. Donors need to work with governments to ensure promised aid is delivered

and how best to use the aid. Thus, bringing donors in line with each other and governments to align aid (Winters, 2010).

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Figure 3: The Accountability Triangle

Donors are accountable to governments and their end users as well as governments being accountable to donors and their citizens. How has aid affect these overarching accountabilities? It could be argued that aid decreases institutional quality, draining talent away from civil services

and civil servants becoming less beholden to their constituents. Also, aid could decrease the government’s need for domestic revenue ra ising and be a source of rents (Winters, 2010; Knack,

2001). Aid can decrease accountability in developing countries. Furthermore, due to the broader interests at play, the goal of reducing poverty may not be met. Also, with great proliferation and increased transaction costs, the large administrative costs of aid will diminish the effectiveness of

aid. Mentioned earlier, aid can be unpredictable. Finally, it is not focused on results (Winters, 2010; Barder, 2009). Ultimately, the current state of aid and its distribution has the potential to

negatively affect the interrelated accountabilities at play among donors, governments, and citizens.

As Barder (2009) discusses the political economy of aid, he outlines the following four major issues. First and foremost, the information on aid is asymmetrical and the information feedback

mechanisms are broken. Thus, information is not equally known nor is it direct. Furthermore, while the overarching goal may be poverty reduction, each stakeholder has a different objective. The aid agencies exist to bridge the varied objectives and the different levels of known

information as well as work to receive returns to scale. However, agencies have their own principle-agent issues reconciling the priorities of the actors involved; the longer the delivery

chain the more difficult the reconciliation becomes. Moreover, different aid agencies, due to their varied objectives, are prone to collective action problems. Thus, obtaining positive spillover effects becomes more difficult as does the reciprocal diminishing of negative effects. These are

essentially market failures within aid and inefficiencies in the system due to information asymmetries. Thus, for aid to function well, information is central and citizen empowerment in

the decision-making process. The lack of aid transparency and accountability has led to three issues which are being

highlighted by Mulley (2010): (i) an efficiency problem, (ii) an effectiveness problem, and (iii)

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an empowerment problem. Solving these major problems will need action by both donors and countries. At the moment, each entity has its own initiative which acts alone and independently

of other initiatives and actors. What is needed is an “ecosystem” (Mulley, 2010, p. 6). Thus, there is a network of approaches by donors which can complement and enhance the

accountability between donors to the citizens in the developing countries. It is important to highlight that important tensions between aid transparency and the quality of

governance with government institutions exists; however, the concepts are intertwined, gradual process and as a first step international donors should enhance their own accountability to be

more credible with governments in their policy dialogue and support governments with methodologies, instruments, knowledge on the “how to” of accountability. International donors provide critical advice to governments and often are key players to support institutional reforms

and provide specific advice on the “how to” and tools of the sequencing and implementation of governance reforms. Donors can leverage their influence on governments to enhance their

accountability through different mechanisms. For instance example, the Open Aid Partnership a program sponsored by the World Bank provided technical advice and the technology platform enabling the Bolivian Government to make the project data about all donor-financed projects

fully transparent on an interactive map. While the program focused on developing an inter-active mapping platform that has visualized for the first time all donor-financed programs on a map, the

Bolivian Government also applied the platform to make transparent the project data about its own public investments. This example demonstrates that enhanced aid transparency can go hand in hand with improved public and fiscal transparency. The two types of transparency and

accountability mechanisms do not have to be mutually exclusive, however enhanced aid transparency can act as a first step toward improved fiscal transparency. In fact, there can be

important synergies between these two dimensions of accountability. Furthermore, donors help to create international standards for accountability which can put

pressure on governments to be more accountable. Often international transparency standards, can provide important incentives to government since they allow for cross-country comparisons. A

central example is the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness, a high level commitment among governments and donors which set the international standard for enhanced aid effectiveness, harmonization and alignment. It touted four central concepts, including the harmonization of aid

with government agendas, the alignment or coordination of donor aid, the predictability of aid from year to year, and the mutual accountability of donor institutions (DFID, 2008). It focuses

on ensuring that national governments are in the driver’s seat of aid and donors should align around the country strategies. The countries should have ownership over development policies and donors need to be committed to assisting countries pursue goals. Furthermore, commitments

made to make concrete action on these fronts as well as being results driven. Three years later, the Accra Agenda for Action reaffirmed that progress had been made since the Paris Declaration,

yet more work needs to be done. In particular, the Accra Agenda reaffirmed the role of the recipient countries and their leadership over their development and the capacity to run their own development. Similarly, it reaffirmed the need to account for results; that there needs to be more

transparency and accountability to respective audiences for these results. Also, that at least in the medium term, aid predictability needs to be increased. Finally, the Accra Agenda affirmed the

need to build new and enhanced partnerships which would increase the effectiveness of aid (OECD, 2005/2008).

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Finally, the 2011 Fourth High-Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Busan, furthers the concept

of country ownership. The Busan Partnership Agreement reaffirms that countries own the development process, and projects should correspond to the specific country needs. Out of the

Busan meeting also came the formation of the Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation (GPEDC) which had its first meeting in April 2014 (Busan Partnership Agreement, 2011; OECD/UNDP, 2014).

While the Paris Declaration and Accra Agenda pushed forward the donor conversation, it is essentially high level and disconnected from the citizens. As Mulley (2010) notes, there is no Paris Declaration of recipient countries. Overall, a frequent criticism is that the aid effectiveness

agenda is too donor and government centric and does include a citizen-centered perspective.

How can we apply the principles of Open Development to the aid effectiveness agenda? There are several areas where this approach can make an important contribution. A key element is the traceability of aid; essentially aid should be able to be tracked or traced from the initial

investment by the donor taxpayer to the executed delivery of a service. If aid is traced from the beginning of the process to the final delivery then this could significantly enhance aid

effectiveness and transparency (Barder, 2011b). Other areas where this approach can add significant value include collaboration, transparency, sharing, and empowerment (Walters, 2012). Overall, it is aligning the donor funds around the citizens’ needs. Citizens can trace the

funds and the citizens generate the data for enhanced policymaking. Thus, it takes the high level, intergovernmental, and removed declaration to the citizens.

In general, transparency should be centered on the needs of citizen rather than donors. Without key information on donor funds, it will be more difficult for civil society and parliamentarians

when holding the government accountable. At the same time, there should be acknowledgement that people in developing countries and in developed countries have different aims towards a id.

In developing countries, most people care about the successful execution of aid while donor country citizens frequently are concerned about its allocation. In developing countries most citizens want to know how the money is going to be used and where the donor-funded programs

are working. Barder takes the example of a proposed housing project: the citizens of developing countries want to know of the proposed aid for this project, “how much money actually gets

spent on construction, how many houses get built, and where are they?” (Barder, 2011a, p. 6). In developed countries, once money is allocated, the citizenry expect money will be executed properly efficiently while those in developing countries do not have the same confidence and do

not assume this ability. As said, citizens in developed countries want to know where their money is being assigned so they can hold donors accountable for poor use of their funding and see the

impact of aid. Both citizenries have the right to know how donors and governments use the funds. The execution of aid and data needs to be presented around citizen needs in communities rather than how donor agencies would like the data (Barder, 2011a; Barder, 2011b).

By moving beyond the organizations and towards citizen-centered transparency and data implies

a culture change: a change of only development specialists monitoring to a decentralized group of volunteers both generating and monitoring results. It moves away from donor generated

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information to citizen-generated information. Barder (2011a) describes social accountability as a “Development 3.0” where the focus is on bottom-up generated data rather than the top-down

agency generated data. By brining in crowdsourcing and creating decentralized networks, then these networks can monitor the results and increase coordination. Many of the costs and

impediments to aid effectiveness discussed earlier could be reduced with these networks—such as reduced principal-agent issues or coordination costs. Ultimately, the citizen/user becomes the center of the strategy rather the donor or the government (Barder, 2009; Barder 2011a; Barder

2011b).

Why are these visualizations and mapping development data important? Why is geography significant? Data visualizations can empower citizens to access, interpret, and use data from their

perspective rather than the donor perspective. It refocuses aid transparency to citizens and stakeholders. There is also an important relationship between geography and aid both at the

national and sub-national level (Gigler, 2010). It is leveraging innovations in technology to provide more data and results based on information on development programs at the local/community level. For example, national level education indicators may be useful to know

how a country is developing its education system but to a family trying to decide where is the best local school to send their child the information is not specific enough; rather they need the

local level information on their town’s schools. The same scenario exists with development projects: citizens need to know which projects are happening in their local area, merely the national level will not help them find the projects. Geocoding is a tool where citizens can

visualize where projects are happening and how they can benefit from it. Essentially, the intended beneficiaries of a project cannot benefit if they so not know where the projects are

being planned and implemented (Gigler, 2010). It also returns to the issue of where the priorities are for the citizens of developing countries: it is the execution of aid rather than the allocation of aid (Barder, 2011a).

V. Open Development in Practice

Open Development embeds into a larger political economy reform process to enhance the

effectiveness, legitimacy, and inclusiveness of governments and donors. It is not openness for the sake of openness but openness for future development. Can this new model help these

organizations to become more accountable and responsive to the needs of citizens? At the same time, can the donor community ask governments to make their own budgets and development assistance public and easily accessible without their own commitment? How can donor agencies

leverage their accountability to enhance government accountability through their projects and technical advice?

Open Development programs are dependent on the embedded social local context and should be placed into the broader social accountability framework. For both ICT-enabled and non-ICT

enabled programs, the critical factor for the success of these programs is the uptake of the initiatives at the community level and bringing together both the supply and demand side factors

of accountability mechanisms.

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VI. Case Studies

The following section will first provide a quick overview of some of the principle initiatives of

openness and transparency in the governance area of international develop ment. Secondly, it will analyze several non-ICT mechanisms to enhance social accountability, in order to frame the issues around the key challenges of improving the delivery and quality of services to the poor.

Thirdly, it investigates in more depth three programs leveraging ICT-enabled mechanisms: Mapping for Results, the Open Aid Partnership (OAP) initiatives in Malawi and Nepal, and ICT-

enabled citizen feedback mechanisms and engagement Open Data Initiatives

As discussed previously, the World Bank Open Data Initiative is one of the current openness programs. Furthermore, the multi-stakeholder International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI)

(http://www.aidtransparency.net/) is a principal international program of the donor community that enhances the transparency of international aid programs. The aim is to maximize the effectiveness of aid in its goal to reduce poverty. Launched in 2008, the initiative has 19

signatory countries and 22 partner endorsing countries. The initiative aims to increase the comprehension of aid data through the establishment of a “common global standard for the

publication of aid information” (Development Gateway, 2012, p. 3). With these guidelines, all published data will have a comparable format for future use. Any donor can use the IATI standard, with its available definitions and formatting, regardless if the donor is a member of

IATI.

In terms of budget transparency, the Open Budget Initiative supports greater openness, public accessibility, transparency, and accountability in government budgets and systems (Development Gateway, 2012). Developed by the International Budget Partnership (IBP), the organization

conducted the first Open Budget Survey in 2006. From the survey, the IBP creates a measure, the Open Budget Index (OBI) to score countries on the public information available during the

budget process. With an open budget, citizens are empowered to examine the effectiveness of government spending (IBP, n.d). Similarly, BOOST is a World Bank initiative launched in 2010 to accelerate citizen access to budget data; it currently works in about 40 countries. Leveraging a

user-friendly platform, BOOST permits easy access to data on expenditures. Thus, civil society, citizens and the public at large are empowered to download, comprehend, and act on government

data (Open Budget Portal, World Bank) (http://wbi.worldbank.org/boost/boost- initiative). The Open Government Partnership (OGP) launched in 2011 with 53 participating governments.

A multilateral initiative it aims to garner solid commitments from governments on transparency, using new technologies for greater governance. It also aims to empower citizens and combat

corruption. The process includes: “member governments embrace a high- level Open Government Declaration; delivery a country action plan developed with public consultation; and commit to independent reporting of their progress” (Development Gateway, 2012, p.1). The

country’s open data should cover all government programs, such as development aid. OGP also includes an accountability element with social audits and civil participation, such as “citizens’

budgets” (Development Gateway, 2012, p. 2).

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The Global Initiative for Fiscal Transparency (GIFT), from 2011, “is an action network to advance and institutionalize global norms and to promote significant, continuous improvements

in fiscal transparency, engagement, and accountability around the world” (Development Gateway, 2012, p. 3). It advances the openness of government budgets and fiscal transparency.

GIFT aims to have a sustained plan beginning with potential early gains then a long-term scaled up plan. Organized across four Working Groups, which generally represent the various stakeholder interests, include capacity building and exploiting new technologies (Development

Gateway, 2012).

Figure 4: Open Data Initiatives

Source: Development Gateway, 2012.

Various individual countries launched their own data transparency initiatives such as the Kenya

Open Data Initiative and the Timor-Leste Transparency Portal. Uganda is soliciting crowdsourced data through UReport (Development Gateway, 2012).

Non-ICT Mechanisms Moving specifically to the non-ICT and ICT-enabled studies, technology is an enabler and

facilitator of programs; however, the underpinnings of social accountability mechanisms have to be in place for the ICT to work optimally. The process of developing these mechanisms is important to the overall success of enhancing accountability. As Gaventa and McGee (2013)

described earlier, many open data and Open Development initiatives do not necessarily demonstrate a clear impact on citizens’ lives. The following non-ICT examples have been quite

effective in addressing accountability challenges and have successfully improved the delivery of public services to poor communities.

One project that demonstrated a significant impact on people’s lives is the Public Expenditure Tracking Survey (PETS). The open budget PETS, from Uganda in 1996, identified education aid

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leakages (Kuriyan, et. al., 2011). PETS surveys followed and tracked the money allocated for services from their initial allocation to the actual distribution of funds at the local level. Used in

many countries, the PETS surveys aim to identify leakages at the various levels of distribution. In Uganda, the PETS survey tracked education funding and made local public expenditures

public. Once public, schools saw a significant decrease in funding leakages. The program helped to bring transparency to the process and accountability as well as citizen empowerment (Joshi, 2013).

In another example, Björkman and Svensson (2010) examine community-based monitoring in

health in Uganda; to examine why certain communities were able to garner better service delivery over others—in particular, the authors examined the role of the community’s social heterogeneity in improving health service delivery. In 2004, a pilot program of citizen report

cards, with various locations across Uganda, with the objective to “…strengthen providers’ accountability to citizen-clients by initiating a process, using trained local actors (CBOs) as

facilitators, that the communities themselves could manage and sustain” (Björkman and Svensson, 2010, p. 572). To this end, there were a series of meetings—a community meeting, a staff meeting, and interface meeting—to discuss information for the report cards as well as

developing a joint plan for pinpointing central problems, improving the service, and outlining responsibilities. In general, the community monitoring created great results with improved

service delivery. However, the authors note variation among the communities. Especially if there are weaker incentives for the providers, the outcomes are weaker. Also, the more fractionalized a community, the less able it is to create collective action for improving the service. Finally, the

authors conclude that the local sociopolitical context is a necessary component of project design but this area of research is still new (Björkman and Svensson, 2010).

Using the framing examples of feedback and monitoring without ICT-enabled platforms, the following section will discuss in depth the case studies of Mapping for Results, the Open Aid

Partnership (OAP) initiatives in Malawi and Nepal, and ICT-enabled citizen feedback mechanisms and engagement.

Mapping for Results How can a citizen become involved in a project if people are not aware of the project? With the

great advances in GPS and mapping technology, understanding the geospatial location of a project has made leaps and bounds (Gigler, Tanner, Kiess, forthcoming). Mapping for Results

follows the great increase in technology available, in particular the ubiquitous cell phone. Furthermore, advances in geospatial technology show no sign of slowing. With the advent of Google Maps, GPS on cell phones, and advanced geo-coding technology, comprehending the

world spatially continues to advance. Similarly, the proliferation in technology allows for near real-time updates to mapping, enhancing communication about changes on the ground. The 2010

Haiti earthquake exemplifies this real- time interaction: technology and crowdsourced data enhanced relief coordination. Citizens used various types of technology, from SMS to phone and Twitter, to relay victim locations; with this crowdsourced data and “using geo-spatial mapping

technology to pinpoint the locations of victims from their text messages, some 600 volunteers generated an interactive ‘crisis map’ of Port au Prince in less than two weeks” (Gigler, Tanner,

Kiess, forthcoming, p. 5). Mapping technology allows for a fast, coordinated response among volunteers, NGOs, and citizens with a rapid turn over time.

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Mapping for Results, also builds on the interconnection of geography and aid. In a similar vein to

Krugman’s theories on the relationship of geography and trade, an important connection exists between aid flows and the physical location of a development project (Gigler, 2010). Likewise,

the initiative comes in a similar vein to the Interactive Community Mapping which engaged the local community to spatially understand and create a detailed map their space (Shkabatur, 2014b). Also, the Map Kibera project which also united mapping and technology to bring a

marginalized slum of one million inhabitants into existence on an official map (Gigler, Tanner, Kiess, forthcoming).

Mapping for Results launched in October 2010 by the World Bank Institute in partnership with AidData; it geographically locates World Bank-financed projects on an interactive map. From its

initial foundation, Mapping for Results has mapped over 36,000 locations of active World Bank-financed projects in over 140 countries. The project has three central strategic goals: 1) report the

results of World Bank-financed projects in a spatial and geographic visualization 2) refine transparency and accountability leading to improved aid 3) strengthen stakeholders at multiple levels. Mapping for Results aims to further transparency, and assist citizen participation; thus,

maximize development aid (Gigler, 2011a; Gigler et. al, forthcoming). With the projects mapped out on the country at the subnational level, users can also use indicators, such as poverty or

health, and overlay them to illustrate projects matching with country needs at the subnational level. Finally as a map, this is user friendly and can be understood with ease (Gigler, Tanner, and Kiess, forthcoming).

Thus, “by visualizing the precise geographic locations of the Bank’s projects at the sub-national

level on an interactive map, people would be able to see exactly where funds were being spent. Users of the map would be able to click on the geo-coded locations to learn about the purpose, cost, and results of each development project” (Gigler, Tanner, and Kiess, forthcoming, p. 9). A

central tenet of Mapping for Results is assessing the effectiveness of the World Bank’s projects and development aid; to this end, the platform includes a section of on results where users learn

project details. Ultimately, this project allows users an amplified and in depth look into World Bank financing in a tool which is easily understandable and empowering (Gigler, Tanner, and Kiess, forthcoming).

The initiative is not without its challenges. In the effort to have precise and accurate maps and

pinpoint project locations, there were issues with data verification and logistics. Hurdles included institutional constraints and ensuring accurate data. With time, a greater emphasis on the geographic locations of the projects will make the process of pinpointing locations easier.

Coordinating also proved a difficult task. Logistically, projects located in remote and isolated areas of countries were difficult to reach to verify their information and ensure accuracy. Over

time, these hurdles will diminish as Mapping for Results integrates further into the World Bank’s reporting framework and becomes a part of the process (Gigler, Dodds and Tanner, forthcoming).

Finally, and a question which has been discussed throughout this paper, is the extent to which the

information can be interpreted meaningfully in the present and in the long term. Updating, using, and reaching conclusions from the maps from its information requires skills and up-to-date

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information. This is an obstacle for many initiatives, but the project energizes the conversation on the relationship between geography and development. Mapping for Results is a continued

effort to further pinpoint and visualize projects to permit full utilization, understanding, and enhancement development effectiveness (Gigler, Dodds and Tanner, forthcoming).

Open Aid Partnership (OAP) The Open Aid Partnership (OAP), launched by the World Bank Institute in 2011, also aims to

enhance aid effectiveness. At this moment the initiative has seven donors partaking in the program; OAP brings these donors in partnership with developing countries to improve

development aid. The OAP works in conjunction with the IATI and OGP to manage data sets and increase accessibility. The OAP’s initial emphasis is the Open Aid Map. The Open Aid Map geocodes aid projects, leading to an easy to comprehend visualization. In conjunction with the

visualization techniques, the OAP will work to improve civil society capacity through its function as an infomediary. A secondary stage will include accountability and response

proposals; at this stage, civil society will have the capacity to act on the development data. Simultaneously, the OAP intends to foster the supply side capacity for government to respond to citizen feedback (Development Gateway, 2012).

OAP expands the Mapping for Results progam to multiple donors. IATI coordinated with the

OAP to create an international standard for reporting. The OAP information is publically available; it aims to help receiver countries view donor- implemented programs as well as donors view concentrations in programs within a developing nation. With various donors implementing

projects, in various sectors and across countries, the OAP aims to enhance coordination of programs. Mapping projects can limit the risk of duplicate projects, and minimize administrative

drain from governments as well as permit citizen feedback and empowerment. Ultimately, this could improve the transparency, decision-making, and effectiveness of development aid.

For example, the OAP operates in the country of Malawi. The country has received aid for 50 years but lags in development. In 2008, the Ministry of Finance adopted the Aid Management

Platform, a software tool to track incoming aid flows. However, the program did not completely capture all the information for the ministry to make fully informed decisions on projects. The finance ministry centrally uses the current data for budgeting and is not fully open to donors.

With joining the commitment to aid transparency, Malwai became part of the aid mapping initiative. In 2011, OAP mapped all projects from almost all donors active in Malawi. However,

this project is an isolated pilot and at this point is not incorporated into the country’s aid management. By mapping the location of projects the program hoped to reduce redundancy and duplication of products (Dodds and Xu, forthcoming).

However constraints exist, in particular with reporting. Reporting is late as it takes time to

precisely locate a project; thus, the Aid Management Platform has a time lag before it reporting and publishing the data. In terms of mapping projects, the map may not fully capture the overall aim of a project; for example, a project may not be location specific (Dodds and Xu,

forthcoming).

For the project to have greater success and a sustained impact on the country, Malawi needs to feel greater ownership over the project. From the donor side, there should be more coordination

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over projects, better citizen engagement, and a move to focus the results more on the local context and results from the local level (Dodds and Xu, forthcoming).

ICT-Enabled Citizen Feedback/Engagement

With the new technologies, soliciting citizen feedback and enhancing mechanisms for citizens to submit their grievances and satisfaction on projects and services is easier and can be done in near real time (Gigler, et. al, 2014a).

First, the Check My School Initiative in the Philippines is an ICT-enabled community-

monitoring tool for education. The citizen feedback platform leverages SMS, mobile phones, and mapping to create better accountability among citizens, providers, and the government. For example, citizens leveraged the crowdsourcing capabilities of the service to check on the quality

of toilets in schools. From this feedback, the government responded with inspections and improvements. There were clear incentives for the government to act and respond to citizens.

Check My School’s data covered over 44,000 schools in the country; however, the data from the Department of Education did not include GPS coordinates. Thus, the map of schools only included 8,684 schools. The program did include filters to search for schools and importantly a

feedback mechanism. The project did encounter issues with low internet access, capabilities, and technical issues. Subsequently, the Check My School Facebook page became the central method

for feedback. After the first year of the project, there were several lessons learnt, such as capacity building, creating a sustained and constructive dialogue between supply and demand, and technology effectiveness. Overall, the project saw both successes—such as a successful

collaboration with the Department of Education—and challenges—including the ICT capabilities (Kumar, 2014; Pradhan, 2014; Shkabatur, 2014a).

In the state of Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil, the “Government Asks” initiative solicits feedback using a variety of channels: internet, mobile phones, and in-person meetings. Beyond feedback,

the initiative asks citizens, through wiki surveys, to also have input on co-designing policies and on service delivery. The specific technology incorporated into the initiative was the citizen

engagement tool: All Our Ideas (AOI). The freely available tool has been adapted for many environments, including Rio de Janeiro and New York City. The tool is tested, user- friendly, and multi- lingual. The various channels of communication incentivized high levels of participation in

the project. Furthermore, the initiative took into account the state context, created an educational campaign for citizens, as well as ensuring materials and tools were tested and matched the

capabilities of users. For example from the health sector, the state saw increases in allocation for primary health care, increased numbers of Mobile Emergency Service bases, financial support not only three regional hospitals but also for the family health program as well as a starting a

new network for prenatal and childcare. Through the multifaceted channels, including specific outreach trips to the poorest and marginalized members of the state, the project solicited tangible

results (Gigler, et. al, 2014b). The Governance Program—ICT4Gov—in the Democratic Republic of Congo incorporates

technology with participatory budgeting. With the Congo’s history of poor institutions, corruption, and violence, citizens have little trust in government institutions from the national to

the local level. In 2006, the Congo’s national government transferred many powers to the local level, including the budget. In 2009, the government launched the ICT4Gov program in the

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province of South Kivu. The central technology leveraged in the program is the mobile phone: “While many citizens in South Kivu lack electricity or running water, many have access to

mobile phones” (Gigler, et. al, 2014b, p. 224). Coupling the use of SMS with in-person meetings and community assemblies, the project encourages greater engagement and knowledge of the

budget process and allocation. In the assemblies, citizens vote on potential projects, learn the decisions made, and offer feedback on the projects—including implementation and outcome (Gigler et. al, 2014b).

However, ICT4Gov faces challenges. While mobile phones are becoming ubiquitous in the

province, there may still be issues with unequal access to the technology. In this case, the addition of in-person meetings assists to lessen this potential asymmetry. The project created partnerships with many stakeholders, in particular those with local knowledge. A variety of

sectors—education, health, and infrastructure—have seen improvements since the project’s implementation. Moreover, the improved levels of local tax collection suggests citizens can see

where and how their taxes are spent. In a 2012 law, the Parliament of South Kivu institutionalized participatory budgeting. Other provinces and countries demonstrated interest in adopting a similar participatory budgeting system (Gigler et. al, 2014b).

An ICT-enabled program, which will also be mentioned in the next section, is the Daraja’s Maji

Matone Project in Tanzania. In 2009, the civil society organization Daraja began the Raising the Water Pressure/Maji Matone Project to solicit citizen feedback on rural access to water. To garner this feedback, the project chose to use mobile phones and SMS. Centrally, the project

aimed to share information on where water functioned with the public in an easily comprehendible format as well as allow citizens to update this information (via SMS) and

elucidate the government response to citizen feedback. However, citizens did not use SMS system; after six months the program only received 53 messages rather than the aim of 3,000 messages. The program did fix numerous access points but overall, the project was unsuccessful.

The project attributes its failure centrally to the lack of consideration for gender issues: women are the primary collectors of water for the household and a scarcity of mobile access for these

rural women. Also, the project lacked guarantees that feedback would improve the water situation for the citizens. Thus, incentives for citizens to participate were minimal. The citizens had low expectations and a lack of trust in their governments to deliver conditioned by years of

failed promises. At the same time, pervasive fear in providing grievances over the water would reap reprisals for the citizen, even with anonymous messages (Daraja, 2011; Gigler, et. al,

2014b). The final citizen feedback mechanism is the OnTrack Platform (Innovations in Governance

Team, 2014). The platform, under the umbrella of the Open Development Technology Alliance, “supports short message service (SMS) and Web-based feedback loops between citizens, civil

society, government, implementing agencies, and World Bank staff around World Bank-funded project” (Gigler, et. al, 2014a, p. 5). Thus, the aim is for all stakeholders to give feedback on projects as well as monitor and act upon this feedback. Using the available technology and

harnessing the input from citizens, projects and the implementation of projects can improve (Gigler, et. al, 2014a).

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Several countries, including Bolivia, Nepal, and Zambia, have tested the platform. In detail, in Bolivia the platform has worked with two major projects: the Rural Alliance Project (PAR) and

the infrastructure program Barrios de Verdad (PBCV); both are World Bank-funded initiatives. For PAR, the OnTrack platform has been integrated into PAR’s official website. PAR aims to

improve the situation of rural farmers and their access to markets. The organization aims to achieve this goal by “implementing a productive rural partnership model” (Gigler et. al, 2014b, p. 216). For this occur, the farmers need improved access to technology, strengthened farmer

organizations among other economic and political relationships. With OnTrack, farmers can provide feedback through technology as well as act as a communication channel among

stakeholders. For residents on the outskirts of La Paz, the PBCV works to improve infrastructure and community participation. PBCV aims to improve 200 neighborhoods (out of 539) in the municipality by 2015. Leveraging OnTrack, there is a direct communication link for residents to

submit feedback. With SMS and internet methods, the platform aims to reduce costs and the time consuming process of in-person feedback for the users (Gigler, et. al, 2014a; Gigler et. al,

2014b). In Nepal, the OnTrack platform has worked in conjunction with the community-driven Poverty

Alleviation Fund (PAF); financed by the World Bank, PAF aims to target the needs of the poorest citizens. The PAF intends to empower citizens to develop and manage their own

projects. The program in its initial stage has worked in the 40 poorest districts in Nepal before it has been expanded to reach a national scale. The organization utilizes a participatory approach with the local government and civil society. This approach aims to activate local citizens to form

their own organizations within their communities. PAF encompasses several platforms for feedback and monitoring purposes. The primary method of collecting information was through

community meetings, but PAF also leveraged technological methods. The PAF incorporated a telephone hotline, a website to post messages, and radio where citizens could call or write and have PAF respond on air. With this background, the OnTrack platform aimed to build further

and supplement PAF’s existing framework. An online platform as well as an SMS service, OnTrack enables further engagement among citizens, officials, and project groups. The platform

includes space for feedback, suggestions, and to describe problems. Similarly, it has the option to publish results and information in real time. Again, the platform aims to complement existing efforts and further enable citizen feedback (Gigler, et. al, 2014a; Gigler et. al, 2014b).

The program has also encountered several key challenges in its implementation phase. A key

challenge has been to transfer the technology platform and the related technology know-how to local government institutions. In Bolivia, for instance, the PAR project has transferred the entire platform to a local technology provider and the Government has initiated a process to fully

integrate a citizen feedback platform into its existing project management platform. Another key challenge the program was confronted with is the lack of incentives of citizens to provide

continuous feedback using an ICT-enabled platform. In most countries the programs are still lacking a strategy on how to leverage technology for a continuous engagement with citizens. In Nepal, the program also encountered real restrictions in terms of the capacity of citizens to

provide feedback by cellphone. The field pilots in rural Nepal highlighted that the illiteracy rate in particular of rural women was too high that the use of SMS was not feasible. To address these

challenges, the program made important adjustments and developed in addition to the SMS-based system also a voice-based feedback system, which also allows rural communities with

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very high illiteracy rates to provide feedback. Finally, however it needs to be mentioned that the program also encountered important cultural barriers in rural Nepal. In general, for the majority

of the rural poor in Nepal the concept of providing feedback with or without technology to government was unknown and frequently people expressed a sense of general mistrust in the

government. Thus social and cultural factors have represented major obstacle for the successful implementation of the program in particular among the marginalized and poorest communities in rural Nepal.

Furthermore, in Zambia for instance, the government’s program lacked the capacity to fully

implement the program due to the lack of local resources. While the program initiated program activities demonstrating the value of citizen-generated data for the monitoring and evaluation of the programs in the agricultural sector, the On Track program failed to institutionalize the

feedback system into existing government processes. This is a frequent problem with citizen feedback program- establishing not only a system that allow citizens to express their views

however to simultaneously strengthen the capacity of government institutions to also effectively respond to the obtain feedback.

Based on these case studies the following section summarizes some of the key lessons learnt from implementing ICT-enabled citizen engagement programs.

Lessons Learnt from Early Experiences from ICT-Enable Citizen Engagement Programs From the who to the how, there are many points to improve citizen feedback initiatives. First, and centrally these initiatives should have clarity. An absence of clarity results in unrealistic expectations and misunderstandings about the purposes of feedback. With an explicit purpose

and defined objective, all stakeholders understand the objectives. It will also help design the optimal feedback mechanism to pursue the stated goals. Moreover, the collected feedback should

go beyond the success or failure of a project into more ambitious goals: “these initiatives should therefore include long-term policy reform that aims to build citizen capacity to engage and government capacity to provide effective services…also strive to transform feedback into citizen

empowerment and to reform how projects are implemented in the future” (Gigler, et. al, 2014a, p. 42). Thus, the collection of feedback should have both short-term importance on the current

project but also a long-term amplified impact on development (Gigler, et. al, 2014a; Gigler et. al, 2014b).

“Technology is not a panacea, and development projects should not be technology driven” (Gigler, et. al, 2014a, p. 42). Projects should not be designed around new technology but

technology embedded into projects that take into account the context and environmental capabilities. The technology responds to the needs of the project. Using the latest technology may not be appropriate for every project, rather the mechanism sho uld complement the

environment: the political, socioeconomic, and cultural context. Without understanding the norms and the flexibility to alter programs to better reflect the context, the success of the project

will be diminished. Furthermore, the type of feedback should be expanded to both positive and negative comments, thus incorporating more stakeholders into the feedback process and garnering well rounded feedback. Technology, both new and old, should be incorporated to

create a hybrid platform of citizen engagement: “a hybrid approach that enables citizens to engage using multiple modalities, including new technologies for expansive reach (that is,

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Internet and mobile phones) combined with older technologies and no-tech platforms to ensure inclusivity (that is, community radio and face-to-face interaction)” (Gigler, et. al, 2014a, p. 43).

Older methodologies still have value to this feedback process and in conjunction with new technologies can aggregate and form a more complete picture of the situation. With many

channels and modes of communication, it greatly expands the participation and inclusiveness with varied levels of technical capabilities (Gigler, et. al, 2014a; Gigler et. al, 2014b).

For the stakeholders, there needs to be a more complete assessment of who they are and their roles. The stakeholders go beyond the recipients of the intervention to all groups potentially

affected by the project. Again, there needs to be clarity on these groups and their roles within the intervention. The feedback mechanisms should be able to include feedback from all these groups, including those who do not directly benefit from a project but are members of the

community. One stakeholder which should have an established role is civil society. Technology does not replace the role of civil society in the feedback loop rather it enhances its role as an

intermediary and infomediary among other stakeholders. Furthermore, civil society can help negotiate the local context and enhance communication. At no point in the process should stakeholders lack incorporation and engagement in the process. As with engagement in general,

it should not be considered an add-on or ad hoc but systematic and frequent. Similarly, throughout the project’s process enhancements should be made to improve and adapt to changing

dynamics. As a project develops, the type of solicited feedback should similarly evolve and the platform should adapt for optimal results (Gigler et. al, 2014a; Gigler et. al, 2014b).

Finally for the how, it comes down to strengthening all stakeholders on both supply and demand sides of the equation. Merely having a platform available for citizen feedback does not guarantee

use by the intended beneficiaries. Technology should be accompanied by campaigns to ensure both the citizens’ willingness and capabilities to use the mechanism. Thus, citizens will understand what the mechanism is, how to use it, will the feedback be safe, and why to use the

platform (Gigler et. al, 2014a; Gigler et. al, 2014b).

Not only should citizen capacity be improved but other stakeholders from the government to civil society; without the capacity to respond to feedback nothing will develop. Along the way, this process should be transparent; again, it is an issue of clarity and understanding the aims and

goals of a project. Moreover, it is enhancing the two-way communication clearly, managing expectations, and outlining standards and responsibilities. Ultimately, the aim is closing the

feedback loop and move beyond feedback alone (Gigler et. al, 2014a; Gigler et. al, 2014b). As these case studies demonstrate, the use of technology does not inevitably ensure the success

of a project or initiative. Other factors—from the local context, to access—need to be taken into account. Some of the challenges are described in the case studies themselves and the next section

details further the challenges and obstacles of ICT-enabled platforms.

VII. Challenges and Obstacles

Even with rapid changes in technology and the new approaches which these technologies offer,

these case studies demonstrate continued constraints and obstacles to the full execution of this model. These challenges do not originate with the technology itself but the conditions and

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environment around the technology. On one side, there might be a legal constraint on the extended use of the technology; on the ground, there may be trust issues which arise.

Relationships between transparency and accountability are uncertain and vague. Several factors constrain and diminish the impact of the technology in bridging the gap among citizens,

governments, and donors (McGee, 2013). Institutionally, without mainstreaming these technologies, they may merely stay the hype of the present and not embed themselves into future arrangements. At the same time, governments are beginning to see the value of these initiatives.

On the donor side, there is still much to learn legally about the access to information and the rights to use this information for all use, even commercial use (Gigler, 2012a).

Legal Challenges Deficient technology is not the challenge today; the challenge is the legal use of that technology.

Licensing agreements are a central obstacle to the free and public use of data and information. Learning through experience, donor agencies understand that these arrangements can obstruct the

full potential of the data. The majority of technology companies, such as Google, Facebook, or Twitter have very complicated licensing arrangement which often represent real obstacles for the free use and re-use of data, even in the context of programs that support humanitarian

development. In contrast, most NGOs and civil society organizations use the creative commons license agreement, which is a type of license which only attribution is a necessary qualification

for using the data. Essentially, it is a license for a public good. Open Street Mapping (OSM) uses an Open Data Commons Database License (OpenStreetMap, n.d.). When the World Bank intended to develop a partnership with Google to develop a global map of the basic social

infrastructure in developing countries, it was a difficult lesson to learn about the obstacles these various legal challenges (“Google Inc + World Bank”, 2012).

There are also other legal considerations about the freedom of this data. The issue of privacy, and the lack of privacy, is a concern when there is an extensive amount of data. The providers of

mobile services act as entry points for the internet and will want to protect their share. Lastly, there is a possibility for censorship and special filtering of content (Smith, Elder and Emdon,

2011). Trust

Trust, and a lack of trust, on both sides of the equation could also dampen program effectiveness. If citizens have little trust in their governments and donors then they are less likely to use the

feedback mechanism. Without trust not much will occur regardless of the technological capabilities. A concrete example of this failure, partly due to lack of trust, is Daraja’s Maji Matone Project in Tanzania: the use of mobile technology failed to bridge the gap between

feedback and response. As stated before, the ICT-enabled feedback mechanism, leveraged SMS to garner feedback if the water system is functioning in the user’s area. While a few access points

were fixed as a result of the program, but overall citizens did not use the system. Again, after a six-month pilot period, the system only received 53 SMS messages rather than the goal of 3,000 messages. Trust and unequal access to mobile technology hampered the possible success of the

project. Citizens were disheartened by years of low expectations, and did not have the incentives to participate. Several aspects of the project failed and trust issues increased that failure (Daraja,

2011; Gigler, et. al, 2014b).

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Institutional Mainstreaming and Sustainability For Open Development to constitute a real impact, it needs institutional mainstreaming. The

hype of today’s potential needs to be tomorrow’s sustained change and cultural development. Institutions should see this new transparency and paradigm as part of the institutional fabric

rather than an ad hoc choice for the moment. With the institutional mainstreaming being a long-term process, the technological embedding must be a sustained process. A challenge is moving technology and its potential from short-term hype into long-term sustainability.

The role of new technology

These case studies also show early lessons learnt about technology’s role in Open Development. Essentially, these case studies assist in understanding how donors can progress to co-production and the enabling factors. Both the demand and the supply side of the equation need to be

simultaneously strengthened. The local socioeconomic context is critical to the relative success of a project and the Open Development model. Of the push and pull effect, the citizen side—the

pull—should be stronger as citizen have the vested interest. Civil society plays a critical role in raising awareness and mobilizing citizens. A disconnect exists between initiatives from that side of the equation and the local grassroots initiatives. At the same time, community monitoring for

accountability may not be connected to larger global initiatives. Much of the new Open Development agenda still lacks integration into programs and projects on the ground.

VIII. Conclusions

Development, and the Open Development framework, is ultimately still about people: people in the institutions. Technology has the power and potential to magnify and extend the connections

among people but ultimately the opportunities for development depend on the people. Citizens are more than voters and can improve services and development through feedback and pressure on governments and donors (Lieberman, Posner, and Tsai, 2013). People are still the central

actors within development and technology is a tool to further and enhance this interconnected pool of actors.

In terms of technology, to enable this program, PETS used a media campaign of traditional technology like radio and worked with the church. The question then arises can the benefits of

PETS be amplified with the advanced technology. What is the change in context between the 1990s when PETS began and today? Could the PETS program be enhanced with the new

technologies? The case studies demonstrate how ICTs can enhance feedback mechanisms; however, the key to their success is framing and embedding the ICT within the broader local context and not leveraging the mechanism in a vacuum.

As mentioned in challenges, this potential is the hype of the moment and needs to turn into a

long-term and sustained process. Quick successes are important but the real change in this process will take time to occur. In five to ten years, then we will be able to see if there has been a real paradigm shift and a significant impact on development.

In terms of further research, there are different shades of openness at the moment; there may be

openness for some but not others. Research needs to develop a nuanced and analytical approach to unpack and evaluate the Open Development initiatives. At the moment there is no established

31

and rigorous methodology to compare the initiatives. With an analytical framework, we can fully compare these initiatives and analyze their impact.

At the moment, the paradigm is still theoretically underdeveloped and we are still missing the

empirical data and evidences that demonstrate the central role open governance approaches can play to enhancing the effectiveness, responsiveness and inclusiveness of donor-financed programs. Often open development and open government programs are not yet fully

mainstreamed into the core programs of international donors and governments. It is critical to move beyond promoting openness and enhanced accountability for their own sake and to provide

more evidence that open governance programs have an important positive impact on enhancing development outcomes on the ground. The hope is that this paper will contribute to the debate on methodology and that the suggested model contributes to establishing a better theoretical

foundation for the emerging open development approach.

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