Accounting for change

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Ghana’s local governments were established to give people a voice to influence development policies and programmes in their area – but a low level of participation by the public meant their voices were not being heard and policy-makers were less accountable.

To tackle this, TransGov Ghana, a web and mobile application aggregating development projects for public monitoring, launched an initiative to help people keep track of – and offer feedback on – projects in their local area. 

“The aim was to give opportunities for Ghanaian citizens to influence public policies and programmes, and maintain general oversight of development projects to ensure accountability, value for money and greater impact on their lives and wellbeing,” explains Jerry Akanyi-King, chief executive and co-founder of TransGov. 

“We believe that this is a critical requirement for sustaining democratic governance and promoting fundamental human rights in Ghana.”

After meeting at the Meltwater Entrepreneurial School of Technology in Accra, TransGov’s founders developed a web platform, an SMS system and interactive voice response (IVR) technology to give citizens the chance to share their input on government projects. 

The platforms also provided information in the other direction – allowing government to share updates with the public, promoting transparency. 

Awareness was promoted through social media, blogs and traditional media advertising. In addition, monthly meetings were held to allow conversations between community leaders and residents, and to introduce the project.

In total, the initiative monitored 30 projects, covering schools, roads, toilet facilities and bridges. Examples include the Korle Gonno Cluster of Schools – one of 14 school schemes undertaken by the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) in collaboration with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) – and Kwame Nkrumah Circle Interchange, a busy intersection in Accra’s arterial road network.

The website and use of SMS proved to be effective channels for citizens to submit feedback and monitor developments; in the case of SMS, people without smartphones could sign up for notifications on the developments they were interested in receiving updates, and could also send in their comments and suggestions. 

From its interactions with users, the TransGov team noticed that people were hesitant to download the mobile app developed for the project, because they believed it would incur a cost. Even when assured that the app was free, people still felt they were paying for the service, because – in their minds – they calculated how much data they would need to buy to download it. “This was a challenge in the beginning,” says Akanyi-King, “but we later found a core, passionate group of users, who were tech-savvy and who gave us a lot of useful feedback.”

The use of IVR technology proved to be very successful, reaching more than 7,000 members of the public. TransGov obtained a database of names and contacts from the local assemblies, and registered people for updates at the community engagement events. 

The public submitted 780 comments in the form of feedback, but only one project made use of this – an abandoned school plan, which has since been reactivated and is now being built. 

According to Akanyi-King, TransGov is working to become the preferred technology platform for the government to monitor its projects in an open and transparent way. 

Citizens can now use the mobile app and SMS to flag issues and problems in their community, such as potholes and burst pipes. TransGov is working with the AMA to share this information, with reports automatically forwarded to the assembly through a dashboard on the platform. 

“For transparency tech in Ghana to work, the shifting priorities of government and its officials must be planned for carefully,” says Akanyi-King. 

“A case in point is how government officials respond to citizens’ queries in the 16 months leading up to an election. They are apprehensive of sharing project information – however, issues raised are usually resolved quickly.

“The key to success in dealing with government officials and utilities at the grassroots level is to have strong, higher-level backing.”

Hearing all voices

Making All Voices Count was a programme to develop innovative approaches to fostering accountable, responsive governance, many involving tools based on mobile and digital technologies. 

The programme – implemented by Hivos, the Institute of Development Studies and Ushahidi – built a base of evidence on the technology that encourages transparency and accountability and listens to citizens’ voices. 

From June 2013 until the programme’s close, in November 2017, Making All Voices Count issued 178 grants to innovation, research, technology and scaling projects across 12 countries. 

“We backed all these innovations, all these ideas, with the research to understand what is happening in the cycle of engagement from voice to responsiveness and accountability,” says Dr Fletcher Tembo, director of the programme. “In each country, we did qualitative economy analysis [to form] a general understanding of how society and state interact.”

A key consideration of Making All Voices Count was to build evidence about the use of technology as a means to achieving responsive, democratic governance. While technology can be an effective tool for engaging citizens, says Fletcher, it is not always the most inclusive solution, because not everyone has access to it. 

“Technology is moving so fast, and the euphoria associated with it can make us assume everyone is there, but it can leave so many people behind,” he adds. “We need nuance in exactly who is engaging, who is not engaging, and the innovative ways we could ensure people are included on their terms, around their livelihood. Then we create this movement of people who are taking part in technology, who are empowered, and who have a voice.”

Making All Voices Count was awarded the President’s Medal at the MRS Awards 2017. Its website is an archive of more than 60 published papers, plus practice papers, on supporting innovation in the field of accountable, responsive governance. Visit www.makingallvoicescount.org