Does online voting mobilize citizens who otherwise would not participate? During the annual participatory budgeting vote in the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil -- the world's largest -- Internet voters were asked whether they would have participated had there not been an online voting option (i-voting).
... See More + The study documents an 8.2 percent increase in total turn-out with the introduction of i-voting. In support of the mobilization hypothesis, unique survey data show that i-voting is mainly used by new participants rather than just for convenience by those who were already mobilized. The study also finds that age, gender, income, education, and social media usage are significant predictors of being online-only voters. Technology appears more likely to engage people who are younger, male, of higher income and educational attainment, and more frequent social media users.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS7204 FEB 26, 2015
This document provides information, guidance and tools to support decision-making, planning and implementation of mining local procurement in West Africa, in particular at a country level.
... See More + It can be used by individual role players as well as form the basis of consultative processes. The guide can also support regional harmonization relating to mining local procurement. This 2015 version of the Practical Guide to Mining Local Procurement in West Africa addresses questions that are commonly asked by governments, companies, and citizens in the region. How do we define and measure local procurement? Do we create a specific policy or legislation to encourage mining companies to buy more locally? If so, what do these look like, and what has led to successful outcomes in other countries? Do we pick winner productive sectors? How do we best support suppliers to develop the right capacities and standards to meet mine requirements? What institutional framework and which actors need to be involved to deliver? Rather than laying the main responsibility for increasing domestic sourcing on the mining sector, this Guide aims at promoting a multi-stakeholder approach, in which all actors have clear roles and responsibilities. This guide has been organised into eight modules that each address a set of related questions that have been consistently raised by role players.
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This document provides information, guidance and tools to support decision-making, planning and implementation of mining local procurement in West Africa, in particular at a country level.
... See More + It can be used by individual role players as well as form the basis of consultative processes. The guide can also support regional harmonization relating to mining local procurement. This 2015 version of the Practical Guide to Mining Local Procurement in West Africa addresses questions that are commonly asked by governments, companies, and citizens in the region. How do we define and measure local procurement? Do we create a specific policy or legislation to encourage mining companies to buy more locally? If so, what do these look like, and what has led to successful outcomes in other countries? Do we pick winner productive sectors? How do we best support suppliers to develop the right capacities and standards to meet mine requirements? What institutional framework and which actors need to be involved to deliver? Rather than laying the main responsibility for increasing domestic sourcing on the mining sector, this Guide aims at promoting a multi-stakeholder approach, in which all actors have clear roles and responsibilities. This guide has been organised into eight modules that each address a set of related questions that have been consistently raised by role players.
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A new generation of information and communication technologies (ICTs) is finding a small foothold among poor, small-scale farmers in developing countries.
... See More + Even so, many barriers still prevent poor rural people from accessing, using, and benefiting from new ICT tools and platforms, and those barriers are arguably higher for rural women. The relationship between gender and agriculture has been studied intensively over the years, and many agricultural interventions now include gender as a crosscutting issue or mainstream gender throughout their operations. Studies of the relationship between gender and the use of ICTs in agriculture have started to appear only quite recently, however. The Africa Region of the World Bank views ICTs as potentially transformative technology for rural development and seeks to incorporate the use of ICTs throughout its portfolio of projects. The present study was designed to examine the feasibility of integrating ICTs into two large investment programs: the Irrigation Development and Support Project (IDSP) in Zambia and the Kenya Agricultural Productivity and Agribusiness Project (KAPAP). The specifi c goal was to examine how ICT-based interventions might be designed to strengthen womens participation in commodity value chains under the two projects.
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This paper uses firm-level data to assess whether telecommunication services are general-purpose technologies (technologies that benefit a large segment of the economy and have long-lasting effect).
... See More + It finds that only Internet services are so: firm growth and productivity are much higher when Internet access is greater and when firms use the Internet more intensively; and Internet access benefits firms in high- and low-tech industries, firms of all sizes, and exporter and non-exporter firms. Small firms appear to benefit more from the Internet than large firms do. In contrast, fixed-line and cellular services are not robustly linked to firm performance.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS7192 FEB 01, 2015
Clarke, George R.G.; Qiang, Christine Zhenwei; Xu, Lixin Colin
The returns to investments in early childhood development (ECD) are manifold and can include improved school readiness, reduced drop-out rates, higher labor force productivity and greater social cohesion.
... See More + Despite these high returns, enrollment in early childhood education is just 18 percent across Africa, with disproportionately high enrollment from children in urban areas and from wealthier families. Interactive Audio Instruction (IAI) is a distance learning technology that can deliver low-cost, culturally appropriate education via radio or mobile audio technology. It is a highly effective tool to reach children who can be hard to reach through conventional programs, including the rural poor and children with disabilities. IAI can also be an effective form of service delivery in unstable and conflict-affected regions.
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The Statistical Development Project for Nigeria received a satisfactory outcome with moderate risk to development outcome. The Bank received a satisfactory rating while the Borrower was rated moderately satisfactory.
... See More + There were no significant changes that took place during this project including components and restructuring. There are a number of lessons reported from this project. Lesson learned include: (1) The complexity of the Nigerian Statistical System must be taken into account in the design of any new statistics operation, (2) In case of multi-agency project, a strong governance arrangement needs to be established and funded during project preparation. Diversity of local needs in various states in Nigeria calls for the introduction of flexible project design for various states. (3) Linkages between the PDO, planned project activities, their sequencing, and alignment with the results indicators need to be strong at project design phase. (4) The governance structure of a project needs to be clearly defined, established and functional prior to project effectiveness. (5) Effective implementation requires consistency in project arrangements, and in addition, there should be a succession plan envisaged. (6) Importance of project governance, monitoring and reporting arrangements. (7) The project should consider operating separate designated accounts for each participant. (8) The presence of an in-country donor statistician was a strong asset in building trust among the different participants, in solving implementation problems and acting as a liaison between the government and the Bank. (9) Partner support can be helpful in providing critical technical assistance and fill in some gaps in financing. (10) CMU should be onboard. Its interventions could be used at critical points of project implementation. (11) Capacity building can be strengthened if accompanied by broader policy dialogue and reform. (12) Regular training and retraining in statistics related matters should be an important component of any statistical development project.
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Implementation Completion and Results Report ICR3203 JAN 30, 2015
More than 80 percent of Papua New Guinea's population lives in rural areas. Most of these people depend on subsistence activities such as smallholder farming and fishing as well as alluvial mining and betel nut sales for their livelihoods.
... See More + One of the main barriers to shared growth and development in rural areas is poor quality and lack of access to information and communication technologies (ICT). In fact, access levels are some of the lowest in the world. Service delivery is extremely low due to high prices and limited investment in access networks. In mid-2007, total tele-density was just four percent countrywide and zero percent in the majority of rural areas. Private operators and aggressive competition in the mobile sector has resulted in increased coverage and access. Despite this, access is still limited in many parts of the country. The objective of the Rural Communications Project is to facilitate improved access to affordable and reliable telecommunications in rural and remote areas of Papua New Guinea. The project will provide telecommunications access to nearly 500,000 rural Papua New Guineans and facilitate broadband internet access in rural district centres that currently do not have any form of internet services.
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The objective of the Fostering Productive Innovation Project for Kazakhstan is to promote high-quality, nationally relevant research and commercialization of technologies.
... See More + There are five components to the project, the first component being development of the knowledge base for innovation. The component aims at promoting high-quality, nationally relevant research and development and advanced human capital activities through the provision of Junior Researcher Group Grants, Senior Scientist Group Grants, and PhD Research and Training Grants. The second component is the innovation consortia. The objective is to promote collaboration among existing scientific research institutes and design bureaus and scientific and engineering profile laboratories in Kazakhstan (i) in respect of research and development activities for purposes of improving the productive sectors of the Borrowers economy, through the provision of Productive Sector Consortia Grants, and (ii) in respect of the delivery of social services, including improving the livelihood of the urban and rural population, through the provision of inclusive innovation consortia grants. The third component is the consolidation of the technology commercialization cycle. The objective is to complement the existing financial instruments and solutions suitable to different stages of start-up company development. The fourth component is the strengthening coordination of the national innovation system; enhancing the capacity of the existing institutional structures. Finally, the fifth component is the support project implementation. The component will support the Project Implementation Unit (PMU) in carrying out the project management, monitoring and evaluation, awareness raising activities, and capacity development.
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The World Bank conducted this study of the potential for Open Transport Data in St. Petersburg as part of the preparations for the Improvement of Urban Transport Systems Project in Russia.
... See More + It is principally intended for use by the St. Petersburg transportation authorities, the Federal Ministry of Transport and the Project Implementation Unit in considering and implementing open data as part of the new systems being developed as part of the Project. There are already good examples of transport information systems in St. Petersburg. Most of this information is not currently available for external use, but in the cases where it has been made available, for instance by the Agency 'Organizer of Transportation' for real-time bus information; this has been welcomed and well-used by citizens and authorities, despite some current limitations. Within the St. Petersburg component of Improvement of Urban Transport Systems Project there are plans for more transport information systems, including parking information, traffic management and passenger information systems. The conclusion of this report is that the social, economic and environmental benefits of the St. Petersburg project would be enhanced by the greater availability and use by travelers and others of the information collected by these planned systems. Making the information available as Open Transport Data and allowing it to be used for development of innovative third-party applications would be a relatively easy and cost-effective way of leveraging the planned investment to ensure that the information reached the largest number of travelers. Doing so will maximize the desired behavioral changes that drive the benefits and improve the overall return on investment.
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Monitoring technologies and pay for performance contracts are becoming popular solutions to improve public services delivery. Their track record is however mixed.
... See More + To show why this may be the case, this paper develops a principal agent model where agents' motivations vary and so does the effectiveness of monitoring technologies. In such a set-up the model shows that: (i) monitoring technologies should be introduced only if agents' motivations are poor; (ii) optimal pay for performance contracts are nonlinear/non-monotonic in agents' motivations and monitoring effectiveness; (iii) investments aimed at improving agents' motivations and monitoring quality are substitutes when agents are motivated, complements otherwise; and (iv) if the agents' "type" is private information, the more and less motivated agents could be separated through a menu of pay for performance/non pay for performance contracts, such that only the less motivated choose the pay for performance ones.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS7128 DEC 01, 2014
The objective of the University of Guyana (UG) Science and Technology Support Project for Guyana is to strengthen the four science and technology faculties at UG through infrastructure, research and curricular improvements while building the basis for improved facilities management and future growth.
... See More + The main changes to the project and rationale are: 1) revisions to the results matrix to complete data that was not available at Appraisal, to align it with more realistic targets, and to better reflect project activities. Specifically, the changes are: (i) introduction of baseline and targets for two PDO-level indicators; (ii) revision of targets for one PDO-level indicator; (iii) update targets for six intermediate results indicators; (iv) substitution of one intermediate results indicator with a new one that better reflects Project activities; and (v) deletion of two intermediate indicators; 2) revisions to the disbursement estimates to reflect the delays in Project effectiveness; and 3) removal of section five from the Financing Agreement to remove redundancy and increase clarity regarding the use of funds.
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In the Western and developed world, New Public Management reforms aimed to overhaul business as usual. The reforms brought the notion of performance contracts into government, assigning clear responsibility and accountability for service delivery and regulation.
... See More + New public management also initiated efforts to give greater voice to clients, particularly through the creation of citizens charters and other explicit and contestable commitments to delivery standards. Finally, new public management pushed government to focus on core services, rather than be involved in everything, from social services to mining and car manufacturing, as had been the case in many countries. New Public Management and other traditional reform tools designed for application in advanced countries were not able to answer this challenge. Large groups of citizens in emerging economies and low-income countries are still deprived of reliable public services in the areas that matter most, including access to clean water, hygiene and sanitation, health, and education. The sheer magnitude of the task of building, in a very short time, the kind of public services that took developed countries decades to create, and the lack of ideas about how best to use those facilities, have combined to sustain an intolerable situation. Then the Arab world was rocked by revolution. Led by the young and technologically savvy, people across the Middle East and North Africa rose up to demand their human rights, essential services, and democratic governance. Instantaneous access to information through the Internet helped to mobilize the masses, uniting them in their demands and facilitating their activism. Although the revolution caught the world by surprise, the use of social media as a communication and rallying tool did not. People all over the world today use social media and mobile phone technology to share news, express themselves, and fight back. Facing corrupt and sometimes brutal governments, the Internets social media outlets might be the only trusted communication link citizens have with one another and with their government. This publication includes three chapters: a new citizen government alliance; learning what makes government work in the 21st century; and solutions.
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Publication 92222 OCT 27, 2014
Bhatti, Zubair K.; Kusek, Jody Zall; Verheijen, Tony
The term "open data" is generally understood to be data that are made available to the public free of charge, without registration or restrictive licenses, for any purpose whatsoever (including commercial purposes), in electronic, machine-readable formats that ensure data are easy to find, download and use.
... See More + National Statistics Offices (NSOs) have the potential to play a pivotal role in the implementation of open data initiatives. As producers and curators of data, the objective of making high quality data more accessible and usable is consistent with their guiding principles. NSOs indicate, in research conducted in support of this report, that one of the difficulties they encounter is that the technology they use to publish - or electronically distribute - data for public use is not compatible with open formats. They also indicate that common software packages used for open data portals do not accommodate the data formats and metadata they produce. Two key concerns related to data dissemination products are addresses: (1) Can such products designed primarily for NSOs satisfy requirements for an open data initiative?; and (2) Can such products designed primarily for open data satisfy the requirements of NSOs? Furthermore, data reuse, both by data experts and the public at large, is key to creating new opportunities and benefits from government data. The following recommendations are made to improve the overall utility of data publication platforms to NSOs and the open data community: improve technical documentation; ensure public Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) and endpoints are interoperable; presentation of metadata and Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs) must conform to W3C standards; natural language search and metadata faceting should be standard; structural metadata and hypercube support are core NSO requirements; dashboards and visualisations are necessary for user engagement; and develop data engagement tools for improving data-quality and reuse.
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