Seizing the moment:An open architecture approach

based on sussing out what's workingand nudging progressive change

Rakesh Rajani, TwawezaJune 22, 2010

This moment in East Africa

• Little faith in governments… or the new leader• Ideologies, paradigms shaky• Tiredness and cynicism about development and

reforms• A sense that we need to look in the mirror and

take charge, somehow• A thirst for (and skepticism about) new ideas• Unprecedented opportunities enabled by new

technologies, at incredibly accelerated pace and scale

Where I’m coming from

• Looking at the political economy of reforms sideways, based on what they look like on the ground

• Observations based on walkabouts across Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda in 2008 and immersions in Lake Zone of Tanzania in late 2009

There are two worlds out there

INGOs, NGOs, CBOssocial accountability projects

community PETSworkshops, seminars, allowances

(myth of the motivations of organized civil society,conflating CSOs with citizens)

Back to our two worlds

Don’t be surprised

For as long as donors continue to locate efforts solely on the right hand world– Reforms wont get very far– or endure– or be meaningful– or significantly owned– except in few cases when you are lucky

Do no harm?

So what do you instead?

Work with the left hand side

What networks matter to people?(that would endure even if every aid $ dried up)

Back to our two worlds

If the left hand world is so inspiring, what is the most important thing

that do you do with it?

Fuel Information flows• Make it easier for people to get, make, share

information and ideas• Information about rights, laws and budgets – yes

– but more important are comparisons, stories of change

• Don’t insist on ‘noble’ information• Stimulate informed public debate• Its about fueling the

imagination

What might this look likeon the ground?

H

H

H

H

H

Examples of Twaweza initiatives

• Uwezo (citizens monitoring whether schooling leads to learning)

• Daraja (using SMS to monitor water-point functionality)

• CU@School (monitoring school attendance)• Daladala TV (daily reality debate in a public bus)• Nation Media/Sahara Media (nudging

investigative journalism, citizen viewpoints)

For more : visit www.twaweza.org

Four concluding thoughts

1. It’s the public, stupid

• Leaders and politicians will do the right thing when their publics compel them to do so

2. Its about an open architecture

• Its not linear; its messy, unpredictable• Personal, people pick and choose, decide what

they want to know, to do• Contingent, opportunistic, responsive, nimble

more important than having it figured out• Direct citizen engagement, not intermediated• Every day stuff, low transaction costs (not

meetings)• Density of networks / ‘thickness’ of possibilities

that reinforces action

3. Its about the underlying conditions and realigning incentives, not projects• Help create (or rather piggyback on) the fertile

ground for flexible citizen knowing and action• Within that domain make it easier for, nudge,

back-up the people and the stuff that’s progressive

• This will help reduce the unhealthy status equilibrium and dominance of the State

• Realign the incentives on elite performance• And eventually enable the conditions for a new

equilibrium where people reclaim the right hand world (state institutions, public resources)

4. Hooray for experimentation

• Will this work? We have no idea, but there are compelling reasons to try it out.

• We need bolder R&D, more risk-taking…… along with rigorous measurement, evaluation and learning… and a commitment to communicating findings openly, honestly, interestingly

• That’s as good as it gets