Introduction

ccluskin — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 15:43:53 +0000

In the mid-1990s, a Public Expenditure Tracking Survey (PETS) in Uganda revealed that much of the state-issued public school money was never reaching its destination. Specifically, government-issued capitation grants—liquid infusions of currency distributed by local officials—were disappearing at an alarming rate: for every dollar the central government spent, only 20 cents reached the schools. The government, in response, turned to newspapers. Every month from then on, local newspapers published government-released data about the transfers of these capitation grants to district officials. The results were astonishing. A repeat PETS conducted in 2001 revealed that now, 80 cents of every dollar were arriving at local schools, an increase of 60%. Increasing the public’s access to information, by publishing data in newspapers, was astonishingly successful in reducing corruption.

Since this success, technology has come to the developing world. Mobile telephony and Internet access has increased exponentially in poor and middle-income nations. In 2000, developing countries accounted for only 30% of mobile subscriptions worldwide; by 2007, that number was almost 70%. Cell phones, once rare, are now ubiquitous in many places. Internet use, while significantly lower due to expense, has expanded at a similar rate. Worldwide, it increased threefold between 2000 and 2007, but in developing countries it jumped tenfold. Meanwhile, more and more governments are releasing information digitally rather than physically, through dedicated e-Government programs or simply because it’s cheaper. Internet portals, once rare, are now also ubiquitous. Out of 192 member states in the U.N., 189 have an online presence of some sort.

Yet programs to increase public access to information continue to rely on physical media, at great cost. Imagine if we were to re-run the Ugandan access-to-information program again today. While the government might release the information through a website rather than through a publication, newspapers would still be the main means of information dissemination. Of course, physical media are fantastic tools to distribute physical data over physical networks. Physical media like newspapers benefit from a larger immediate audience (literate people are more common than internet-connected people), and it is especially useful in the face-to-face media environments of the developing world. But if the information is already digital, and a cellphone and internet network is rapidly developing, then turning to newspapers is shockingly inefficient. Printing up digital data is not only financially costly for relatively fragile newspapers, but it gives up on the real advantages of digital information, like timeliness, unlimited accessibility and interactivity.

My proposal is to create a website and SMS-subscription service that effectively presents digital corruption information, obtained through government release, through anonymous report or even stories from traditional media websites. With the exception of the focus on SMS technology, the site would be designed similar to social media tools, much like Yelp.com for restaurant reviews, or Digg.com for social news. Users can access, search and map all the digital information available on one, easy to find website; they can see what other users have said and thought about the data; they can submit their own digital data, either from personal experience or newly released reports. Beyond the immediate effect, my proposal is well positioned for future success. As technology becomes more and more abundant, and as more and more data is hosted online, such a digital service only becomes more valuable.

Anti-Corruption 2.0

Introduction