Session 2: What have we proven/ disproven about the use of digital technologies in advancing responsive and accountable governance?

2. The Presentation
1. The Tech4PRI Project
2. What we wanted to explore, know, and
understand.
3. How we conducted the research.
4. What we found – Themes
5. What we learned – Key Lessons

3. The Tech4PRI Project
We wanted to know and understand:
¨ Connection between the use of Digital Technology/
ICT and Citizen Participation
¨ The context of local development projects of CSOs
and POV of implementers (practitioners)
¨ Technology-analog approaches and strategies

4. Areas to be Explored
¨ Underlying facilitative/mitigating factors for use of technologies in
citizen-engagement/participation projects
¨ Issues of access/availability and use of Digital Technologies/ICTs in
relation to inclusion/exclusion
¨ How do practitioners/implementers determine the appropriateness
of technologies
¨ Strategies and pathways in implementing projects with Digital
Technologies/ICTs
¨ Emergent related issuesbased on implementation stories

5. Method
¨ 11 case projects
¨ Key Informant Interviews – Implementers and Users
¨ FGDs with users
¨ Secondary Data – Documents/Reports

6. Conceptual Guide

7. Observable Themes from the Research
¨ Planners and Implementers
¨ Design and Implementation Processes
¨ Hardware, Software, and Peopleware
¨ Audience and Users

8. Planners and Implementers
¨ Face the challenge of Making sense of tools while in the
context of implementation
¨ There are occasions when implementers encounter a
piece of tech and "make these relevant or useful" in
their projects, sometimes to a fault.
¨ There is a bandwagon effect or tendency to use the
“new” and “latest”, or adapt innovative designs

9. Design and Implementation Processes
¨ The blended approach of online-offline needs to be
further explored and unpacked.
¨ Projects should include a strategy/plan concerning
tech/ICT use -- to operationalize digital technology and
“offline” approaches
¨ Training sessions are seen as means to prepare citizens
to be “tech ready”.

10. Hardware, Software, and Peopleware
¨ Technology improves the capacity of CSOs to operate
and achieve objectives, e.g. projects on transparency
¨ An emphasis on Peopleware -- implementers, users, and
the performance of technology
¨ There is a menu of technologies but the human factor is
key. e.g. use of infomediaries, face-to-face interaction
approaches, etc.

11. Audience and Users
¨ Who is the audience? Who are the users?
¨ Planners prospect users and audience
¨ Implementers adjust once immersed in
implementation

12. KEY LESSONS

13. Key Lessons
¨ Deciding on a “participatory objective” (e.g.
inform, engage, mobilize users)
¤ This has direct implications on the technologies that will
be employed in a project.

14. Key Lessons
¨ Ecology and Context of Technology Use for
Participation
¤ the lack of design thinking and the turnover processes
for the design and management of platforms mitigates
technology use
¤ Sustained interest and “endurance” of implementers
and growth of interested parties enable technology
use.
¤ Technology over people – overzealous about
technology resulting to a disconnect between the design
and advocacy.

15. Key Lessons
¨ Technology and Modes of Participation: Blended,
“Shotgun”, and Targeted Approaches
¤ Digital technologies are seen to perform specific
functions that complement offline activities.
¤ Some use digital technologies as optional mode or
platform, other initiatives integrate multiple modes or
platforms as part of their interventions called multi-
modal (‘shotgun’) approach.
¤ Redundancy(+/-) to increase the chances of the user to
be informed, engage, be mobilized, and to participate.

16. Key Lessons
¨ Ambiguity of “users” and “public” makes
targeting-for-appropriateness very difficult
¤ Practitioners select technology tools based on their
assumptions about the function of each technology
based on past experiences, or based on their ‘feel’ of
a particular too.
¤ Implementers would refer to a variety of “publics”,
apart from the what for them is the “general public”
¤ While all citizen participation initiatives identify ‘the
public’ as their main beneficiary, not many coherently
specify their target users.

17. Key Lessons
¨ Digital Divide in the Technology use and the
Sustainability of the projects
¤ For implementers, issues and problems mainly deal with
costs and expenses attached with the use of technology.
¤ Costs and expenses are mainly infrastructural in nature.
¤ Ease of use of technology, functionality of the
platforms, and its capacity for wider reach recur in the
discussions.
¨

18. Participation Objectives and
Specifications of Expected Users

19. Participation Objectives and
Specifications of Expected Users