The first session of this year’s Socialcamp in Berlin kept me busy thinking for the whole weekend. Coming from the challenging experience of reaching sustainable change when working with organisations in Africa, Tobias Eigen from Kabissa was looking at questions of the drivers of change, and how to identify these “Change Agents”.

This let me to remember one of the principles of the power of internet, which is that everybody, from Kinshasa, to Berlin, to Port Moresby, can make a difference, can engage and has the opportunity to be an agent of change. While this was true before the internet as well, and limitations of connectivity still exist, the opportunity to scale this engagement has increased exponentially.

Go change the world. Now.

Now this obviously doesn’t mean that every idea will change the world, but what I find most interesting and exciting is that by simply doing something such as sending a text message, posting an idea or a comment, taking a picture and sharing it, he can be part of a changing world.

In short, this is citizen engagement. How this can be a key factor for influencing the fight against corruption in the future, I have described on this blog and also here.

The concept that was floated during the discussion is the one of a Change Network, in a way taking the concept that every one can be a change agent and planting this person into a societal context. I think the concept of one person driving change is, on a general level, somewhat of a myth. The person is always embedded in a network that reflects, adapts and catalyses the ideas and concepts of change. This does not limit itself to its immediate group, but also to the community or society surrounding.

And without this networks, the change will not happen.

While preparing this text, Patrick Meier from iRevolution did a great summary on the discussion on crowdsourcing and I would like to quote his words which fit quite well here:

We credit the crowd because no one person lives in a vacuum and comes up with innovative ideas that are completely independent from their interaction with the outside world.

This is also true when you think of how dependent change becomes if it is only focussed on one person, rather than a network. It is a challenge the fight against corruption has experienced much to often when having to rely on political will to change the status quo. Once a government changes, all advancements may stop, just because this change was based on only one person.

The question is whether a Change Network can be institutionalised.

I am split on this with my thoughts, but I believe that there needs to be the liberty to engage and create a culture of engagement and action without having to organise everything (and this coming from a German), and let allow that even from slactivism eventually comes true engagement and activism. I like the idea of a possibility for change at every movement. Providing space for the individual to do something and let the network surrounding it create the change. Not everything will be, or want to be NGOised.

What do you think? Is this concept useful?

You'll still need the buckets.

Corruption in the access to basic service delivery, such as water, health and education is one of the key areas that need to be tackled to improve the lives of people and their livelihood. Especially access to water is possibly the service I feel most strongly about, as the corruption in this sector can be deadly. More than 1 billion people worldwide have no guaranteed access to water and more than 2 billion are without adequate sanitation.

Therefore, this initiative reported by the German service heise.de caught my eyes, that  aims at improving the provision of access to water via mobile payment and smartcards in Kenya . The project suggests paying for clean water using a mobile payment service such as M-Pesa and retrieving the water at local access points through a smartcard which uses the low-cost technology of RFID chips (Radio Frequency Identification Tags) to identify the access request and the payment.

Combining these two easy-to-use technologies, the process of delivering water to the people is made more transparent, and through circumventing potentially corrupt bureaucracies, it can become a cleaner – and corrupt-free process.

Additionally, these technologies allow to access highly useful and relevant information of when, where and how much water is being retrieved. This data should be made open and accessible. As publicly available information it can then be mapped and serve to highlight risks, deficiencies or failures in the process of providing water services to the population.

Of course, some related questions arise, such as how strongly privatised can and should the access to the basic service water be. Also issues of privacy and personal information gathered through these systems need to be handled in a  responsible and open manner.

But for questions of improving transparency and reducing corruption, technology reducing intermediaries and enabling the tracking information can be very powerful.

Forestry, a sector that is not less rife of corruption, is another example where the use of RFID and the technology behind it can be beneficiary. 

I would like to share with you two interesting initiatives that highlight one point I wanted to make for a longer time now.

My point is about easy solutions. And basic concepts.

Sometimes the easy solutions are the best ones. Solutions where not much programming is needed to make it an effective online tool. A clear concept that can be put in practice easily can remove one of the biggest hurdles existing for some practitioners, and especially in NGOs with limited resources: Dealing with the internet and the complexity of not being able to programme and manage a website by yourself.

Blowing the whistle

This is why I like the following case. It’s the concept of simple transparency of information and explaining how things have to work put into practice. On a web page that basically displays a word document, listing the three key points, some PDF documents and the relevant phone numbers. And that explains what whistle blowing is, and how and where to do it.

Have a look at the new page on Blowing the Whistle on Waste & Fraud in Government, put in place by the State of Illinois.: www.whistleblower.illinois.gov

Accessing information

The other example I wanted to include here is a nice project called the Question Box, addressing one of the key concerns for using online tools: illiteracy (also nicely presented here, and discussed here). One box per village. The concept is a call center, to connect to the internet.

How it works

Maintaining the infrastructure might not be easy, but electricity can come from solar cells and the used technology is basic enough to be repaired easily. Again, easy concept. Easy solution. And many ideas coming into mind when thinking about accountability, access to information and citizen engagement in governance.

One of our colleagues here at TI has prepared an exciting project for the N2Y4 mobile challenge. In a nutshell, Mosomo-health is looking to make use of mobile phones to bring together information about health-related government spending and connect this data to local knowledge about whether or not funding reaches its intended destination and actually results in on-the-ground infrastructure and public health services. 

In the interest of brevity and to encourage you to head over to the netsquared site this is an extremely abbreviated description of the idea. If you like it thus far, please register (it’s non-profit and there won’t be any spam), go straight here to  look at the detailed description of  Mosomo-health, give it a star rating and perhaps an additional positive comment in the comments field. If we can create enough of a buzz, then maybe, just maybe, we’ll have a chance to reach the finals of the competition and mobilise some funding to pilot the project.

To get a sense of just how worthwhile this may be, check out the last challenge-winning project Ushahidi and on the contest site.

Thanks in advance for your help in spreading the word!

And while we’re at it, TI’s new twitter has just been named Nonprofit of the Week by Nonprofitorgs. Good reason to follow both.

Not in the grand scheme of things, we don’t think. But consider this piece from the NY Times webpage:

And on Monday, defense lawyers in the federal corruption trial of a former Pennsylvania state senator, Vincent J. Fumo, demanded that the judge declare a mistrial after a juror posted updates on the case on Twitter and Facebook. The juror even told his readers that a “big announcement” was coming Monday. But the judge decided to let the trial continue, and the jury found Mr. Fumo guilty. His lawyers plan to use the Internet postings as grounds for appeal.

So much for Twitter and possible unintended consequences in the fight against corruption. Not a good reason to ignore the potential of this technology to create transparency though, is it?

This week has been a pretty busy one for global anti-corruption activists. On Tuesday, Transparency International honoured two investigative journalists, David Leigh of the Guardian(UK) and Roman Shleynov of Novaya Gazeta (Russia). David and Roman are the recipients of the 2008 Integrity Awards. The winners of the Integrity Awards are extremely brave individuals who often accept great personal risk to expose corruption, as Georg sadly had to highlight a short while ago. This is what TI says:

Transparency International’s (TI) Integrity Awards honour the work of these courageous individuals and organisations that make a real difference in the fight against corruption. From accountants and public prosecutors to government officials and pharmacologists, their backgrounds may be diverse, but the message is the same: corruption can be beaten.

TI’s 2008 Integrity Awards pay tribute to two remarkable investigative journalists, David Leigh and Roman Shleynov, whose untiring determination to expose corrupt dealings in the face of formidable odds serve as inspiration to the anti-corruption movement.

A slideshow with photos from this year’s ceremony can be viewed here.

On Wednesday then, Global Integrity published their 2008 report. It’s an incredibly rich set of data, not least with regard to the qualitative information it contains and what I love is that they’ve used a number of really simple but very effective tools to communicate their findings. I first received the news of publication through my rss-reader, downloaded the mp3 of the press call from their website and then enjoyed seeing and reading the data in this google maps mashup:

View Larger Map

Finally, a European Union-wide petition campaign to promote anti-corruption in the EU’s overseas affairs, as well as across the union was launched by a cross-party group of MEPs. The petition is aimed at gathering one million signatures of EU citizens and counts with the support of Global Witness and Transparency International. It calls for the following:

The EU should ensure transparent and predictable aid flows to partner countries, so that it is clear to recipient countries what can be expected;

The EU should require extractive companies (i.e. companies involved in mining, etc.) regulated in EU jurisdictions to fully disclose payments made to governments of the countries where they operate;

The EU should better coordinate its efforts to halt tax evasion and the illicit financial activities that are made possible through use of ‘offshore heavens’ and advocate, at the global level, for strict regulation of off-shores;

The EU, the US and other partners should share a list of officials (and their immediate family members) against whom there is credible evidence of corrupt activity; targeted individuals should be ineligible for ownership of property in EU Members States and the assets of targeted individuals held in European bank accounts should be frozen;

The EU should prioritise the fight against corruption in all EU policies and spending.

 

If you’re a EU citizen, consider signing up at http://www.stopcorruption.eu to express your support before June this year.

Why bother about this year’s Davos and the Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum?

World Economic Forum opening a window for discussion? Copyright by World Economic Forum

Especially, as one of the impressions I got from this year’s meeting was the feeling of helplessness in the discussions on how to tackle the economic crisis. I think that this challenge the world is facing needs to come with the recognition for two dominating aspects of the solution, and that might scare some to take the next step: one being the need for letting go of conventional approaches; and the other being the request for a new openness and transparency.

At least, questions of ethics and accountability have been included in the agenda this year. But, the promise of this new era of responsibility has to be monitored by everyone. Where, in the era of social media, are the masses on the streets, holding the people responsible accountable?

Sometimes I might sound too optimistic, but I think there has been some interesting input through social media. And while these channels still seem very much a side event, have a look at:

• Nearly 80,000 viewers have watched the video of the Forum’s youtube-contest by Colombian Pablo Camacho, 24, discussing the need for a n International Code of Ethics for CEO’s. His suggestions may not be taken up right away, but can serve as a perfect motto for 2009: “Make money, but do not harm others”.

• And also have a look at the impact of social media at Davos, and especially of Twitter, via this nice sum-up by James Conell on the New York Times.

Here you can find the official page of all social media channels by the WEF. And here Transparency International’s requests to the world’s leaders.

Here’s an interesting question for everyone working on transparency, accountability and corruption: How can election monitoring contribute to promoting democracy, human rights and good governance?

The question is posed by the New Tactics in Human Rights Project and the discussions on this and other questions can be accessed here.

Elections are an ideal opportunity for looking into how social media concepts can be used to support a fair and democratic process of choosing a country’s government. Lack of transparency goes hand in hand with opportunities for fraud and undue influence, from the very practical measure of excluding electoral observers, to the more complex uncertainty about the amounts of monies spent in the campaign. Already, a range of tools are used to monitor elections and election day irregularities.

Let me just give you two examples:

1. A very nice one, is the iChoose Election Observer, a complaint database developed by Transparency Maldives, fulfilling two objectives: to facilitate the reporting of election-related complaints to the proper authorities on the one hand; and to monitor how these complaints are being processed on the other.
   It shows a very practical way of on election day monitoring, engaging citizens, combining text messaging, social media (a facebook group ), and a very effective way of making fraudulent action transparent.
2. The second example is a project called Base de Datos de Publicidad Oficial (Data base of Official Publicity) by Transparency International’s national chapter in Argentina, Poder Ciudadano, that lists the money spent by the government to the media on advertising. The main part of the project is a searchable data base including the allocation of official advertising since 2000 for all channels, such as radio, TV, cinema, newspapers etc.

The New Tactics in Human Rights Project promotes tactical innovation and strategic thinking within the international human rights community, by promoting the use and sharing of as wide a range of tactics as possible. One of its tools are debates held online, open for everyone for discussion.

Transparency International has initiated a project on political finance and campaign financing in Latin America, now being adapted to other regions.

But, as one discussion entry rightly states,

“Election observation should (…) not be a one-off event. Institutions and organisations should make a firm commitment to stay involved, not only by observing consecutive elections, but also by staying engaged in between elections.”

And I would maybe add, every citizen needs to stay engaged in between elections, holding their leaders accountable.

How to promote anti-corruption activities and transparency in countries with challenging political environments for civil society organisations and journalists such as the Middle East?

Again, the internet is one of the most promising channels, according to Hany Ibrahim from the Development and Institutionalization Support Center DISC, as he states in an article just published on PoliticsOnline titling In Egypt, Fighting Corruption through Internet.

The organisation has developed an interesting website called Nazaha meaning “Transparency and Integrity” aiming at raising public awareness about corruption. The website, available only in Arabic,

provides downloadable tools for journalists, members of elected Local Councils, and NGO’s leaders, enabling them to investigate, uncover, and fight corruption. Moreover, the website monitors and documents corruption cases circulated by 23 (party, state-run, and independent) newspapers. The documentation is divided into seven categories: (1) corruption in health sector; (2) corruption in housing; (3) corruption in primary education; (4) corruption in higher education; (5) corruption in transportation; (6) corruption in supplies; and (7) corruption in local administrative units. The documentation is necessary for analysis of the data and interpretation of the causes and effects of corruption on the life of the people, particularly the poor and the marginalized.

A similar concept is followed by a project undertaken by Transparency International’s Moroccan chapter under the name Observatoire National de la Corruption.

These examples show that sometimes very easy concepts such as gathering and documenting relevant information already available in the public sphere, such as newspapers and news magazines, in one place, preferably available online, as well as providing key advocates with materials may they need to make their case, can be incredibly powerful.

Documenting and categorizing corruption cases is important. But making them public by matching and mapping them in an easy and accessible fashion should be the next important step to identify hotspots of corruption in a given country. Public monitoring, including by the affected citizen, will be the most effective process to effect change on public institutions.

The assassination of Sri Lankan journalist Lasantha Wickramatunga comes as a shock to the anti-corruption community. Wickramatunga was editor of the Sunday Leader and winner of Transparency International’s 2000 Integrity Award, awarded to honor his fearless efforts in exposing corruption in Sri Lankan politics.

Sanjana Hattotuwa from Vikalpa, a citizen journalism initiative located in Sri Lanka, posts an interesting comment on ICT for Peacebuilding (ICT4Peace) stating that:

It’s really horrible that it takes an event of such a tragic nature to propel our work higher in this list [top 100 list on YouTube amongst Reporter’s Channel worldwide], but it does also demonstrate once again that short videos on YouTube in particular, and online video in general, can be a powerful platform for activism and advocacy. (…)

Vikalpa’s YouTube Channel channel reaches and generates far more people and interest respectively than its website, which gets around 350 readers on average a day. This is significant in a country that does not enjoy good bandwidth (most of the viewers and readers are from Sri Lanka). It suggests that online video – especially short videos – can be and are re-distributed, cross-featured, emailed the links to, embedded, downloaded and copied and if their license allows it, re-worked and re-edited to create viral campaigns, including those on social networks such as Facebook and Myspace, that can meaningfully strengthen real world activism and advocacy against violence.

These observations are very relevant when looking at supporting, recognising and advocating for the work anti-corruption activists all around the globe, but also, when looking at covering corruption by activists such as the series of YouTube-videos on police corruption in Morocco show (see example).

Sunday Leader Editor in Chief Lasantha Wickremetunge murdered – English, documentary by Vikalpa.

A video on the 2000 Integrity Awards ceremony will be available on YouTube shortly and integrated in this post [Unfortunately we couldn't make this available as digitalizing the VCR was not possible for an affordable amount].

For more information see TI’s international press release, the press release of TI’s chapter in Sri Lanka, as well as a feature by the BBC.