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Original source: http://thejakartaglobe.beritasatu.com/business/promoting-open-governments/

Promoting Open Governments

By Shintya Kurniawan

"Thank God for Internet!” can be the 21st century tagline. It’s obvious how the Internet has helped us in so many ways. I remember how it helped me find the proper passport renewal procedure to avoid immigration scams, make comparisons of gadget features and prices, and share trip itineraries with fellow travelers. The Internet is the information warehouse today, but does it store everything we really need to know as citizens?

Citizen-government partnership

In 2011, Indonesia became one of eight Open Government Partnership founding countries. OGP promotes the establishment of open, accountable, and responsive governments. There are currently 65 member countries working to implement the OGP’s four pillars; transparency, citizen participation, accountability, and technological innovation.

The concept is a democracy utopia where a government’s plans, including its budget, can be shared publicly and citizens get to say what needs to be done to answer their needs. Supported with an adequate database, the people’s proposal can match government findings to draft a collaborative development plan. This concept is ideally capable to give us better public services, less corrupt countries, and a data-based development agenda.

Open governments also enable citizens to engage deeply in the policy-making process. Not just as beneficiaries, but as partners as well.

Transparent and accessible government

Jakarta has already implemented the open government concept in the past two years by sharing its budget allocation in soft copy and hard copy formats. We should be able to see a poster detailing funding for each sector in each Jakarta sub-district office, or alternatively, access it online. Jakarta acting Governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama is well known for sharing his phone numbers with anyone who would like to report complaints (or compliments) via SMS.

Ridwan Kamil, the mayor of Bandung, West Java, follows the same approach through the social media platforms Twitter and Instagram. Under his leadership, every Bandung public service agency must set up a Twitter account and respond to citizens’ reports within 48 hours. Every subdistrict and village in Bandung has a Twitter account.

By being accessible, they show how technology and citizen participation can speed up a government’s work for the people’s sake. Damaged roads can be fixed as soon as possible, areas of gridlock and their causes can be untwined, and civil servants who tried to elicit bribes may be blacklisted.

In contrast, I witness how journalists in other districts have to struggle to get any feedback from district heads who keep changing their mobile phone numbers without notice. Let alone responding to residents’ requests for solutions.

Those who envy the residents of Jakarta and Bandung can simply visit the website lapor.ukp.go.id to improve unsatisfying public services.

Opening up movement around the world

Some civil society organizations also use technology to monitor and report on causes that interest them. For example, there is eyesontheforest.or.id to check the state of Riau’s forests, and pemiluapps.org and matamassa.org to report election violations. Various mobile applications are also available to use.

Speaking of which, Yoon Soon-Gu, director general of South Korea’s Ministry of Security and Public Administration, said his country is developing 222 mobile applications per month on average.

Some of the apps cater to the public’s need for information, such as the real-time status of public transportation, public health information to let people know about hospitals’ use of antibiotics, and even an app that tracks the service and repair history and insurance record of any used car offered for sale.

The United Kingdom has the website fixmystreet.com and mobile applications to let residents report and discuss any abnormal activities or damaged facilities in the neighborhood.

A wider option

However, it’s a different case in India, where only 11 percent of the population is Internet literate, and where the majority do not have access to online facilities.

But that nation is facing the challenge and developing other reporting mechanisms. One of which is a newly launched innovation called iClick — released towards the end of August. It is an electronic ATM-like kiosk that enables Indian women to report all types of abuse discreetly without having to fear intimidation from the perpetrator or from police officers.

A similar approach is already followed by the Mongolian government, which provides 2,030 government service e-machines. The machine is an all-in-one public service center where citizens can register to pay their bills, get civil registration documents, provide feedback, make requests and lodge complaints.

In Indonesia, community-based volunteers learned to speak up on behalf of their peers’ aspirations. The movement is called Citizen Voice and Action, a project funded by the World Bank in conjunction with World Vision Indonesia in Jakarta. The project aims to help citizens understand their rights. At the same time, government officials are encouraged to share the right information and be ready for dialogue. The result had positively increased budgets for community health care support groups.

Role of media in promoting an open government

Great tools and initiatives will not be useful if citizens as users do not understand how they work. The mass media could be used to measure if these initiatives get enough exposure. The media can also act as a bridge between the needs of the people and solutions initiated by the government and vice versa.

The media can work with the private sector and nongovernmental organizations to create a snowball effect of the open government concept by informing citizens of public policies in simpler language.

The broadcast media may help spread the word by allocating free advertising slots for government agencies and or NGOs.

The print media may help to elaborate on policy changes through charts and diagrams. It will be best if both content types can be accessed anytime in the online media too.

“I have learned the proper way to exercise my rights as a citizen. With the right understanding, I can encourage the officials in my village office and all kinds of problems can be solved peacefully. If everyone knows the right way to do it, I believe we no longer have to demonstrate in front of the parliament building,” said Sumardi, one of the Citizen Voice and Action activists in Cilincing, North Jakarta.

I agree with him. Demonstrations in Jakarta have become a daily occurrence and lately it feels it’s like falling on deaf ears. Anger, violence, and silence are not sustainable solutions.

To get what we need as citizens in this 21st century, we can turn to technology, dialogue, and the media.

Shintya Kurniawan is a media relations officer for World Vision Indonesia. For more on the Open Government Partnership, go to opengovpartnership.org.