Brief Overview : Decentralized Digital Tools Empowering Citizens to Take Back Sovereignty

In recent years, a succession of uprisings against corruption, inequality and bad governance have broken out worldwide. According to Carnegie Endowment for International Peace protest tracker, since 2017, more than one hundred « significant anti government protests have erupted across the globe » and at least eight others have reached one million protesters or more.

Furthermore, despite the seemingly unfavorable conditions for protests, mass demonstrations have begun to return at a notable rate and scale in the past months. As some states seize the opportunity to expand their powers and authority amid pandemic, people become more distrustful of the government’s motives and ability to manage resources, to protect their civil liberties and to deliver public services effectively.

Trust is essential for democracies. It enhances the legitimacy of governments and is a key contributor to sustaining well-being outcomes, including economic development. Although trust is considered one of the critical components of good governance (Wu, Ma and Yu, 2017), public trust in governments has decreased significantly in recent decades (Park et al., 2015). According to a global report released by the Edelman Trust Barometer in 2019, only 49% of the general population trust their government, with South Africa, Spain, Colombia experiencing the lowest levels of trust.

Studies demonstrate that transparency increases the degree of trust (Park and Blenkinsopp, 2011). It is the most powerful solution, the cornerstone of one of the most intangible problems of democratic governance: the increasing distrust of citizens towards the government. Zhao and Hu (2017) define transparency as a strategic responsibility, essential to enhance trust in relationships. In addition, transparency creates a climate of trust among people and encourages them to believe more in governments, fostering an environment of openness that allows citizens to control institutions and participate in decision-making.

With the emergence of digital tools and a broader internet penetration all over the world, including in developing countries, there is a need for a transparent system that can map the government’s institutions and enable feedback from public opinion in the form of issues, concerns, solutions, proposals, advantages and disadvantages. One such powerful tool holds all the essentials to improve the relationship between the general public and the government as it strongly put emphasis on maintaining transparency, enhancing public participation and upgrading the quality of service.

Project Summary

This project proposes an innovative approach which unitizes the capabilities of technology and the ability of the local communities to connect with each other in order to form an organized structure for efficient monitoring and controlling of public institutions and their initiative for the general public. The main goal of this project is to enhance transparency in government working and increase the communication between citizens and policy makers by providing a transparent public participation platform towards better policy decisions and functioning public institutions.

In order to do this, the project team will implement an open source platform that will map the organisational structures of public service at all levels and will enable communities to visualise the hierarchy of responsible authorities, as well as to flag issues related to corruption, quality of the public services, inequity and other violations next to the corresponding authority cell.

In order to involve vulnerable groups or people without access to the internet, the project team will identify regional and local coordinators on a voluntary basis that will be in charge of collecting complaints and proofing data from those communities or counterparts. In the same time, the coordinators will help with mapping the local authorities organogram directly on the platform and with formulating open letters to responsible authorities, once an issue has been flagged by the community and enough proof has been collected.

How will we do it?

• Defining the borders of the pilot target region
• Implementing the Hex platform
• Identifying, through influencers and social media, regional organisers that will be involved in:

• Assisting local organizers
• Promoting the platform and collecting complaints and proofing data from vulnerable communities
• Performing the organograms' mapping
• Formulating open letters

• Training regional organisers that will act as multipliers for local organisers
• Mapping the organisational structures of public service at central, regional and local level, mentioning the person in charge and their attributes
• Launching the platform

How will it work?

When people encounter an issue (corruption, quality of the public services, inequity), they can raise a red flag linked to the corresponding authority or institution at fault, with a short or more detailed description. Other people from the community will be able to endorse/validate or discard the initial issue, comment, add proof or any other insight on the topic. Is the equivalent of reviews for a company.

If enough proof is collected (documents, large number of reporters, verifiable facts), the regional or local organiser will elaborate an open letter addressed to the responsible institution, with all the higher levels in the copy and a link to the original conversation. If no answer will be received, the letter will be addressed to the upper level and spread in the media. All appeals, course of action and timeline will be visible for every issue in a dedicated panel, on the map. When an issue is solved, under the validation of at least two counterparts, the flag will turn green.

Advantages

• It provides a 360-degree Government view, interactions between its institutions, as well as misalignments. This might be revealing in understanding conflicts of interest, blockage points or simply providing information to the population of who is in charge or accountable for a certain public service. In the same time, it allows public servants, higher placed in the hierarchy to closely monitor what is happening at the grass root level and put pressure
• It reaches vulnerable groups that have no access to technology or internet through their counterparts that act as information collectors
• It allows people to discuss subjects of public interest censored by the government
• Is open source, it doesn’t belong to anyone, licensed to each community (voting ward)
• Is interactive
• It can be linked to Petition platforms
• It provides advocacy material for NGOs

Risks and risk mitigation

• Large amounts of data / decentralized architecture
• People fearing being exposed / an option to remain anonymous
• Politicians ignoring the calls for intervention / reinforce messages with the media
• Lack of systematic funding; lack of continuity / involve NGOs