Open Government Data for Tackling Corruption A PerspectiveNidhi Rajashree, Biplav SrivastavaIBM Research India

Semantic Cities Workshop @ AAAI, Toronto, CanadaJuly 2012

OutlineCorruptionGood or BadFactorsCase StudyOpen Data for Corruption Difference from economic growth focusCall for Action

Corruptionthe misuse of public office for personal gains

as an act of bribery involving a public servant and a transfer of tangible resources

Corruption = Monopoly + Discretion AccountabilityAn actxperformed by an agentAis an act of institutional corruption if and only if:xhas an effect,E1, of undermining, or contributing to the undermining of, some institutional process and/or purpose of some institution,I, and/or an effect,Ec, of contributing to the despoiling of the moral character of some role occupant ofI, agentB, qua role occupant ofI;At least one of (a) or (b) is true:Ais a role occupant ofI, and in performingx,Aintended or foresawE1and/orEc, orAshould have foreseenE1and/orEc;There is a role occupant ofI, agentB, andBcould have avoidedEc, ifBhad chosen to do so.[19]Note that (2)(a) tells us thatAis a corruptor and is, therefore, either (straightforwardly) morally responsible for the corrupt action, orAis not morally responsible forA's corrupt character and the corrupt action is an expression ofA's corrupt character.Source: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/corruption/

Corruption Perception Index (2011)*Source: http://cpi.transparency.org/cpi2011/results/

Shades of CorruptionBriberypayment made in money or kind and can be initiated either by the public servant or the beneficiary. It can be extortionary, collusive or anticipatory

Favoritism & Nepotisma mechanism of power abuse implying privatization and highly biased distribution of state resources, no matter how these resources have been accumulated in the first place.

Embezzlementtheft of government property and resources by people who are entrusted upon to take care of it.

Factor conducive for CorruptionLack of awarenessLack of proper Service-Level Agreements Lax supervision and monitoring of staff performanceDiscretionAbsence of appropriate grievance redressal mechanismsObsolete policies

Tackling CorruptionLack of awareness can be removed by clearly specifying the guidelines and information about the services. Lack of proper SLAs can be taken care by a time bound service can be easily tracked by the citizens if the information is freely available hence empowering them to seek penalty when the SLA is missed. Lack of accountability, supervisioncan be improved through institutional diagnostics such as periodic or social auditing which can be facilitated by well documented information at disposal. Discretion can also be kept under check if these subjective decisions are well documented and hence available for review.Grievance mechanisms and obsolete policies need to be directly addressed

*India: (Mahatma Gandhi) National Rural Employment Guarantee ProgramIndianjob guaranteescheme, enacted by legislation on August 25, 2005. NREGA is an Indian job guarantee scheme, enacted as law in 2005.Designed as a safety net to reduce migration by rural poor households in the lean period. A hundred days of guaranteed unskilled manual labour provided when demanded at minimum wageworks focused on water conservation, land development & drought proofingFinancesStatutoryminimum wageofRs 120 (US$2.39)per day at2009 prices.The Central government outlay for scheme is40,000crore(US$7.98 billion)in FY 201011Mired in complaints of corruptionReferences http://nrega.nic.in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahatma_Gandhi_National_Rural_Employment_Guarantee_Act

*NREGA Key ProcessesApplication for job cardIssue of job cardDemand for employmentWork allocationPayment of wagesSelection of worksApproval of shelf of projectsInforming village PRIPreparation of estimatesAnd approvalsAcknowledgement ofdemandMaintenance of muster rollVerificationProne to corruptionProne to corruptionProne to corruptionICT based transparencyICT based transparencyAdapted from deck: [PPT]NREGAImplementation [Presentation to NAC] nrega.nic.in/presentations/implement_NREGA.ppt

Open Government Data

*From Google MapsLocal or regional governmental authoritiesLocal or regional private initiativesNationwide governmental authoritiesNationwide private initiativesMultilateral / Transnational initiatives*Source: World Map of Open Government Data Initiatives, Google Maps, the underlying world map is released under a Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY 3.0 Austria) by Semantic Web Company (www.semantic-web.at) (accessed October 3, 2011)Open Gov. Data for Economic Growth is Well Known (Initiatives Across the World) Open Government Data policies would increase direct business activity by up to 40 billion per year (0.3% of EU's GDP) and overall benefit could be up to 200 billion per year (1.7% of GDP) Open data could generate 6 billion of added value to the UK economy

Open Government Data Helps Sustain Economic Growth

By Reducing Corruption and Increasing CompetitivenessOpen govt data leads to transparency With transparency, it is easy to establish accountabilityBoth together help tackle corruption

Corruption : Monopoly + Discretion Accountability (Klitgaard, Robert E. Controlling corruption. Berkeley: U. of California Press, 1988)

Call for ActionGovernments should come out with data sharing/ disclosure policies, andExample: USA - US Executive Order 13556, Controlled Unclassified Information, At http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-pressoffice/2010/11/04/executive-order-controlled-unclassifiedinformation Example: India - National Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy (NDSAP) at http://dst.gov.in/NDSAP.pdf implement them!Industry and standardization bodies can helpby documenting best practices, building necessary toolsusing open standards, and reporting case studies.

***88888