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Seizing the Moment: Open Architecture Approach for Progressive Change

Explore the dynamics of East Africa's political economy, emphasizing citizen engagement, information flow, and the importance of experimentation for transformative reforms.

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Seizing the Moment: Open Architecture Approach for Progressive Change

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  1. Seizing the moment:An open architecture approach based on sussing out what's workingand nudging progressive change Rakesh Rajani, Twaweza June 22, 2010

  2. This moment in East Africa • Little faith in governments… or the new leader • Ideologies, paradigms shaky • Tiredness and cynicism about development and reforms • A sense that we need to look in the mirror and take charge, somehow • A thirst for (and skepticism about) new ideas • Unprecedented opportunities enabled by new technologies, at incredibly accelerated pace and scale

  3. Where I’m coming from • Looking at the political economy of reforms sideways, based on what they look like on the ground • Observations based on walkabouts across Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda in 2008 and immersions in Lake Zone of Tanzania in late 2009

  4. There are two worlds out there

  5. INGOs, NGOs, CBOssocial accountability projectscommunity PETSworkshops, seminars, allowances(myth of the motivations of organized civil society,conflating CSOs with citizens)

  6. Back to our two worlds

  7. Don’t be surprised For as long as donors continue to locate efforts solely on the right hand world • Reforms wont get very far • or endure • or be meaningful • or significantly owned • except in few cases when you are lucky

  8. Do no harm?

  9. So what do you instead?Work with the left hand side

  10. What networks matter to people?(that would endure even if every aid $ dried up)

  11. Back to our two worlds

  12. If the left hand world is so inspiring, what is the most important thing that do you do with it?

  13. Fuel Information flows • Make it easier for people to get, make, share information and ideas • Information about rights, laws and budgets – yes – but more important are comparisons, stories of change • Don’t insist on ‘noble’ information • Stimulate informed public debate • Its about fueling the imagination

  14. What might this look likeon the ground?

  15. H

  16. H

  17. H

  18. H

  19. H  

  20. Examples of Twaweza initiatives • Uwezo (citizens monitoring whether schooling leads to learning) • Daraja (using SMS to monitor water-point functionality) • CU@School (monitoring school attendance) • Daladala TV (daily reality debate in a public bus) • Nation Media/Sahara Media (nudging investigative journalism, citizen viewpoints) For more : visit www.twaweza.org

  21. Four concluding thoughts

  22. 1. It’s the public, stupid • Leaders and politicians will do the right thing when their publics compel them to do so

  23. 2. Its about an open architecture • Its not linear; its messy, unpredictable • Personal, people pick and choose, decide what they want to know, to do • Contingent, opportunistic, responsive, nimble more important than having it figured out • Direct citizen engagement, not intermediated • Every day stuff, low transaction costs (not meetings) • Density of networks / ‘thickness’ of possibilities that reinforces action

  24. 3. Its about the underlying conditions and realigning incentives, not projects • Help create (or rather piggyback on) the fertile ground for flexible citizen knowing and action • Within that domain make it easier for, nudge, back-up the people and the stuff that’s progressive • This will help reduce the unhealthy status equilibrium and dominance of the State • Realign the incentives on elite performance • And eventually enable the conditions for a new equilibrium where people reclaim the right hand world (state institutions, public resources)

  25. 4. Hooray for experimentation • Will this work? We have no idea, but there are compelling reasons to try it out. • We need bolder R&D, more risk-taking… … along with rigorous measurement, evaluation and learning … and a commitment to communicating findings openly, honestly, interestingly • That’s as good as it gets

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