A Critique of the eConsultations Conducted by the Uganda Parliament ICT Committee

7/29/2019 A Critique of the eConsultations Conducted by the Uganda Parliament ICT Committee

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A Critique of the eConsultations conducted by the Uganda Parliament ICT Committee

By Wairagala Wakabi, researcher with the Collaboration on International ICT Policy for East andSouthern Africa (CIPESA),www.cipesa.orgKampala-UgandaEmail:[email protected]

Abstract

Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) are enabling governments to expeditiously reach

out to citizens who are at times excluded from public deliberations and policy-making processes. From

the offer of electronic services, to provision of information and the gathering of citizens opinions, ICTs

are facilitating swift and cost-effective communication between public officials and the public. One of

the areas that is gaining currency in developed countries is eConsultations, or the use of ICT to elicit

public opinion on policies or activities.

But while eConsultations have great benefits, they are only beginning to be employed in developing

countries such as Uganda, where a myriad of challenges are ranged against them, including low literacy

rates, minimal internet usage, and exorbitant bandwidth costs.

For eConsultations to succeed, some prerequisites should be navigated carefully. Although there are no

well-established models on evaluation of eConsultations, we conducted an extensive literature study

through which we identified factors prevalent in some contemporary models. We then studied the

consultations conducted by the Ugandan Parliamentary ICT Committee on three bills, testing how these

measured up against some of the factors we had identified in the literature.

The paper concludes that although the eConsultations carried out by the Ugandan Parliamentary ICT

Committee do not measure up to most of these identified factors, they are enabling some people to

provide meaningful input to policy-making, and they present a learning experience which Ugandan

public institutions could build on to increase ICT-based communication within government and withcitizens. The fact that few Ugandans are online subtracts from the potential effect of the eConsultations

as a tool for promoting eParticipation, and we argue that at the moment the eConsultations do not

appear to be reaching groups of Ugandans that are normally left out of deliberations and consultations.

A Critique of the eConsultations conducted by the Uganda Parliament ICT Committee

Introduction

Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) are enabling Governments to engage more

effectively with some of their citizens at a time of dwindling citizen participation in democratic affairs.

This 'eParticipation', which enables citizens to engage with fellow citizens as well as with their leaders

through the use of ICTs, therefore holds much promise for countries such as Uganda which are trying to

increase the efficiency, accountability and inclusiveness of government.

Governments are increasingly developing new methods to provide easier and wider access to

government information and to achieve broader and deeper consultation with citizens (Whyte &

Macintosh 2002). One of the main forms of enabling eParticipation are online consultations, or
http://www.cipesa.org/http://www.cipesa.org/http://www.cipesa.org/mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]://www.cipesa.org/


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eConsultations, which are defined as the use of ICT to involve the public through different forms of

interaction with our democratic institutions, with the intention to elicit inputs that contribute to more

sustainable or robust decision-making (Peters, J. & Manon A. 2008).

According to OECD (2001), information, consultation and active participation provide government

with a better basis for policy-making, enabling it to become a learning organisation. At the same time, it

ensures more effective implementation, as citizens become well informed about the policies and takepart in their development.

It is widely recognised that eConsultations could play a fundamental role in addressing the so-called

'democracy deficit' which sees citizens in many countries excluded from participation in the governance

and democratic affairs in their countries (OECD 2001; Dalton, R. J. & Kuechler, M. 1990). Indeed, as

Peters, J. & Manon A. (2008) posit, eConsultations can present the different perspectives on an issue

and facilitate a deliberative exploration, allow the public to engage in civic discourse and dialogue, and

close the gap between citizen expectations and what leaders actually deliver.

A number of researchers (Whyte and Macintosh 2002; Muhammad, R.1995; Arnst, R. 1996) argue that

participation in the top down incumbent democracy is largely characterised by voting, by normalisedinteraction within structured groups and by orderly civic involvement. But these researchers add that

under the so-called incumbent democracy, the top-down orientation often leads to failure, with electoral

reforms and devolution of power to regional assemblies having minimal effect on voter turnout. These

democracy deficits, in turn, are some of the scenarios that eConsultations seek to respond to.

This paper critiques the eConsultations conducted by the ICT Committee of the Parliament of Uganda

using a number of benchmarks prevalent in contemporary literature. The evaluation focuses on the

consultations on three bills: 1) The Interception of Communications Bill, which took place during

February and March 2009; and 2) The National Information Technology Authority (NITA) Bill,

conducted during April-May 2009, and the Cyber Laws Bill discussed during February to April 2009.

The Problem

Public organisations face a challenge of communicating effectively with citizens. This is because there

are various publics that need to be reached, and diverse messages to be communicated. ICT-based

communication, by being fast, cost effective and increasingly ubiquitous, holds much promise for

easing the public sector organisations communication, besides improving transparency and

participation. But in spite of the potential, the use of ICT in public sector communication in Uganda is

fairly new and largely undocumented. eConsultations are indeed a new phenomenon in Uganda, and

this paper therefore sought to review how this mode of communication and consultation was fairing in

its infancy stage in Uganda.

Whyte & Macintosh (2002) argue that democratic participation must involve both the means to be

informed and the mechanisms to take part in the decision-making. They add that over the last decade

there has been a gradual awareness of the need to consider new tools for public engagement that enable

a wider audience to contribute to the policy debate and where contributions themselves are broader and

deeper - enhancing deliberation so as to better inform and influence the policy process.

In the same line, OECD (2001) defines three types of interaction between governments and citizens that


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aim to entrench democracy, and which communicating with the use of ICT makes easier to achieve. The

first is 'Information', which involves government producing and delivering information for use by

citizens. This is one-way participation and does not involve citizens providing feedback or producing

information and taking part in debates. On the other hand, under the 'Consultation' stage, there is a two-

way exchange of information; government defines the issue for consultation, sets the questions and

manages the process, with citizens asked to submit opinions on the issues at hand.

A more advanced stage, according to OECD, is 'Active participation and this is defined as a

relationship based on partnership with government in which citizens actively engage in defining the

process and content of policy-making. This stage is a step higher than 'Consultation' because it

acknowledges equal standing for citizens in setting the agenda, proposing policy options and shaping

the policy dialoguealthough the responsibility for the final decision or policy formulation rests with

government (OECD 2001).

Increasingly, eConsultations are being used by state organs, including Parliaments, to engage citizens

and to get their views on a range of policy issues. The UK Parliament, for instance, regularly runs a

number of eConsultations. The mode in which the UK Parliament carries out eConsultations is different

from the way the Uganda ICT Committee does theirs. The UK has an online presence where citizenscan read what others are saying, see the issues the Government is seeking views on, and make their own

submissions. On the other hand, the Ugandan Committee relies on a list-serv that is not government-

owned.

During the March-to June 2009 period, for example, seven e-Consultations were carried out according

to the UK Parliament's e-forums website. The subjects of the consultations were: 1) Securing the future

of the Post office 2) Attitudes on UK's aid to the poor 3) What students think of the university

admissions' process 4) Traders views on the performance of retail markets 5) Improving the

performance of the House of Lords 5) Challenges facing prisons officers 6) Why women, disabled

people and people from ethnic minorities are under-represented in the House of Commons (Parliament

Forum 2009).

List-servs, such as the one the Ugandan committee uses, have been reported to offer some advantages

which some online participation tools might not have. Critics argue that one of the drawbacks of

eConsultation is that it does not always provide the opportunity for the community to hear the concerns

of other members and can often hinder one's sense of engagement in the process. However, argue the

critics, the consultation method that addresses this problem is the listserv or online forum where

citizens and hosts of the discussion can all participate in the same discussion via email.

Chadwick (2006) observes that the relative anonymity of the online world renders individuals less

accountable for their action so they feel empowered to speak up against more powerful actors because

they have less fear of punishment. Besides, e-consultations provide the opportunity for individuals to

participate who would not usually be interested in the traditional methods of consultation, for example

community meetings, longer workshops or large group interventions which can take days to complete.

Additionally, the e-consultation process can provide flexible options for input, such as allowing citizens

the choice of when and where from to participate from (Gehring V.D (ed) 2007; Chadwick 2006)

In spite of their several merits, e-Consultations have their own downside, which means that they are not

always a magic bullet for enhancing citizen engagement and participation. Language difficulties,


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insufficient computer skills, and difficulty in comprehending text can be big challenges.

For Uganda and many other developing countries, the problems go beyond these, and many resolve

around the fact that few citizens (in Uganda's case only 8 percent of the population) are online. There

are a myriad reasons why: low bandwidth, high costs of internet access, shortage of local (language)

content, low levels of literacy. So the use of online methods of citizen engagement would have to be

minimal and to involve the same population that largely has access to other forms of information andparticipation mechanisms. This therefore tends to undermine eConsultation and eParticipation

generally.

The Ugandan ICT Committee often conducts online communication on bills and issues that are under

consideration by the committee. The consultations are conducted through the I-Network listserv, the

multi-stakeholder mail discussion group on ICT issues. How it works normally is that the chairman of

the committee writes to the d-group introducing and explaining the issue they need citizens to provide

views on. The Committee chairs moderates the discussions for a period of time, and at the end of the

discussions gives a round upand then later on feedback on the summary of the views collected and

how the Committee has taken them into consideration.

Methodology:

Whyte and Macintosh (2002) indicate that there is a clear lack of an accepted framework on how to

evaluate and measure the impact of e-democracy systems in general and e-consultations in particular.

Equally, the OECD while pointing to a number of best practice guidelines developed by some

countries, also acknowledges that there is no universal guideline for assessing eConsultations.

However, there is widespread literature on some success factors for eConsultations, and even a model

by Whyte and Macintosh. The factors which were used in this paper are picked from various literature,

representing those that are prevalent and applicable to the sort of consultations which the Uganda

Parliament's ICT Committee carries out.

The methodology for this paper included a literature review on eParticipation, on eParticipation indeveloping countries such as Uganda, as well as on eConsultations. The literature review aimed to

understand the current debate and practice on eParticipation and eConsultations. The literature review

enabled the author to identify from the literature some factors that help eConsultations to achieve their

objectives. After identifying some of these factors, the Ugandan consultations were then critiqued

against these benchmarks. The results are presented in a table that captures how the consultations on

each of the three Bills faired against the benchmarks. A discussion of the performance of the Ugandan

consultations against some of the identified best practice follows.

Results

This section presents the results of the evaluation of the eConsultations which are carried out by the

Uganda ICT Committee. The first part of the section lays down the major factors identified in literature

as contributing to eConsultations achieving their objectives. The second part then tests these factors

against the Ugandan consultations.

Evaluation benchmarks for eConsultations

An evaluation framework for eConsultations developed by Whyte and Macintosh, 2002 list various

factors that could be studied. These include whether the eConsultation process was conducted as

planned; whether the consultation objectives and what was expected of the citizens made clear; how


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well the consultation reached the target audience; and how appropriate the information provided was.

Other factors are whether feedback was provided during and after the consultation; and finally, if there

was an impact on policy content.

McNutt K & and McKay C (2008) argue that for eConsultations to achieve their objectives, there must

be four prerequisites: public awareness, issue literacy, willingness to provide feedback and political

will. Additionally, according to Peters, J. & Manon A. (2008) for public involvement to be consideredgenuine, it must be able to contribute to the decision-making process. While this should not mean that

the public should make the ultimate decision, its input must be considered and used by those requesting

public involvement. There are a range of other eConsultations best practices in literature, and here

below we present the ones that predominate in the literature reviewed.

Table 1 showing some of the predominant eConsultations best practices identified in literature

Best practice Explanation

Provide balanced

information

This information should allow for thoughtful consideration of the issue

without the hosts of the eConsultations being seen as biased or paternalistic

Use information from

eConsultations fordecision-making

The opinions generated in eConsultations should be taken into account by

the hosts in reaching a decision. The eConsultations should not be meretokenism.

Host of eConsultations

should provide feedback

eConsultation hosts should provide full transcript of the consultation,

summarize input and respond to citizens priorities and policy concerns

Use simple language Use simple, straight-forward language and style and tone that allow for users

to easily understand the message and respond to it

Issue literacy A basic knowledge of the policy issue being consulted on is necessary for

participants to provide meaningful feedback.

Identifying target

populations

Existing email networks can be used to advertise consultation events, and

that hosts of eConsultations could consider creating email contact lists to

broaden the pool of participants

Table by author based on factors identified in various literature on eConsultations


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Fig 2: Performance of the Ugandan consultations against various eConsultation evaluation

benchmarks (ratings done by author based on study of the consultations history against benchmarks

in literature)

Interception of

Communications Bill

Cyber Laws Bill National Information

Technology AgencyBill

Provide

balanced

information

The Committee

explained the rationale

for the Bill as explained

by the security minister

but voiced concerns

regarding misuse of the

law and violating

privacy

Committee did not

provide balanced

information. There

are various bills

(computer misuse, e-

transactions,

signatures) lumped

together in the

eConsultation

without each beingexplained

General information

about the bill was

provided but not

implications. The

information was not

deep and sufficient

enough to support

informed discussions

Host of

eConsultatio

ns should

provide

feedback

The host provided

feedback on what views

were generated, and

how they were

integrated

The host provided

feedback on what

views were

generated, and how

they were integrated

The host provided

feedback on what

views were generated,

and how they were

integrated

Use simple

language

Very simple and clear

language used that made

the issue understandable

even to lay people

Probably due to

complexity of various

bills covered,

Committee didnt

give plain language

information

To a large extent,

simple language was

used but explanations

were insufficient

Issue

literacy

Great issue literacy

though this related only

to tapping phones not

other communications

There was minimal

issue literacy

Average issue literacy.

More could have been

done by the Committee

Use

information

from

eConsultatio

ns fordecision-

making

Committee took up most

of views from the

eConsultations and used

them to bar the security

ministry fromprogressing with the Bill

as it was

The Bill is yet to be

handled by the

Committee so it is yet

to be seen

The Bill was passed

and largely reflected

many of the views that

came up in the

eConsultations

Identifying

target

populations

Very high awareness of

the bill which

discussants renamed the

phone tapping bill

making it relevant to

members of the

Committee failed to

explain the gist and

implications of these

bills. Few readers

seemed

knowledgeable

Information provided

was not comprehensive

for an average person

to know what was at

stake


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eConsultations and

therefore drawing much

debate

judging from number

& quality of

responses

Discussion

The eConsultations being conducted by the ICT Committee are able to reach a great number of the

stakeholders and experts in the Ugandan ICT community. This community is always eager to provideinput to legislation that affect the sector, and the diverse skills and experiences of its members means

that if the eConsultations are conducted diligently then the Committee will be able to get very useful

views while at the same time enabling citizens to play a role in making policies and legislation. At the

moment there does not appear to be any other forum at which the Committee can effectively and

efficiently gather the kinds of inputs, or have the kind of interactions with sector players and citizens, as

is the case with the eConsultations.

According to our findings, sometimes the Committee did not explain at length the issue to be discussed

as well as to highlight some of the areas they might mostly need input on. The entire Bills under debate

have been placed in a forum where eConsultations participants can view/download it. However, as per

the review we conducted the Committee did not always explained the Bills well, or the kinds of inputthey seek. This has been the case with the cyber laws bills, and this could have affected the very low

number of responses that were received on these consultations.

On the Committee reporting back to the members consulted, it was noted that always the Parliamentary

Service compiles the various responses that emerge from the eConsultations. The chairman of the ICT

Committee sums up the discussions at the end. Once the committee is through with receiving views

some of the additional ones are got from Government officials and other stakeholders during physical

meetings with the Committee - the Committee reports back to the eConsultations. The information is

integrated into the recommendations that the committee makes. Hence, it can be said that the

eConsultations are actually enabling citizens in Uganda to input into policy processes in the ICT arena.

With regard to the volume of responses, these are not always very many but quality was high and the

value of the views which the Committee receives is quite comparable to what the Committee receives

in face-to-face meetings. The eConsultations, besides helping the committee to garner the views of key

stakeholders, also achieve a double objective of getting its work and the Bills and Acts it handles

publicised. This in itself is a key prerequisite for effective eParticipation: a well-informed citizenry.

Among lessons learnt are that people seem happy to contribute if they understand the issues and how

they will be affected be these issues. In the case of the Parliamentary ICT Committee, the consultations

have been held on bills that are to be debated by Parliament, and understanding the implications of

these proposed laws has been critical in having meaningful discussions. Perhaps the most illustrative

example was the Interception of Communications Bill, which most discussants preferred to refer to as

the phone tapping bill. That set out the billas intrusive on peoples privacy; everyone could

understand how the bill was going to affect them, and so they took an interest in understanding it and

debating the proposals in the bill which they found objectionable.

Careful, well-thought moderation of eConsultations tended to help the consultations to achieve their

objectives of informing citizens and having them voice useful concerns which the Committee would

take into consideration while handling the bills. Where objectives seemed met to a larger extent were in


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cases where the Committee appeared more prepared by giving detailed information on the bills, by

explaining its implications, by always responding to the concerns raised by participants in the

eConsultations.

Unfortunately, the ICT committee does not always seem to systematically plan and structure the

consultations. Even with their shortcomings, however, they have provided the Parliamentary ICT

Committee with an opportunity to leverage on ICT to promote inclusive policy-making and at a widerlevel to promote greater participation of citizens in their governance.

Deepening and reforming democracy requires involving more people in deliberations. But for Uganda's

case, it does not seem that eConsultations are enabling a big group of excluded citizens to take part in

the public debate.

Besides, the fact that the consultations are not well-structured, and that they do not have a permanent

record available in the public domain also subtracts from their effectiveness. For Uganda,

eConsultations cannot come anywhere near face-to-face meetings in enabling those who are

marginalised or excluded to air their voices. They do not bring into public deliberation voices that do

not have opportunity to e heard under the traditional deliberative and participation mechanisms.Instead, they offer an extra platform to fairly well-educated and good income earners, who are already

aware of how to participate using the traditional off-line forums. One could therefore conclude that

eConsultations in Uganda remain an elitist forum which might be offering members of the middle class

an extra way to participate but might not be bringing into the fold any citizens that were previously

excluded. The Uganda ICT Committee's eConsultations are informing the policy process, because they

target an audience that is well-versed with the area of ICT and has a keen policy in influencing policy.

Conclusion

The eConsultations carried out by the Uganda Parliaments ICT Committee enable some people to

provide meaningful input. Citizens can input from the comfort of their office or homes, they have agreater amount of time to reflect on the issues at hand and could therefore be able to provide more

meaningful comments. There is a pool of information from the Committee - and from other members of

the discussion - at their disposal so they ideally could discuss from an informed position.

But it is clear that the eConsultations are at the moment not having more people involved than in

conventional consultations. Neither do they appear to be reaching groups of Ugandans that are normally

excluded from deliberations and consultations. The fact that there are few Ugandans online subtracts

from the (potential) effect of eConsultations as a tool for promoting eParticipation. But it in no way

renders them a useless tool. At the moment, the eConsultations are a good starting point and the

experience of the ICT Committee should encourage Parliament to extend eConsultations to wider

sections of Ugandans. The Ugandan Government, and Parliament, should also consider using more

mediums than the listserv that is currently used, with consideration being given to having a permanent

online forum for eConsultations as is the case with the UK Parliament.


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References

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Oxford University Press, New York.

3 Dalton, R. (2002). Citizen PoliticsPublic opinion and political parties in advanced industrialdemocracies; third edition; Seven Bridges Press: New York

4 Dalton, R. J. and Kuechler, M. (eds) (1990) Challenging the Political Order. Cambridge: Polity.5 Gehring, V.G. (ed) The Internet in public life.6 Muhammad, R. A. (1995) Participatory Development: Toward Liberation or Co-optation? in

Craig and Mayo, Community Empowerment, pp. 2432.

7 OECD. (2002). Public Management Policy Brief: Engaging Citizens in Policy Making:Information, Consultation, and Public Participation Paris, OECD.

8 Parliament Forum (2009). The Commons online Forum,forums.parliament.uk/ ; accessed June4 2009

9 Peters, J. & Manon A. (2008). E-Consultation: Enabling Democracy between ElectionsChoices, IRPP , Vol. 15, no. 1, January 2009

10 Whyte, A. and Macintosh, A. (2002). Analysis and Evaluation of e-consultations;www.teledemocracy.org; accessed June 17 2009
http://www.teledemocracy.org/http://www.teledemocracy.org/http://www.teledemocracy.org/

A Critique of the eConsultations Conducted by the Uganda Parliament ICT Committee

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