ICT, Urban Governance & Youth
Using ICT, Social Media and Mobile Technologies to Foster Self-Organisation in Urban and Neighborhood Governance
May 16-17, 2013
Delft University of Technology
Daniella Ben-Attar Tim Campbell
Interconnecting Trends:
Implications for Urban Governance?
Youth • 1.2 billion • 87% in developing countries ICT • 89% mobile penetration in developing world Urbanization • 90% urban growth in developing world
Why Youth?
• Largest youth cohort in history
• Despite numbers, socially and politically marginalized
• Key barriers to youth engagement: effective strategies, mechanisms, awareness and
capacity
• ICT providing new opportunities to answer the “HOW?” of youth engagement in governance
Seizing the Opportunity of the Mobile
ICT Revolution for Youth Participation
• Developing world is now “more mobile” than developed world
• Youth are majority of ICT users
• Low cost mobile devices accelerating the trend
• Falling prices of smartphones, but still out of reach for most
• Innovative applications enabling low-end mobile devices to access benefits of social networking and internet
Narrowband Social Networking for
Mobile Participation -
‘Stripped Down’ Technologies
Narrowband Technology
Description Usage
Facebook Zero Stripped down version of Facebook designed for mobile technologies, works mostly with text, no data charges
Rolled out in 2010 with 50 mobile operators in 45 countries (mostly
developing) Mxit Mobile
Technology
Africa’s largest mobile text messaging service & social network, instant
messenger system available on almost any phone
750 million text messages sent per day, majority of users 18-25
Opera Mini Web browser designed for mobile phones, compresses data for reduced data charges
World’s most popular web browser, particularly
developing countries Gmail SMS Enables sending emails in form of SMS
from most basic mobile phones
Currently launched In 3 African countries
Mobile Usage: New Spaces for Youth
Engagement
Youth:
Both LEADERS &
BENEFICIARIES of
ICT-enabled urban governance
Bottom
Up: calls for social and political change Top Down: Enhanced participation & service delivery
ICT is a tool: Does not replace
“physical” structures of youth
engagement
• ICT not the answer to developing democratic institutions for youth
• Effective application of ICT conditioned on “offline” channels for youth engagement:
▫ Policies, Frameworks, Programs, Budgets
• Can also be a force or “entry point” for establishing physical channels
ICTs
Enhance & Complement Physical Channels
Methods
• Review of 50 cases primarily from developing world of usage of ICT linking young citizens to local governance
• Literature and web searches, networks
• 26 interviews with youth, local government, and practitioners, 7 UN-Habitat Urban Youth Fund Organizations
• Draft document shared with youth and
Findings in 4 Areas of ICT-Enabled Governance
Applying a Youth Dimension
Adopting technology to improve outcomes Balancing Inclusiveness & Responsiveness Public Openness through Technology Engaging Citizens as Partners in Urban Governance
Preliminary Findings: Case Impact by Area
Pillar Occurrence
1. Inclusiveness & Responsiveness 15
2. Engaging Citizens 19
3. Public Openness 9
4. Outcomes 7
TOTAL 50
•Areas 1 & 2 reflect usage of mobile platforms by youth - involving connectedness, communication & exchange
•Areas 3 & 4 require deeper engagement by both citizens &
government to develop & share knowledge about internal processes and improve services
Directionality of Impact
Classification # of Cases business-to-youth 2 Government-to-citizen 6 Government-to-youth 8 NGO-to-citizen 4 NGO-to-government 1 NGO-to-youth 10 Youth-to-citizen 12 Youth-to-government 2 Youth-to-youth 4 Total 50 Reframing the Question:How can ICTs improve urban governance for youth?
How can youth help harness ICTs to
improve urban
Balancing Inclusiveness &
Responsiveness
• Increased “Voice” for youth responsiveness
• New access to leaders, communication can be daily and direct – unprecedented!
• Youth have tools to leverage opinion and influence
• Effective scaling up of youth participation efforts and increased inclusion through ICTs
• Empowers youth to provide user-generated information to local governments
• Need to assess impact of ICT-based interactions
ICTs transforming
ICT Scales Up Youth Participation in South Africa – Catalyzing New Channels for Offline Engagement
• Organization: Khanyisa Youth Network (KYN)
• Project: Mobile local radio station to give youth platform to voice opinions
• Reach: Radio station reaches 300,000
• Participants: Over 30 local youth groups, including 1,000 activists • Training: Core group trained in journalism, ICTs, community
engagement
• ICTs: Youth access facebook and sms based applications such as Mxit through mobile phones
Impact:
-Municipality of Cape Town provided 50 youth scholarships -Youth reps now on 3 local councils
Engaging Youth as Partners in Urban
Governance
• Providing new avenues to become informed, shape opinions, organize, collaborate and act
• Collaborative technologies allowing youth greater opportunities to express political will
• Youth feel they have gained greater influence through tools, feel more connected, committed
• Empowered by access to information • Motivated by ICT tools to get engaged • Mobilized to take “offline” actions
Spread of ICTs has increased youth civic engagement
New youth-led forms of democratic engagement facebook Radio SMS Twitter
Public Openness through Technology
• ICT empowering young citizens to engage in development of innovative mechanisms
• NGOs using ICT-based tools, reaching youth by virtue of their online participation
• Global/regional youth-led ICT platforms for sharing across borders in common fight for accountability
• Increasing youth participation in fight for accountability
ICT transparency tools not necessarily youth-focused, but often youth driven
ICT Impact on Outcomes for Youth
• Current municipal focus for youth: ICT training & access
• Youth organizations playing role in delivering these ICT training services
• Youth also enhancing impact and reach of municipal ICT services for youth
Dearth of youth-focused ICT-enabled governance services (i.e., education, employment, health)
Capacity
• Disconnect between older people in local government positions and young citizens
• Limited digital literacy of local govts a barrier
• Narrow view of ICTs & youth to access & skills, little attention to usage for solving youth issues
• Greater municipal capacity needed to absorb & respond to increased communications via ICTs
Steadily Growing
Level of Government
• Mobile tools undermining subsdiarity,
strengthening communication with central govt over local govt
• Need for decentralizing ICT-enabled governance
• Youth as force to push local govt towards ICT reform
• Youth using ICTs to affect national issues – political change National govt
Local
Govt
Youth
ICT-enabled governance has greater impact on youth at national
Need for Decentralizing ICT-Enabled
Governance - RWANDA
• Extraordinary national developments in ICT not reflected in local government
▫ Merged national ministries of Youth and ICT in April 2012, appointed new “Minister of Youth & ICT”
▫ City of Kigali only beginning to plan for developing ICT tools for citizen engagement with no
youth-specific strategy
• WHY?
1. Limited ICT capacity on local level
2. Greater public interest in national issues than local
Young Leadership &
Youth Capacity
• Younger leadership lowest hanging fruit at local level - seen as champions in forwarding
ICT-enabled governance for youth
• Change of mindsets: youth viewed as
innovative, fast and result-oriented (vs. youth as problem)
• Youth lending their skills to enhance ICT capacity of local governments
Sri Lanka: Youth-Led ICT Training for Municipal Staff
• Organization: YES – City of Youth, Kandy City, UN-HABITAT Youth Fund Supported Project
• Project: Urban youth-led training and education
• Need: ICT capacity gap among local officials a major barrier in overall project
• Training: To address gap, youth trained city council
staff on ICTs - internet, email, facebook, etc.
• Capacity: Youth enhancing ICT capacity of municipality
• Engagement: Youth reps on City Committee on Knowledge Development & meetings with mayor
Technology
• Type of ICTs present different
opportunities and limitations for youth and local government
• Low broadband internet access limits types of governance applications
• However, creative narrowband solutions found to overcome barriers and enable participation
• Best opportunities for youth: low-end mobile phones, social media and user-generated
Conclusions & Recommendations
1. Put Youth and ICT in Governance on the Agenda
2. Extend the impact of social media on local government
3. Capacity building for local governments
4. Level the playing field between national and local government in ICT
5. Support crowd-sourced data for public goods
