Transparent
communication and information sharing
to enable efficient decision making
process and effective delivery of
social services.
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, apathy and hopelessness are major
issues perpetuating the status quo. 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;
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;
Top down systems
are not geared towards the needs of those
who it is intended to serve;
Development community
is often overly concerned with reputation
and social standing and there are also
questions about how well they organize
with each other.
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
creating a holistic ecosystem approach to development.
Key to the Governance Pillar is the development
of effective systems to collect and organize knowledge
to ensure meaningful governance systems. The Open
Digital Village knowledge collection
system for underserved communities uses 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
includes such things as a wireless village network
and data storage server, and perhaps 2 laptops
and 3 handheld computers with GPS support. In
line with the OVF mission of seeing the role of
technology as augmenter is the importance of a
strong collaborative process and framework. This
is where the oneVillage Initiative collaborative
dialog framework comes into play, allowing computer
and internet infrastructure to be developed to
complement efforts by local human networks to
find effective development solutions.
Goals:
Shift from top down
systems of command and control and more
flexible frameworks of coordination between
NGOs governments and donors
Develop
effective evaluation and accountability
practices
Simplify and standardize
donor procedures and requirements for
giving out grants
Improve communication
between governments, NGOs and donors
Orgs
in our
"Governance Pillar Network"
Life-Line
to Citizen (LL2C) - is an initiative
to integrate the citizens and the entire
vertical and horizontal hierarchy of Government
from the village level to the national level
on a single web based e-Platform for citizen
empowerment, productivity improvement, transparency,
accountability, poverty alleviation, etc.
Club
of Rome - is a global think tank and
centre of innovation and initiative that
brings together leaders from all five continents
who are convinced that the future of humankind
is not determined once and for all and that
each human being can contribute to the improvement
of our societies.
Governance
Links
Open
Society Institute - Started by George
Soros this organization seeks to promote
the development of open societies.
Stockholm
Challenge - Award for ICT best practices.
Transparency
International - Conducts an international
survey of nations to see how they compare
to promote greater transparency in goverance.
Global
Organization of Parliamentaries Against
Corruption (GOPAC) seeks greater governance
transparency & accountability in governance.
OneWorld
- Progressive social network of global innovators
dedicated to social justice and sustainability.
Governance
Movers and Shakers
Kris
Dev - is a ICT Consultant
specializing in decentralization and good
governance though TrAcNet,
a global, not-for-profit consortium of Social
Activists, for ‘Better Self Administration..
Related to these efforts is e-Admin”,
a web enabled, platform neutral, paper-less
e-Office Communication & Collaboration
Tool. Won the prestigious “Manthan
Award 2006”, for his biometric
tracking system.
Key
Pillar Components
Holistic
ICT for EcoLiving -
Encourages the development of ICT as augmentation
of human potential with a focus on how WE
can be the change in regards to creating
a sustainable and socially just world for
ALL.
Open
Societies (from Wikipedia)
- In open societies, government is responsive
and tolerant, and political mechanisms are
transparent and flexible. The state keeps
no secrets from itself in the public sense;
it is a non-authoritarian society in which
all are trusted with the knowledge of all.
Political freedoms and human rights are
the foundation of an open society.
New
Professional Model - Key is the
development of goverance tools to enable
an openness to new perspectives and directions
(such as Back To The Root) that result the
evolution of both our personal and academic
and professional lives so that we can better
serve humanity.
Past
Governance Pillar Proposals
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.
