Open Government Partnership Webinar on The Role of Open Government in Public Service Delivery
Tuesday, May 20, 2014 10:00 - 11:30 AM EST (14:00 GMT) REGISTER for this Webinar HERE http://worldbankva.adobeconnect.com/e81n5s13w8p/event/event_info.html Presenters Rakesh Rajani (Head of Twaweza and Civil Society Co-chair of the OGP) Ruth Carlitz (A PhD Candidate at UCLA and Researcher on Open Government) and Albert Van Zyl (Research and Learning Manager, International Budget Partnership) Sponsored by the OGP Support Unit and the World Bank Institute (WBI) Description Public services account for a large proportion of government budgets, but increased spending has often not been matched by improvements in outcomes. Around the world, children still leave school, are unable to read and the quality of healthcare remains uneven. In the worst case, money intended for books, teachers, dispensaries, medical supplies and infrastructure is lost to corruption. Even where the integrity of resource flows can be secured, approaches to public service delivery designed struggle to respond to present day needs. Public services are traditionally organized in a way that puts the public in a passive role, as the recipient of a standardized service. This contrasts with innovations in other areas of life such as retail, travel and media where people are used to giving feedback on the goods and services they receive, and playing an active role in making choices. Promoting greater transparency and enabling ordinary citizens to assess the quality, adequacy and effectiveness of basic services, to voice their needs and preferences and to become involved in innovation offers an opportunity to enable better use of public funds, and improve service delivery. Governments are experimenting so that citizens can play a more active role as a user community for public services. This can mean participatory processes and forums, community monitoring and citizens’ budgets, or new forms of commissioning. Technology and open data enable a different kind of participation. This webinar, which draws on the Public Services topic from the Open Government Guide (www.opengovguide.com ) looks at steps that governments can and are taking as part of their OGP Action plans including: Establish easy feedback mechanisms for public services Publish and promote information on the public services people are entitled to Involve citizens in the commissioning, design, delivery and assessment of public services Facilitate cooperation with independent monitoring efforts and take action on issues raised Publish key public service performance data Systematically track and publish performance indicators across public services Bio for Rakesh Rajani Rakesh R. Rajani is the Head of Twaweza, an initiative to enhance access to information, citizen agency and public accountability in East Africa. Rakesh served as the founding Executive Director of HakiElimu, an independent organization in Tanzania. Currently, Rakesh is a member of the OGP Steering Committee. Bio for Ruth Carlitz Ruth Carlitz is a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at the University of California, Los Angeles. She has conducted research on transparency and accountability for organisations including the IBP, the IDS, and DFID's Accountability Programme in Tanzania. Bio for Albert van Zyl Albert van Zyl is the manager of research and learning, IBP-Cape Town. Van Zyl has consulted to finance ministries, NGOs, and legislatures in different countries. Between 1997 and 2002 van Zyl worked at the Budget Information Service (BIS) at the Institute for Democracy in South Africa (Idasa) and directed it from 2000-2002. N.B: We would like to let you know that when you register for this webinar you will receive a confirmation e-mail from ADOBE CONNECT with the webinar link. Kindly use the link to join the webinar session 5 minutes before its scheduled start on Tuesday, May 20, 2014. Steven Clift - http://stevenclift.com Executive Director - http://E-Democracy.org Twitter: http://twitter.com/democracy Tel/Text: +1.612.234.7072 ᐧ ----------------------------------------- Group home for Newswire - Steven Clift's Democracies Online Newswire: http://groups.dowire.org/groups/newswire Replies go to members of Newswire - Steven Clift's Democracies Online Newswire with all posts on this topic here: http://groups.dowire.org/r/topic/2b9fge0bQQojpyumE1gKl7 For digest version or to leave Newswire - Steven Clift's Democracies Online Newswire, email [email protected] with "digest on" or "unsubscribe" in the *subject*. Newswire - Steven Clift's Democracies Online Newswire is hosted by Democracies Online - http://dowire.org.
