Governance Pillar

Vision
Effective governance has long been the aspiration of humanity. Within the global economy governance include the development of local, regional national structures of administration. Also important to consider is how ICT can augment existing governance structures. Various bodies are working to develop effective ICT approaches to improve governance and accountability such as the World Summit on Information Society. OVF builds full participation in governance as a vital component and natural extension of the community healing process.

Current Reality and Challenges
Corruption is a major issue. The challenges of governance primarily relate to policy and regulation and the systematic reform in these areas:

	Government policies support agribusiness interests pushing non-affluent farmers off their lands and into burgeoning cities
	Assumptions about the superiority of the West in relation to the rest of the world continue to have an impact on policy and global governance reducing local self-esteem.
	Corrupt local and national officials help to create a culture of dependency by investing money destined to help local people on themselves and their friends instead.
	Development community is often overly concerned with reputation and social standing and there are also questions about how well they organize with each other.
	Top down systems are not geared towards the needs of those who it is intended to serve
	Tied aid often ends up benefiting donor nations more than the one they are supposed to help. The money destined for the modernization of emerging economies actually ends up back in the hands of the country that gave it.

Transparency international is one organization that has sought to develop more accountability and transparency among non-affluent nations. The goal is to develop better procedures and accountability standards and to put forward legistaltion in developed countires that discourages MNCs from bribing corrupt officials. Related to this is the efforts of groups like The Global Organization of Parliamentaries Against Corruption (COPAC) is seeking to promote governance transparency and accountability in governance. According to Paul Martin, a typical country benefits from 600 projects which involve a bewildering array of forms increasing costs.

OVF Approach
OVF seeks to use Holistic ICT to enable and empower social networks faciliating more integration and coordination between various NGO, government and business actors.

The Community Knowledgebase Development System (CKDS) was to be a knowledge collection system for underserved communities using portable and wireless ICT technologies. In this program computers would be deployed to serve community organization, health and demographic data collection, and other basic survival support activities. These would include a wireless village network and data storage server, and perhaps 2 laptops and 3 handheld computers with GPS support.

Following the Holistic ICT model this system would include other components such as a basic electricity system will support the IT system powered by alternative energy. Additionally this system would provide lighting for work in the evenings and refrigeration for the village health worker to store drugs and test supplies. This program would also include using ICT to promote appropriate technology including the demonstration of crop storage and food preservation technologies to reduce food spoilage and increase the time in which these products could be sold thus potentially increase their value.

Objectives

	Improve communication between governments, NGOs and donors
	Simplify and standardize donor procedures and requirements for giving out grants
	Develop effective evaluation and accountability practices
	Shift from top down systems of command and control and more flexible frameworks of coordination between NGOs governments and donors

oneVillage Governance Ecopartners

Afri-Fund

Open Source

The Community Knowledgebase Development System (CKDS) proposal was submitted to the Soros Foundation in Dec of 2003. It was to be a knowledge collection system for underserved communities using portable and wireless ICT technologies.