What can technology do for transparency and accountability?

If you are interested in what technology can do for transparency and accountability I suggest you read this report (left) from Transparency & Accountability Initiative in Cambridge.

The authors have reviewed more than 100 projects where new technologies as a means to promote transparency and accountability have been applied.

Seven key findings are presented on page 5-6, and here I just want to focus on what I found particularly interesting from reading the report:

The cool factor:

'However, one lesson from the Ushahidi/Uchaguzi experience
is that the success of a tool in one context can inspire others
to quickly launch projects using the same tool without a clear
strategy or a solid methodology capable of yielding credible
results. We identified a number of these cases during our
research; while they are not profiled here, they reinforce the
point that the ‘cool factor‘ of technology tools can at times
exacerbate the lack of rigor found in some initiatives. This
poses a risk of diminishing the role that technology can play
in the transparency and accountability field.' (page 16).

Traditional organisations continueing to think that using tech tools refer to tweeting and having a website:

'Some efforts are just starting, and some are more solid and
thought out than others, but selected initial efforts already
seem to be moving ahead of traditional transparency
and accountability organisations and their models, many
of which continue to think that using ‘tech‘ tools refers
to tweeting and having a website. These traditional
organisations often fail to take advantage of more powerful
technology tools, even though they are experts on the
transparency and accountability subject matter.' (page 19)

Lack of knowledge of the subject to be monitored:

 In addition to the lack of knowledge on an academic
level, we also sometimes observed a lack of knowledge
about the specific issues that project organisers intend to
monitor or evaluate, such as electoral protocols or complex
mechanisms of corruption in public procurement, all of
which hurts the good intentions the creators of many
projects have.

Don't throw away the old-fashioned tools for all that glitters: 

'Technology for transparency and accountability
tools do not necessarily have to be sophisticated
to succeed, but they need to be designed
intelligently and with an eye towards local
context.' (page 23)

Finally, I think the long list of short descriptions of case studies and the section on commonly used tools are useful for people to get an idea of what technology applied for transparency and accountability really is all about - short, but google on yourself. One example is for instance the description of how the Tanzanian-based NGO, Daraja works with 'Maji Matone' (page 16 and 31).