South American Expert Roundtable : increasing adaptive governance capacity for coping with unintended side effects of digital transformation

This paper presents the main messages of a South American expert roundtable (ERT) on the unintended side effects (unseens) of digital transformation. The input of the ERT comprised 39 propositions from 20 experts representing 11 different perspectives. The two-day ERT discussed the main drivers and challenges as well as vulnerabilities or unseens and provided suggestions for: (i) the mechanisms underlying major unseens; (ii) understanding possible ways in which rebound effects of digital transformation may become the subject of overarching research in three main categories of impact: development factors, society, and individuals; and (iii) a set of potential action domains for transdisciplinary follow-up processes, including a case study in Brazil. A content analysis of the propositions and related mechanisms provided insights in the genesis of unseens by identifying 15 interrelated causal mechanisms related to critical issues/concerns. Additionally, a cluster analysis (CLA) was applied to structure the challenges and critical developments in South America. The discussion elaborated the genesis, dynamics, and impacts of (groups of) unseens such as the digital divide (that affects most countries that are not included in the development of digital business, management, production, etc. tools) or the challenge of restructuring small- and medium-sized enterprises (whose service is digitally substituted by digital devices). We identify specific issues and effects (for most South American countries) such as lack of governmental structure, challenging geographical structures (e.g., inclusion in high-performance transmission power), or the digital readiness of (wide parts) of society. One scientific contribution of the paper is related to the presented methodology that provides insights into the phenomena, the causal chains underlying “wanted/positive” and “unwanted/negative” effects, and the processes and mechanisms of societal changes caused by digitalization

The Contribution of Digital Technology to Citizenship, Accountability and Rights: An Evidence Review

The use of digital technologies has risen dramatically in the past century, building excitement among governments and technology experts about applying technology to improve accountability, transparency and the effectiveness of authorities. All 193 member states of the United Nations now have, for example, national websites. Among these, 101 have enabled citizens to create personal online accounts; 73 to file income taxes; and 60 to register a business. For the most common core government administrative systems, 190 member states have automated financial management, 179 have used such systems for customs processing, and 159 for tax management. This readiness is the result of a change in the dynamics of citizenship, accountability and rights (CAR), which demands a rethinking of the roles and relationship between governments and citizens. The use of technology in development, and specifically its potential to close the gap between citizen voice and state responsiveness, holds great promise. Emergent conceptions such as e-governance are considered to have the power to inspire new tools and practices for citizenship, as well as to make existing practices more effective. While the use of digital technologies has made communication with citizens much easier, an increased and empowered citizen participation, by which citizens are able to hold governments accountable, remains still a distant dream. This report is an attempt to see the extent to which digital technologies can enable citizens and state agencies to increase the flow of information, challenge powerful interests, increase levels of institutional responsiveness and protect citizens’ rights, therefore making it imperative to examine the connection between the role of citizen participation in monitoring the enforcement of rights and in demanding public scrutiny and transparency. Furthermore, the questions that this report attempts to answer are: (a) What is the contribution of digital technologies to CAR?; (b) How can the use of technology influence the structuring, restructuring, shaping and reshaping of the relationship between citizens and governments?UK Department for International Developmen

User-centred design of a digital advisory service: enhancing public agricultural extension for sustainable intensification in Tanzania

Sustainable intensification (SI) is promoted as a rural development paradigm for sub-Saharan Africa. Achieving SI requires smallholder farmers to have access to information that is context-specific, increases their decision-making capacities, and adapts to changing environments. Current extension services often struggle to address these needs. New mobile phone-based services can help. In order to enhance the public extension service in Tanzania, we created a digital service that addresses smallholder farmers’ different information needs for implementing SI. Using a co-design methodology – User-Centered Design – we elicited feedback from farmers and extension agents in Tanzania to create a new digital information service, called Ushauri. This automated hotline gives farmers access to a set of pre-recorded messages. Additionally, farmers can ask questions in a mailbox. Extension agents then listen to these questions through an online platform, where they record and send replies via automated push-calls. A test with 97 farmers in Tanzania showed that farmers actively engaged with the service to access agricultural advice. Extension agents were able to answer questions with reduced workload compared to conventional communication channels. This study illustrates how User-Centered Design can be used to develop information services for complex and resource-restricted smallholder farming contexts

Innovation Policy Roadmapping for the Future Finnish Smart City Digital Twins : Towards Finland National Digital Twin Programme

Smart City Digital Twins (SCDTs) emerge as a transforming concept with the ability to redefine the future of cities in the fast-paced evolving landscape of urban development. This qualitative futures research explores thoroughly into the complex interaction of socio-technical dynamics in the Finnish setting, investigating the several ways SCDTs might revolutionise urban spaces and create resilience. By utilizing Innovation Policy Roadmapping (IPRM) method for the first time on SCDTs, it reveals the diverse capacities of SCDTs across domains such as urban planning, scenario developing, What-IF analysis, and public involvement through a rigorous examination of academic literature and multi-level analysis of expert interviews. The research emphasises the critical role of policymakers and sectoral actors in building an environment that allows Finnish SCDTs to survive in the face of technological improvements. Furthermore, it emphasises the convergence of SCDTs and Futures Studies approaches, giving a visionary path to adaptable and forward-thinking urban futures. The contributions of this study extend beyond the scope of Finnish SCDTs, giving inspiration for sustainable smart city transformations, potential foundational insights towards Finland National Digital Twin Programme and paving the way for the incorporation of futures studies methodologies and digital twins to mitigate uncertainties and create resilient urban futures. Longitudinal impact assessments, real-time citizen-centric foresight applications via SCDT, and the investigation of SCDTs' role in disaster mitigation and social well-being are among the identified future research directions, providing a comprehensive roadmap for leveraging SCDTs as transformative tools for building sustainable urban futures

Towards a global participatory platform: Democratising open data, complexity science and collective intelligence

The FuturICT project seeks to use the power of big data, analytic models grounded in complexity science, and the collective intelligence they yield for societal benefit. Accordingly, this paper argues that these new tools should not remain the preserve of restricted government, scientific or corporate élites, but be opened up for societal engagement and critique. To democratise such assets as a public good, requires a sustainable ecosystem enabling different kinds of stakeholder in society, including but not limited to, citizens and advocacy groups, school and university students, policy analysts, scientists, software developers, journalists and politicians. Our working name for envisioning a sociotechnical infrastructure capable of engaging such a wide constituency is the Global Participatory Platform (GPP). We consider what it means to develop a GPP at the different levels of data, models and deliberation, motivating a framework for different stakeholders to find their ecological niches at different levels within the system, serving the functions of (i) sensing the environment in order to pool data, (ii) mining the resulting data for patterns in order to model the past/present/future, and (iii) sharing and contesting possible interpretations of what those models might mean, and in a policy context, possible decisions. A research objective is also to apply the concepts and tools of complexity science and social science to the project's own work. We therefore conceive the global participatory platform as a resilient, epistemic ecosystem, whose design will make it capable of self-organization and adaptation to a dynamic environment, and whose structure and contributions are themselves networks of stakeholders, challenges, issues, ideas and arguments whose structure and dynamics can be modelled and analysed. Graphical abstrac

Towards a user-centric mobile government in Jordan

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.Mobile government (M-Government) is an evolving delivery channel for governments to provide timely information and services ubiquitously to residents, businesses and other government departments through mobile devices. Developing countries have a higher mobile penetration rate than the fixed-line Internet rates, which opens doors of opportunities for these countries to bridge the digital gap and gain a better reach through M-Government. Jordan has realised the potential of M-Government and launched the E-Government Mobile Portal on the 18th of April, 2011. This thesis uses a mixed-method approach comprising surveys, interviews, meta-analysis and focus groups. The findings show that the critical success factors for M-government from the users’ perspective are the following: user acceptance, security, privacy, trust, cost, mobile device limitations, usability, availability of services, broadband and content. The findings also show that there are ’high effect’ success factors in addition to the critical ones which are the following : mobile payment system, accessibility, awareness, education, reliability, legal issues and mobile penetration. Additionally, this thesis also proposes a success framework for M-Government that provides practical strategies to tackle each success factor. Furthermore, it recommends an M-Government user-centric road map with implementation stages aiming to assist the Jordanian Government and other governments in tackling each success factor in order to ensure a successful implementation of M-Government

The futures of Canadian governance: Foresight competencies for public administration in the digital era

Abstract Evidence?based practice has advanced in public administration, with increasing reliance on social research and population sampling in decision making. Yet the evidence?based turn risks marginalizing the value of strategic foresight and futures competencies in informing policy and planning. Where evidence enables policymakers to select the best near?term course of action, future outcomes are inferred and projected, and not determined by past evidence. Foresight provides a necessary competency for defining and investing in the right direction of future policy and action, by articulating future problematics with multiple foresight methods. While social and technological futures cannot be precisely predicted, future scenarios and prospectuses can be designed to inform options and trajectories for intervention and new policy. The emerging area of digital?era governance is examined, where complex scenarios for future policies are based on present evidence (such as trends) and informed speculation to formulate policies and options in dynamically changing societal contexts