How can Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and open data foster people’s engagement and empower citizens to reduce corruption and improve service delivery? The panel will discuss the role of ICTs and open data in enabling and empowering citizens and civil society to hold public officials to account and whether they can potentially serve as instruments for citizens to socially sanction corruption. While they offer tremendous potential to advance the anti-corruption agenda, involving people and reducing the opportunities for corruption, harnessing this potential requires critical conditions in terms of design, implementation, and use. The panel will explore under which circumstances the use of open data and digital technology can be integrated into and leveraged by other interventions to engage people in driving for real change in the delivery of services.
We aim to understand innovative and effective experiences of open data and ICT-enabled approaches to engage and empower people in order to prevent and reduce corruption, identifying solutions and promising practices while also underscoring the main use and implementation challenges. The panel will also address some of the emerging issues and open questions regarding ICTs and open data. Specifically, the session will discuss:
- Successful open data and ICT-enabled initiatives for improving service delivery, holding public officials to account, and tackling corruption, including oversight, monitoring and prevention.
- Using ICTs and open data for monitoring and social sanctioning in contexts where service delivery is plagued by corruption and impunity.
- The critical success factors that are needed for realizing the full potential of ICTs and open data.
- The role of different actors regarding ICTs and open data for anti-corruption and how they can promote or enable collaboration between citizens and governments to tackle corruption collectively.
- New approaches using ICTs and open data, and what could be their potential impact for anti-corruption.
