Kuhonga Program Logic and Pre-evaluation

Produced by Lewis Kirvan and Nathan Wangusi

ContentsIntroduction.................................................................................................................................................2

Need............................................................................................................................................................3

Opportunity.................................................................................................................................................5

Client-Centered Service Delivery Model......................................................................................................6

Program Theory and Logic...........................................................................................................................7

Inputs, Activities and Outputs.................................................................................................................7

Theory of Causation...............................................................................................................................19

Potential Benchmarks and Evaluation Metrics..........................................................................................24

Implementation and Sequencing...............................................................................................................25

Conclusion.................................................................................................................................................27

Appendix A: Technical Components..........................................................................................................28

Ushahidi.................................................................................................................................................28

SwiftRiver..............................................................................................................................................29

Frontline SMS........................................................................................................................................30

Database Stack......................................................................................................................................30

Social Media Aggregation......................................................................................................................30

Appendix B: Full Version of Logic Models..................................................................................................31

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Introduction

Kuhonga is a non-profit tech start-up that incorporated in January of 2012. The

organization is the brainchild of Nathan Wangusi an environmental engineering Ph.D. candidate

at the University of Florida. Nathan is also a Kenyan expatriate. It utilizes Ushahidi’s

crowdsourcing capabilities as its core engine.

Two things contributed to Nathan’s founding of Kuhonga. In 2009 after living in the

United States for several years Nathan returned to the Kenya. Nathan was forced to pay three

bribes before he left the airport. Needless to say the endemic nature of the corruption in Kenya

was shocking even to one of its native sons. During the same trip Nathan also met with the

founders of a new crowd-sourcing application, Ushahidi, which had been developed for the

2007 election cycle in Kenya. Ushahidi is a web and phone based application that is designed to

allow real time mapping of crowd sourced data. The application has been used to improved

efficiency in emergency relief situations including the recent Japanese tsunamii and the

Mumbai bombing attack.ii

Kuhonga’s essential insight is that data crowd-sourcing can also be used to tackle the

slow-motion crisis of endemic corruption. Social media has proven integral to revolutions in the

Middle East and social movements like the Occupy movement in the United States. Kuhonga

hopes to extend the success of social media by using its capabilities to tackle a different sort of

problem. Rather than facilitating a short term social need, such as organizational support for a

social movement or a disaster response team, Kuhonga hopes that a simple and efficient means

of reporting corruption will lead to more permanent social change.

2

The purpose of this white-paper is to provide a description of the Kuhonga’s planned

program logic as one part of a broader program of pre-evaluation process that will develop and

assess Kuhonga’s program logic, theory of causality and plausibility. These considerations along

with budget projections and strategic planning are being undertaken to aid the difficult process

implementation planning. The first two sections of this paper will briefly explore corruption in

Kenya as a social problem. They will also address the moment of opportunity that currently

exists. The third and fourth sections will address Kuhonga’s proposed customer service model

and present a working model of Kuhonga’s program logic along with its theory of causality. The

Fifth section discusses potential evaluation metrics for different elements. Section six briefly

addresses implementation and sequencing challenges in light of our current proposed program

model. An appendix discussing possible technical components is also included as appendix A.

Most elements of Kuhonga’s technical development are already fairly well established while

others need additional internal development, for the purposes of this paper these technical

challenges will be largely ignored.

Need

Much has been written about the root causes of poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa. Scholars

point to factors as diverse as the lingering effects of colonialism,iii the tropical disease

environment,iv ongoing public health crises, lack of transportation infrastructure and problems

with education. Accordingly donor groups have directed funds towards remedying these

problems. Along with direct poverty assistance, public health, transportation infrastructure and

education spending have all been big winners in the fight for donor funds. Corruption and

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governance are often addressed by non-profits but only infrequently are they addressed as a

separate social problem. Instead groups working in different sectors struggle individually to

deal with the problems that corruption imposes on their organizations. Kuhonga’s guiding

principle is that the issue of corruption is a “first problem” and that it should be addressed as a

separate social issue. We believe that before other problems can be permanently solved civil

society needs to turn away from and extractive corrupted model and towards an inclusive

public service model.v

Corruption and bribery, because of their pervasive nature, because they undermine

trust in institutions, and because they are regressive make dealing other social problems

substantially more difficult. Although individual programs are capable of success, in an

environment where corruption is the norm, successful programs are unlikely to thrive and

spread without constant infusions of cash and personnel. The average Kenyan makes only $737

dollars a year.vi Meanwhile, Transparency International has estimated that the average Kenyan

pays as many as 16 bribes per month.vii Kenyans report encountering bribery in more than 50%

of their interactions with institutions.viii For some institutions encountering bribery is a virtual

certainty. More than 75% of Kenyan’s report encountering bribes when dealing with the

immigration department.ix Given this constant extractive demand on Kenya’s population even

the best organized and most efficient organizations will often fail to thrive and succeed.

There is renewed recognition of the role that institutions play in creating economic

success.x However success in achieving institutional reform has been limited. Put in the simplest

terms good institutions enable private forces to succeed—while bad institutions stand in the

way of their success. Historically donors such as the World Bank and the IMF have had some

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success in putting good rules in place.xi However they have consistently failed to create

institutions that effectively serve the needs of private individuals. At Kuhonga we believe this

failure is at its base a failure to give voice to private individuals—it is a failure to create a

democratic decision-making structure. In Kenya repeated failures to improve institutions has

frequently resulted in a larger and more corrupt public sector. The public sector utilizes its

centralized lines of authority in order to maintain power through corruption and patronage

while ignoring the needs of the majority of citizens. But, before these institutions can be

successfully reformed there must be a mechanism to expose corruption and to give voice to

individuals. Exposing and interrupting the problems of corruption in a way that changes

behavior is an incredibly difficult task. At Kuhonga we think that the place to start is with

empowering citizens and decision makers to directly affect the problem themselves.

Opportunity

Kenyan culture recognizes that corruption is a central problem. As Eric Wainaina’s song

proclaims Kenya is “Nchi Ya Kitu Kidogo” (The country of the petty corruption). According to

Transparency International’s 2011 East Africa Bribery index, 80% of Kenyans believe that Kenya

is either extremely corrupt (40%) or corrupt (40%). Some sectors require bribes in as many as

50% of all their interactions with citizens yet only 7% of bribes are reported to any official.

Perhaps most disturbing is Kenyan’s belief that reporting bribes will be pointless. 40% of those

who don’t report bribes identified a belief that reporting bribes will not result in any action

being taken as there principle reason for failing to report bribery incidents.xii

5

At Kuhonga we believe that technological change offers a great opportunity to cut

through the intractable problem of corruption. New technologies have been instrumental in

organizing and providing momentum for recent social movements. The Arab Spring and

subsequent uprisings, which began as a response to endemic corruption amongst police officers

in Tunisia, xiii provide a paradigmatic example of how technology creates the potential for

incredibly fast growth and organization of new social movements. Mobile phone penetration in

Kenya has reached above 75% of the population.xiv Internet penetration, including mobile

internet penetration, now reaches 44.12% of the population.xv The percentage of Kenyan’s with

internet access has nearly doubled in a one year period as a large number of individuals have

begun to utilize internet enabled phone. This trend is very likely to continue as internet enabled

phones become more widely available and more inexpensive.

This rapid technological expansion and Kenyans’ widespread cultural recognition that

corruption is a major problem represent a major opportunity for change. Kuhonga hopes to

take advantage of this technological opportunity to create a private framework for corruption

reporting that is effective, transparent, safe, and trustworthy.

Client-Centered Service Delivery Model

We at Kuhonga believe that the non-profit sector can play a more interventionist role in

the ongoing struggle against corruption. Kuhonga’s model is not primarily that of issue

advocacy. Rather than focusing primarily on awareness or education Kuhonga’s model is

focused on delivering useful and timely data to its clients and to the public. As noted above,

there is no lack of awareness of the issue of corruption in Kenya. What is lacking is a way to

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collect and centralize the ongoing conversation about corruption. Kuhonga believes that

providing a trustworthy outlet for corruption reporting could focus the large amounts of

frustrated energy caused by corruption and transform it into meaningful outputs. Figure 1

captures the basic structure of our client service model in one page. The corpus of our data will

come from motivated citizens and non-governmental organizations. Our primary clients will be

motivated citizen whistleblowers. Developing these clients is the most challenging aspect of our

project. Our next set of clients includes various non-governmental entities, both not-for-profit

and for profit. We hope to be able to provide these clients with direct anti-corruption

consulting services and meaningful corruption marketplace reports that improve their decision

making capabilities. Finally our third set of potential clients includes government entities.

Although government entities are to a large degree responsible for the environment of

corruption in Kenya, the Kenyan government is not monolithic and various forces within the

government work to reduce corruption. In particular we may be able to provide information

and support for both the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) and the Office of Public

Prosecutions.

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Program Theory and Logic

The following several pages present schematic representations of the various

components that we think are necessary for Kuhonga to succeed. This section also presents a

theory of causation and potential behavioral model for citizen reporting. The purpose of these

models is not to lock the program into any particular structure; rather it is a means of

expressing the program’s theory so that we can assess the plausibility of various components

and whether, given adequate resources, the programs logic can successfully drive change in the

ways that we predict. Performing a thorough assessment of program logic will also help us to

identify priorities, to develop a full plan for implementation sequencing, and to identify target

benchmarks and evaluation metrics. This effort is part of an attempt incorporate the capability

for effective self-evaluation and self-improvement into Kuhonga’s organizational D.N.A.

Inputs, Activities and Outputs

As you can see the overall program model is not incredibly complex. The program will

aggregate various existing inputs, including existing corruption reporting channels such as the

news media, and will attempt to develop and additional input: user reports. These channels of

data will be verified for accuracy and have identity information removed. In order to protect

the privacy of citizen whistleblower, other indirectly identifying information will be removed or

masked before reports are published in any non-aggregate form.

8

FIG. 1 Kuhonga Logic model

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Besides privacy controls for whistleblowers we will also have to develop a judgment

analytic of some sort that protects the identity of people who ask for bribes. To prevent

reprisals and vigilantism the default rule will be removal of all identifying information for both

whistleblower and briber. It may be appropriate to retain the identifying information of some

bribers for inclusion in specific reports targeted to NGO’s or government anti-corruption

agencies. Kuhonga is not in any way an attempt to target the individuals who ask for bribes. For

the most part the behavior of these individuals is the result of systemic pressure and not

individualized corruption. For some high level public officials, as well as for some who occupy

positions of trust in NGO’s, it may be appropriate to turn this presumption on its head. To the

extent that high level corruption incidents are reported to Kuhonga, those reports will be

handled differently than low level corruption incidents.

FIG. 2 Verification and Privacy Controls

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The sequencing of specific privacy controls will also depend on how the program

develops. Depending on reporting volume and data quality we may find that it is appropriate to

replace identifying information with non-identifying user tags for specific users or reports. At a

minimum reports will be flagged with time, place, location, categorical sector data, transaction-

type data and an intensity filter that measures the monetary amount bribes.1

FIG. 3. Analytics and Meta-analysis

These predicates will be used to populate a relational database2 that can be queried

using Swiftriver as an analytic platform. The transition from temporary crisis mapping analytics

to stable long term market monitoring might demand additional data mining tools that could be

1 A variety of other pieces of data could prove helpful. Demographic data from users that submit data could be helpful in understanding how and why people are chosen for bribes. Details such as the official rank and title of people who ask for bribes could also prove useful in modeling bribing behavior. 2 Not sure which RDBM software to use, there are plenty to choose from though (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_relational_database_management_systems)

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developed within Kuhonga or procured from third parties.3 Kuhonga may also need to develop

additional application programming interfaces to make the data it produces more accessible to

the variety of users that we seek to serve.

Kuhonga will use these activities to produce three primary outputs. First it will serve as a

public database and research resource for those that are attempting to understand corruption.

The data Kuhonga produces will be substantially different than survey data or other types of

social science data normally used to study corruption. Because of this it will be important for

Kuhonga to attempt to determine how its data equates to reality. It will be necessary to

develop accurate estimates of reporting rates, to attempt to understand the demographics of

our reporters and how those demographics affect the data that we produce. We will also make

attempts, through our an inclusive marketing approach, to ameliorate these possible flaws by

allowing users to submit reports with a variety of technologies from SMS to app based

reporting. Even given these limitation the data that we collect could provide value to

economists and other social scientists attempting to model the structure of corruption

economies.

The second major output that may become part of Kuhonga’s operation is more akin to

traditional law enforcement mechanism. Kuhonga could come to serve as a clearinghouse for a

broad range of corruption acts. Given the range of activities that fall under the umbrella of

corruption, it is probable that Kuhonga will receive large amounts of information on criminal

activity with varying degrees of potential seriousness. Kuhonga would need to develop the

3 Ideally we need a data mapping tool that allows us to track incidents, relationships and properties with minimum hardcoding. This would require a flexible data platform of some type. Palanti’s Gotham platform would be a great option http://www.palantir.com/platforms/.

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capability to sort and prioritize between various acts of corruption, to distinguish between

those activities that are in need of immediate action, those that may be important because they

are part of an emerging trend or development and the mass of other incidents that can be

ignored for reporting purposes. Various reports may be relayed to official governmental anti-

corruption authorities, or, where appropriate, to non-governmental partners.4

The third major output that Kuhonga will try to develop is the provision of specific

consulting and market reporting activities for clients. These consulting services could take a

variety of forms. Traditional market analysis might play some role (i.e. some form of quarterly

“corruption report”), however it seems likely that issuing more traditional sector and

geographic reports will not serve the needs of decision makers. Consulting will need to consist

of providing unique tools to allow NGO’s to make better decisions and better track their

resources. Besides providing reporting and tracking, other services such as data sharing will also

be provided. We think that the most important use for our data will come from its ability to aid

in the decision making process. For this service to work we will have to provide clients with very

specific toolboxes that will allow them to quickly find and understand useful data.

Imagine a health services provider that is attempting to decide whether to invest

significant funds to develop an existing medical clinic. The health services provide might query a

database to find any and all corruption incidents that mention the clinic. A simple query could

provide detailed data on the level of corruption at a given clinic over time and the ability to

compare this data with data from other similar clinics.

4 We haven’t yet come to an internal consensus as to what type or relationship with existing media sources we should develop. Certainly our aggregate data will be made available to media outlets. It is less clear when, if ever, it would be appropriate to use data to tip-off the media to potential stories or even to provide background.

13

FIG. 4 Non-Governmental Consulting Model

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Give an extremely high level of corruption the health services NGO might reconsider

investing its resources in this clinic and might instead choose to develop a new clinic from the

ground up. Or, the NGO might decide that given current levels of corruption it would be worth

investing some amount of money in an anti-corruption program or training. In this circumstance

Kuhonga would also allow the same NGO to more easily evaluate the success of its

anticorruption programming all at little or no cost. Development of consulting services will also

be one of the best ways for Kuhonga to get comprehensive sector data.

Although our initial target would be public sector bribery, it is easy to see how our

database could grow to include other sorts of important corruption information. Kuhonga’s

data might be useful in information more accurately estimating costs in other sectors where

bribery is common. If sufficient incident reports existed on two major construction firms, for

instance, knowledge of a corruption differential between these two firms could be a deciding

factor in the contracting process. This kind of increasing certainty could potentially make

investment easier and more certain. Increasing transparency will also begin to provide an

incentive for existing NGO’s to compete for funds on the basis of their ability to avoid loss of

funds to corruption, leading to a procompetitive virtuous cycle that should begin to slowly push

out firms that are unwilling or unable to reduce the funds lost to corruption. Figure 5

demonstrates how data sharing will take place.

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FIG. 5 Data Sharing

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Besides providing direct consulting services Kuhonga could also produce more

generalized market reports that could be used to help investors and others determine how best

to spend charitable resources. These market reports will produce additional competitive

pressure on non-profit firms. Non-profits already compete for funds based on their ability to

provide a larger percentage of donations ‘to the cause’ and a smaller percentage to overhead.xvi

International non-profits might begin to compete on their ability to avoid corruption. This sort

of competition will have a twofold effect. Firms will be able to argue both that they are more

efficient at delivering resources and also that by participating less in corruption they are

contributing to other ameliorative effects that follow from a more transparent and honest

marketplace.

The success of this model depends to a large degree on our ability to change the

behavior of individuals. As mentioned above this will likely be the biggest and earliest challenge

Kuhonga will have to surmount and it will occupy much of the initial expense and energy

required to turn Kuhonga into a functioning operation. In some ways Kuhonga is like other

networks in that it can benefit from positive externalities. Kuhonga’s success is tied to its ability

to attract a network of people that use it.5 The more people that use Kuhonga the better it will

operate and the more useful it will become for each user.

Kuhonga is also unique ways that make developing its network more challenging. Unlike

most other networks our model requires anonymity. This severely limits the range of options

for rewards that we can give to our whistleblowers. Figure 6 presents some of the limited 5 In business and economics these network externalities are often referred to as demand-side economies of scale. The essential insight is that some types of programs and business become more valuable as they grow their user base. Phone service and the Internet are good examples. See e.g. Katz, Michael and Carl Shapiro, Network Externalities, Competition, and Compatibility, The American Economic Review Vol. 75. No 3 pp. 424-440.

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motivators that we can utilize to encourage bribery reporting. Because of these limitations we

will need to develop a proactive marketing approach to promoting Kuhonga’s use. This

approach will require a detailed analysis that is beyond the scope of this paper. The

fundamental approach will involve developing Kuhonga as a trustworthy and ubiquitous brand

through a mostly traditional marketing approach. Securing an easily identifiable SMS reporting

number will also be an important part of this strategy.

Other network effects, outside of our own marketing approach, could work to

Kuhonga’s advantage. Kuhonga will be able to scale with the adoption of social networking in

Kenya. Although it will be initially important to provide access to Kuhonga’s reporting services

via SMS. Rapidly increasing mobile internet adoption will allow us to utilize existing social

networks and socially connective applications (such as twitter). Widespread adoption of these

means of communication will give birth to new economies and alternatives to the current top-

down bureaucratic power centers that dominate Kenyan public life.xvii Kuhonga may be able to

piggyback on the success of other social networks such as Twitter and Facebook by using them

as both a means to reach people and a separate source of corruption data.

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FIG. 6 Citizen Logic Model

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Theory of Causation

Besides the outputs mentioned above Kuhonga hopes that it will contribute to

fundamental behavioral change. If Kuhonga can achieve widespread adoption the presence of

frequent reporting may begin to directly change behavior patterns. Evidence from psychology

and criminology suggest that social learning can play a role in the development of criminal

behavioral patterns.xviii Kuhonga’s model is designed to shortcut existing environmental factors

by increasing the perceived self-efficacy of individuals, by inculcating a sense of collective

agency and by increasing the social pressure on people that ask for bribes. These socio-cultural

changes have the potential to interrupt the current extractive and bureaucratic model of public

institutions in Kenya.

Much has been written about extractive economic and political institutions in the

context of African colonialism and the reproduction of these institutions in the post-colonial

period. xix Oligarchic, extractive institutions have proven incredibly stubborn and difficult to

eliminate in a top down fashion. Technocratic attempts to reform institutions in weak and

extractive states have inevitably failed.6 Kuhonga is designed to interrupt extractive state

economies by empowering citizens. Increasing the efficacy and cohesiveness of bottom up

pressure is, we think, the most effective strategy for institutional reform.

The ability of coordinated action by citizens to effect radical political change is not in

question. It is also clear that political revolutions like those that recently took place in the Mid-

6 See e.g. Acemoglu, Daron, Simon Johnson, Pablo Querubin, James A. Robinson. WHEN DOES POLICY REFORM WORK? THE CASE OF CENTRAL BANK, Working Paper 14033 National Bureau of Economic Research. Available at http://www.nber.org/papers/w14033.pdf.

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East and North Africa are not ideal. Frequently bad institutions survive revolutions, resulting in

the substitution of one set of elites for another. Revolutions also unleash the potential for

catastrophic violence. We think that technological change offers a third way between

maintenance of the status quo and outright revolution. Changes in behavior and expectations

can begin to exert upward pressure on institutions and slowly begin to reduce their ability to

self-replicate. Although this sort of change may not be sufficient to reform political institutions

it will tend to create the type of conditions that are conducive to fundamental change and

reform. FIG. 8 presents this theory in graphical form.

The combined force of horizontal pressure among institutions—aided by increased

transparency and better information for decision-makers—and increased upward vertical

pressure should create the potential for real change. Besides these structural changes Kuhonga

has the potential reduce corruption by increasing the certainty and celerity of punishment.7 The

Kenyan Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) has its own anonymous whistleblower feature.

They have implemented what is essentially an anonymous whistleblower dropbox, similar to

those in place at many large corporations. In total the EACC receives around 300 monthly

reports of which it chooses to act on less than 50%.8 Although this represents an improvement

over previous anti-corruption efforts, structural limitations on the ability of most citizens to

report mean that the EACC is not likely to begin receiving significant reports anytime in the near

future.

7 Criminal deterrence theory focuses on the certainty, severity and celerity of punishment. 8 Detailed monthly reports for the EACC’s reporting and investigation activities are available at (http://www.eacc.go.ke/default.asp?pageid=95)

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Bribe Takers These underpaid low level bureaucratic operators depend on their ability to ask for and receive bribes. Since they depend on those above them for their positions in the first place they are not

able to exert upward pressure on those above them to ask for improvements in work conditions. Rather they depend on their small areas of power to leverage bribes from other members of

society. Public sector officials end up preying on the private sector rather than helping them to succeed

Reduced ability to ask for bribes redirects the pressure of bribe takers upward

Change the behavior patterns of citizens

Upoward pressure Reduce the opportunity for bribe takers to ask for bribes

Reduced power and efficacy for big men as their patrons become less loyal. Reduces power of elected officials and big men to extract resources using infrastructure of state power.

Big Men These positions are doled out on the basis of loyalty not performance. Big Men are

able to maintain power only so long as they are obedient. They frequently facilitate the large scale acts of corruption that make the headlines. They may for

instance be responsible for bidding for government contracts and then sharing the sums paid by the government. Even They in turn depend on webs of loyal patrons

to facilitate their continued power. They need complicity from both private and public sector little big men.

CitizenryMost Citizens face significant barriers when seeking basic services. Getting an education, seeking healthcare or starting a business all require paying for the effects of the above system. The system is inefficient because the

consumers of services do not have transparent pricing and because the costs of the government are very regressive. This increases distrust in the government and reinforces a reliance on familial or ethnic bonds.

Elected Officials Officials at the top wield massive power. They operate the

levers of government to favor their own interests. By exercising control over officials below them the top uses the

bottom to control state resources. Consider the $3000 parliamentary chairs made in Kenyan Prisons.

FIG. 8 Theory of Change

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Kuhonga may selectively forward reports of bribery to the EACC rapid response team.

The decision to forward reports will require human decision-making and investigation, however

there will certainly be a role for analytics to play in identifying potentially forward-able reports.

Other divisions of Kenya’s government may offer similar opportunities to selectively utilize

government prosecution and investigation resources. The current government has made a

commitment to the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions9 and has recently committed to

doubling its staff.xx There may also be room to work with local governments as well as media

outlets in a similar vein.

Although interactions with Kenyan government agencies, depending on the political

situation, may not be an option Kuhonga’s approach to them will be inclusive. Creating real

consequences for corrupt officials at the top and in the middle will certainly tend to reduce the

incidence of corruption over time. The resolution of reported corruption incidents could also be

one potential evaluation metric. Since it represents a full cycle, from report to final

consequence; it provides a more catholic metric of the Kuhonga’s ongoing success than other

potential measures.

9 This organization is the equivalent of the DOJ criminal division in the United States.

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FIG. 9 Governmental Reporting Model

Potential Benchmarks and Evaluation Metrics

Having examined the Kuhonga’s program model and theory of change it is necessary to

briefly consider potential success metrics and implementation challenges in light of our current

model. The most obvious metric of early success will be some simple measure of report

volume. This measure will allow us to judge the efficacy of our marketing strategy and will allow

us to track our influence geographically and in different reporting medium. Along with these

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considerations we will want to begin recording other qualitative measures such as the

percentage of entered reports that are subsequently verified. During the initial implementation

period it will be necessary constantly tweak and double check our data filters to insure their

validity. Developing a volume of past data on the data verification rates will also be a first step

towards insuring data quality over time.

As we begin to implement other facets of the program will need to develop appropriate

measures of success. Once we begin offering consulting services we will want to find some

measure of data utilization. Measuring the volume of database queries would give us some idea

of the overall use of our consulting services. However it seems likely that their will need to be

other measures. It may be appropriate to institute client survey’s very early on in order to

develop tools with impact.

Some measure of report resolution or utilization might offer a more holistic appraisal of

program efficacy. Creating a follow up or report back feature would allow us to measure the

number of reports that are resolved in some manner. This feature will almost certainly become

a part of any consulting services that we offer but could also potentially be integrated into the

citizen reporting feature.

Finally, over the long term, several international standard corruption indexes are

produced regularly.10 These indexes can provide a holistic measure of the Kenya’s progress over

10 The Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index, Available at http://www.transparency.org/news/pressrelease/media_advisory_launch_corruption_perceptions_index_2012. Is one example. the Worldbank’s governance database, available at http://info.worldbank.org/governance/wgi/index.asp, also includes useful data.

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time. When Kuhonga reaches a stable level of influence it would be possible to begin to

evaluate overall corruption using internal data, however this would likely take some time.

Implementation and Sequencing

Having fully described Kuhonga’s program structure and theory of change, it is now

possible to begin the incredibly difficult task of organizing and planning program

implementation and sequencing. Although a full treatment of these issues is beyond the scope

of this paper it will be helpful to catalogue some of the various implementation and sequencing

issues that may arise.

Implementation planning is currently compounded by our lack of reliable funding

sources. Thus it seems clear that our first task (besides additional planning and development) is

to find a stable source of funding. Assuming that we can surmount that particularly formidable

barrier the following few paragraphs approximate our implementation priorities.

The first wave of funding should be used to perfect and test our existing technical

components against the program model that we have developed to insure that the technical

components are working and scalable. Fortunately all of the technical components necessary to

begin accepting reports are open source. Server space will eventually be required but is not

prohibitively expensive. The most daunting aspects of this first wave of implementation is in

coordinating between various developers and insuring interoperability. Fortunately Ushahidi

and Swiftriver’s development teams are constantly innovating and creating new capabilities

many of which will be helpful to Kuhonga’s deployment. A second possible impediment may

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arise when we attempt to secure a stable SMS number from the Kenyan Communications

Commission. Ironically it may be difficult to secure an SMS code without being forced to pay

some form of bribe. However we believe that we should be able to work with Safaricom to

secure free or low cost text messaging services. It may also be possible to utilize their phone

based money transferring service M-Pesa as a means to incentivize bribery reporting.11

Once these components are in place and scalable our second priority will be to begin

increasing the volume of data that we receive. Increasing utilization of Kuhonga will require

major investment of time, energy and money. Developing a culturally relevant strategy that

maximizes our reach will be Kuhonga’s biggest challenge. We already know that some means of

communication tend to be highly effective in the Kenyan market. If we were able to use local

musicians, a group that in Kenya is already devoted to stopping corruption, we could stretch

our impact with minimum cost.

Our final priority would be to secure nongovernmental partnerships. These partnerships

will provide additional data. They will also help to make us more visible and thus more likely to

receive funding. Program sustainability will be an ongoing challenge, as it is for many not-for-

profit startups. Developing strong links to a variety of sectors may help us to surmount these

sorts of funding challenges by allowing us to reach out to many funding sources.

Conclusion

11 It might be possible to create a system of incentives that does not result in large amounts of phony bribe reporting. For instance using some form of lottery reward system could lead to increased utilization of Kuhonga’s services as an interim promotion. Each verified report could become part of an anticorruption lotto, the more verified reports you submit the greater the chance that you win the anticorruption lotto. This kind of incentive system could motivate people without seriously increasing the number of phony or bogus reports.

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This program description and pre-evaluation is part of an ongoing effort to improve

Kuhonga’s program logic and implementation strategy. The social problem that Kuhonga hopes

to combat has been a persistent feature of Kenyan government institutions for many years. The

capacity of Kuhonga to significantly impact this problem depends on a large number of

contingencies. Despite these uncertainties mass adoption of new technologies and widespread

cultural recognition of the harms caused by bribery and corruption present an opportunity for

change and adaptation. Kuhonga’s mission is to facilitate these changes and provide a

meaningful platform for citizen’s to engage with and stand up to the corruption in their midst.

Appendix A: Technical Components

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Ushahidi

Ushahidi is an open source platform for democratizing information, increasing transparency and

lowering the barriers for individuals to share their stories. The Ushahidi platform was developed

to respond to natural disasters by allowing rapid implementation of a citizen based reporting

system. Kuhonga is a deployment of the Ushahidi platform adapted to the slow motion disaster

of government corruption and forced bribery. Our deployment of Ushahidi will allow individuals

to report corruption incidents via email, through our website, through twitter or, by text

message. We will also utilize the capabilities of Ushahidi’s analytic component Swift River, to

protect the identities of citizens who report corruption incidents. The Ushahidi platform has

been used for projects focusing on local governance, environmental monitoring, public health

mapping, human rights monitoring, citizen-based election observation, nonviolent protest, gas-

price monitoring, disaster response and crisis mapping in various parts of the world.

Internet penetration via computers in Kenya is light (less than ten percent) but nearly

fifty percent of Kenyans have access to mobile phone internet access. Kuhonga will attempt to

develop this element of Ushahidi’s capability further to allow for the massive amounts of data

that we could potentially generate, and the potentially longer time frame over which Kuhonga

will be operational.

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Figure 1. Kuhonga's Beta Ushahidi Deployment.

SwiftRiver

Kuhonga will use the superior data analytics capabilities of SwiftRiver, another free and open

source partner of Ushahidi, to verify the validity of reports and to mine data from reports.

SwiftRiver enables the filtering and verification of real-time data from channels like Twitter,

SMS, Email and RSS feeds. SwiftRiver is capable of filtering natural language reports to mine the

data from the various streams and make sense of it based on keywords and semantic structure.

This eliminates the need to use forms or reporting codes. SwiftRiver specializes in:

Gathering Intelligence from the Web: Curating real-time information on topics such as corruption and briberyBrand Monitoring: Managing social media campaigns by setting up streams that search for mentions of Kuhonga online.Analysis and Insight: Helps discover relationships and trends in various data streamsAddition of Context to Content: Adds context by auto-categorizing and flaggin data from Twitter, SMS, Email and RSS feeds

30

Crowdsourcing and verification: Collects information from known and trusted sources through the use of simple verification algorithms.

Frontline SMS

Frontline SMS is a free open source data collection client which will allow us to collect SMS

data. Unlike other mobile data collection programs, which require forms, Frontline SMS accepts

natural language input from JAVA enabled handsets. This allows bribery incidents to be

reported by those with no training vastly increasing our potential to crowdsource corruption

reporting.

Database Stack

We will eventually need some kind of database server and software. There are a large number

of free and open source options but will most likely go with some form of LAMP stack.

Social Media Aggregation

Ushahidi allows for aggregation of existing social media. Easy cross platform integration of

existing social media conversations increases Kuhonga’s scalability significantly. Any user of

Twitter can report directly by simply tweeting with the hashtag #kuhonga. Similar functionality

is possible with Facebook. As social media impact grows Kuhonga can grow commensurately

with no additional inputs required.

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Appendix B: Full Version of Logic Models

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User Reports

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Verification and Privacy Controls

34

Analytics & Research

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Governmental Partnerships Model

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Non-governmental Consulting Model

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Citizen Motivational Model

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Media Strategy

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Appendix C: Endnotes and Sources

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i

Article Available at (http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/tech/news/2011-04-11-japan-social-media_N.htm ) Last Retrieved 12/1/2012.

ii Article available at (http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2011/07/online-crisis-management) Last Retrieved 12/1/2012.

iii Acemoglu, Daron and James A. Robinson, Why Nations Fail, Crown Publishing (2012)

iv Diamnond, Jared. (2005 ed.) Guns, Germs and Steel: the Fate of Human Socieities. Norton.

v We aren’t alone in thinking that institutional development is a central problem that cuts across all sectors of a nations development. See The World Bank. (2000). “Reforming Public Institutions and Strengthening Governance.” Available at http://www1.worldbank.org/publicsector/Reforming.pdf. Last Retrieved 12/1/2012.

vi Country Data available at (http://data.un.org/CountryProfile.aspx?crName=kenya ) Last Retrieved 12/1/2012.

vii Transparency International report available at: http://www.ethicsworld.org/publicsectorgovernance/PDF%20links/KenyanSurveyAug22.pdf Last Retrieved 12/1/2012.

viii Transparency International report available at: http://www.ethicsworld.org/publicsectorgovernance/PDF%20links/KenyanSurveyAug22.pdf Last Retrieved 12/1/2012.

ix Transparency International report available at: http://www.ethicsworld.org/publicsectorgovernance/PDF%20links/KenyanSurveyAug22.pdf . Last Retrieved 12/1/2012.

x Acemoglu, Darn and James A. Robinson. (2012). Why Nations Fail. Crown Publishing.

xi The World Bank (2000) “Reforming Public Institutions and Strengthening Governance.” Available at (http://www1.worldbank.org/publicsector/Reforming.pdf) at page xiv. Last Retrieved 12/1/2012.

xii 2011 East African Bribery Index Report Available at http://www.tikenya.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=73&Itemid=67 . Last Retrieved 12/1/2012.

xiii An interactive timeline of the Arab Spring is available at (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/interactive/2011/mar/22/middle-east-protest-interactive-timeline .) The first event in the timeline is the self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi in response to

corrupt police officers seizing his vegetable cart. Last Retrieved 12/1/2003.

xiv Kenyan Communication Report available at: http://www.cck.go.ke/resc/downloads/SECTOR_STATISTICS_REPORT_Q2_2011-12.pdf. Last Retrieved 12/1/2012.

xv Kenyan Communication Report available at: http://www.cck.go.ke/resc/downloads/SECTOR_STATISTICS_REPORT_Q2_2011-12.pdf Last Retrieved 12/1/2012.

xvi See e.g. The Harvard Business Review’s online series on charitable efficiency. (http://blogs.hbr.org/pallotta/2009/06/beware-of-highly-efficient-cha.html) Last Retrieved 12/1/2012.

xvii Serrat, O. (2010) Social Network Analysis. Washington, DC: Asian Development Bank. Discussing how power no longer resides exclusively in states or corporations or large institutions. xviii Akers, R.L.; Krohn, M.D.; Lanza-Kaduce, L.; Radosevich, M. (August 1979). Social Learning and Deviant Behavior: A Specific Test of a General Theory. American Sociological Review, 44(4), 636–655

xix Acemaglu, Daron, Simon Johnson, and James A. Robinson. (2008). The Colonial Origins of Comparitive Development : And Empirical Investigation, American Economic Review 91:1369-1401.

xx Story Available at (http://allafrica.com/stories/201209080204.html)

Additional Sources

Akers, R. L. (2000). Criminological theories. Los Angeles: Roxbury Inc.

Katz, Michael and Carl Shapiro. Network Externalities, Competition, and Compatibility, The American Economic Review Vol. 75. No 3 pp. 424-440.

Patton, Michael Quinn. (1997). Utilization-Focused Evaluation. 3rd Edition. Sage Publications, Inc.

Rossi, Lipsey, Freeman. (2004). Evaluation: A Systematic Approach. 7th Edition. Sage Publications, Inc.

Witkin, Belle Ruth and James Altschuld. (1995). Planning and Conducting Needs Assessments: A Practical Guide. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.