This was presented by Jasmina Haynes (Integrity Action, UK) at the Impacts of Civic Technology Conference (TICTeC 2019) in Paris on 20th March 2019. You can find out more information about the conference here: http://tictec.mysociety.org/2019
2. Showcasing role of citizens and open data in ensuring that well-meaning
grants and contracts are doing everything they were intended to
Questions:
Can real-time information be collected by citizens in rural Nepal?
Does this information lead to better project delivery?
Can the data lead to useful insights that influence project design?
Integrity Action’s approach is inspired by the growth of open feedback, which transformed the consumer industry. This allowed consumers to post their feedback on products or services openly, so anyone could see it. All this meant their feedback could not be ignored – and it gave them power. We want to achieve the same in international development.
Why? citizens fail to receive essential services and entitlements from the institutions on which they rely. Whether it is governments, private providers, or development and humanitarian organisations.
I will share with you results of our civic tech intervention ‘Sindhupalcheck’ that engaged citizens to monitor a house reconstruction programme in Nepal. SindhupalCheck is an app for real-time citizen feedback on the effectiveness of constructing earthquake resilient homes. It enables community, volunteer, monitors the progress and report on the success-rate in implementing fixes to identified problems.
Our answer to these key questions are: yes, yes and yes- and let me show you why we think so.
Asmita is 16 years old, she is from Nepal, and in her community she is putting integrity into practice. I’ll let her explain in her own words…