on similar exercises in Kenya and Uganda. Each of these studies confirmed that mas-sive (donor-funded) invest-ment may have polished up. MDG-related statistics and delivered some donor-darling brownie points. Yet, they are failing to deliver the meaningful education out-comes that are deemed key to ‘real development’. More example of new style T&A initiative can be found on Twaweza.org

Civic ExplorationsTransparency and Account-abilityIn a contribution to the Bro-ker Future calling conver-sation Rob Ammandele re-flects on the slow progress off global governance ar-rangements to curtail the en-during crises of food, fuel, fi-nance and climate change. The quest is on to find and kill ‘the thing that feeds the other ills’. Well here’s a candi-date: how about the growing global disconnect between 21st century citizens and the 20th century institutions that still governing their lives. In the previous two newsletters, we’ve explored a number of ‘revolt’ style on and off line responses. In this edition we shine our light on citizen-led efforts to promote Transpar-ency and Accountability, in short TAIs. Thriving on mass-communication and in par-ticular web 2.0 technology, TAIS such as budget tracking, citizen corruption watch and online vigilantism are taking the world by storm. Read on for an overview of the latest news in the TAI-field, its para-doxes and dilemma’s.

1 February 2012

growing collec-tion of Goog-le-maps and fit these with their own o v e r l a y -ers, have a look here at what’s possi-

ble. Platforms like Ushahidi

provide excel-lent examples and

services on how inter-active real-time mapping, which is increasingly used for the monitoring of elec-tions, natural disasters and violence. Check out for ex-ample, some of their conflict monitoring work in Syria and do get in touch with them to explore what they can do for your own T&A work, cam-paigns or research.

A T&A example:Uwezo’s ripple effectsLast year, Twaweza’s partner UWEZO delivered it’s second annual report about the state of Tanzanian basic educa-tion. It’s title: Our children are still not learning, pretty much covered its essence. There is no shortage of development reports. Yet this report stood out because it was built on large scaled quantitative comparative analysis from the grass-roots level up. This enabled Uwezo to provide solid, yet damning evidence on the quality of education. More and more children are attending school, yet many are not learning. With wide-spread popular press cov-erage and high level policy influence, the report sent shockwaves through Tan-zanian society. And Uwezo didn’t stop there. It embarked

Shifting Power?Assessing the Impact of TAIsAccountability and transpar-ency initiatives, both aided and non-aided, have taken democratisation, govern-ance, and development cir-cles by storm since the turn of the century, but what are they achieving? Based on an extensive review commis-sioned by the Transparency and Accountability Initia-tive, Rosemary McGEee and Jogn Gaventa conclude that the emerging evidence base is both ‘sparse’ and ‘thin’. They explore theories of change, emerging results and methodological issues around the impact. TAIs will continue to gain promi-nence in years to come but it is unlikely that they will turn out to be the magic bullets for fixing global democracy. Yet, that doesn’t make them less interesting as an object of study, weapon of civic ac-tion or a strategy for outside intervention. An excellent paper for the state of affairs of the T&A field

Mapping for T&AThe use of mapping tools for civic action is not exactly new. Social move-ments, NGOs and activists have long re-lied on map-ping tools for analysis, ad-vocacy and p l a n n i n g p u r p o s e s . What’s per-haps less well known, is that tools like Google Earth outreach have brought the use of state-of the art technology well with-in almost no cost reach of any civic actor. If you want to make use of the rich and

around open data (for e.g., people’s caste, religion and exact place in the social hierarchy can be revealed by something as simple as their name) and many instances of misuse. People with access to electoral databases have targeted and committed atrocities and

hate crimes against a particular ethnic group or religious minority. Information about HIV positive residents of a village have led to great ostracism as such data is not an-onymized.

While some presumed benefits of the Indian biometric and Big Data schemes appeal to nations paranoid about national security, immigration and porous borders, or seemingly offer a magic wand to clean up corruption, fraud and malaise – laudable

goals, all – imple-menting them without the req-uisite checks and balances by way of priva-cy laws, data protection prin-

ciples, informed consent and a ro-

bust public debate would be at best foolish, and at worst, dangerous. To proceed with the naïve view that Indians, for example, simply don’t care about privacy when their basic needs of food, shelter, clothing, employment and healthcare are not met, is not a ten-able or compelling argument against being guarded and proportional in the use of open data and the drive towards greater accountability and transparency. On the contrary, in a country that is still struggling with crippling poverty, disparity, discrimination, ossified social structures and illiteracy, those in a position of power have an even greater responsibility to design systems to be privacy preserving by default, to protect those who are incapable of the sophistry or ease around technology to make decisions about the use of their data. Unless the citizen is put back in the centre of the discourse, the very logic of open data col-lapses. Transparency is not a value in and of itself; humanizing systems and focusing on the real people behind the numbers and metrics is of paramount importance.

Transparency and accountability versus privacyIs transparency and accountability the magic bullet? Malavika Jayaram discusses the ‘Dark Side’ of big data and biometric project on the Hivos website. She questions whether this sort of massive information collection should be done at all, and under which circum-stances. Where does privacy end and transparency step in?

“Big data” projects generally, and biometric schemes in particular, have faced intense scrutiny and opposition the world over. Apart from posing fairly obvious threats to civil liber-ties and constitutional freedoms, they are prone to more practical errors around reliability, security, accuracy and access. India is one example of a country on the cusp of a radical shift towards increas-ing digitisation and e-governance, seemingly without much thought being given to the potential dangers of such technocratic ambitions.

Why do we need data projects? To put it very baldly, the argument often goes that the conservatives want to gather information allegedly for securi-ty reasons or to monitor deviant behaviour (the public order or national interest argument that often trumps individual rights and liberties); the liberals because they have figured out what is good for you and want to implement it whether you like it or not (the nanny state problem). In India, there is another high level goal, a laudable one if successfully achieved, and this is to eliminate or at least minimize the rampant and grotesque corruption that is en- demic to In-dian society. There is a desire to use data to expose the rot in the system, to disincentivize corrupt bureaucrats from taking bribes and siphoning monies, food grains and other pub-lic distribution away from their intended beneficiaries and recipients, as also to track and prevent misuse and fraud at the customer end.

In an era of increasing pressure for governments and agencies to promote transparency, openness and accountability in India, it would be easy for privacy to fall by the way side. It is often the case that there is an uneasy tension between transparency and account-ability on the one hand and privacy (and perhaps security) on the other. However, it is not quite the zero sum game that it is often portrayed as (i.e. you can have one or the other, not both). The issue can be better parsed if we think of transparency and accountability of state actors, versus the privacy of individuals and their sensitive personal information, and recognize that both serve important functions. In India, there are so many complex issues 2 February 2012

21st Robin Hood character is applauded, but the online vigilantism where Anoymous is hunting down individuals, raises many questions. Find out more in this CNN clip.

Also seeIn South Africa there are some interesting transparency and

a c countab i l i t y actions taking place to fight for the Right to Information and battle cor-ruption. The Right to Know Campaign is

trying to stop the Protection of Information Bill, also known as the Secrecy Bill and Corruption Watch is asking South Africans to take a stand against corruption.

Seekers, Finders,KeepersTech-inspired initiatives have dominated the headlines in developments around the T&A field. Yet, the case of MAZDOOR KISAN SHAKTI SANGATHAN(MKSS)  in India demonstrates that there is more to innovation than just technology.  A key driving force behind the right to in-formation movement in In-dia, MKSS has over two dec-ades of experience in using low-tech cost effective strat-egies to achieve large num-bers of citizens in the remot-est areas of India.   They have done this for example, by painting budget perfor-mances and public work schemes on walls all over Rajasthan. on the site you can find plenty of exam-ples of other effective strat-egies.   In the article, Shriya Mohan describes how their transparency initiatives are promoting accountability.

3 February 2012

Consent of theNetworkedRebecca MacKinnon has launched her new book: Consent of the Networked. The book is a call to action and shows that it is time to stop arguing over whether the Internet empowers peo-

ple, and address the urgent question of how tech-nology should be governed to support the rights and liberties of users around the world.

The right to information Act is capable of trans-forming lives. Yet, with a few more stubborn examples, Mohan leaves us with an im-portant point: Social change remains a matter of strug-gle.  And as with other strategies of social ac-tion, the effec-tiveness of T&A i n t e r v e n t i o n s probably strong-ly depends on the broader social mobilization dynamics in which they take place.

Intangible world of Anoymous The tension in the growing disconnect between citi-

zens and institutions be-comes clear when one looks atAnonymous. They are leaderless and intangible but see that world as a place where the riot police

attacks citizens with impunity and democracy is corrupted by greed. The group gives voices to the grievances felt by ‘powerless’ individuals around the world and re-gains power by holding those accountable, by sometimes unorthodox actions. Their

ColophonCivic Exploration February 2012 © Hivos Knowledge Programme Editors: Remko Berkhout & Fieke JansenContact: info@hivos.net

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AboutCitizen action for social change ter-rain is currently witnessing fundamen-tal changes that are challenging aca-demics, policy makers and practitioners

alike. On the surface, the Arab Spring, a global summer of protest and the

Occupy movement are indicat-ing a new wave of social mobi-

lization. Beyond the headlines, global crises, technology, de-mography and the evolution of the hegemonic neo-liberal paradigm are fuelling fun-damental shifts in the way in which citizens are organizing

and claiming their rights in an increasingly interconnected

world. ‘Civic Explorations’ ex-plores this evolving context and

facilitates the processes of network-ing, exchange and online dialogue be-tween different actors.

Coming upFuture calling is a Hivos

led initiative that explores the future of INGOs in a glo-

balizing world. Have a look at our website for the latest publications

and do participate in our debate at the broker online. Regional brainstorm

events are being planned In Guatema-la (March 2012) and India (2012). Do let

us know, if you wish to contribute!

The next edition of this newsletter revisits the aftermath of Wikile-aks and similar phenomena that have emerged recently.

The Civic explorations pro-gramme will organize two regional knowledge explo-rations in Kenya (July) and Bolivia (November). We’ll keep you updated on dates and themes.

Contact usIf you wish to be involved in our delibera-tions for follow-up research or dialogues

or if you have ideas for additional pub-lications or other contributions then

please get in touch with Remko Berk-hout or Fieke Jansen. More infor-

mation on the Hivos Knowledge programme can be found on

www.hivos.net