Some language and ideas I am playing with: 'serving the public' and 'special understanding/capability groups'

Some language and ideas I am playing with…

1.

If we reframe ‘public’ as ‘citizens, civil society organizations, government, etc.’ – in essence, citizens + public institutions, can we change the mindset of all of these folks to that of “public servants?” It might be framed as individual citizens and organizations that think about serving the whole ‘public.’ So not, public servants in the sense of 'people who work in government,' but more 'public servants' in the sense that 'they serve the public.' (again, a reminder that 'public' here would essentially mean 'citizens, CSOs, gov, etc...' or maybe 'society' as a whole).

Thoughts?

2.

A short e-mail conversation between a friend and I a few months ago:

I had just shared some of the ideas behind the work I am doing so he was asking questions about it.

Friend: So we determine a revised or new path by gathering as much information about an issue from as many people as possible (or reasonable). I keep thinking about my good friend who said change management is nothing more than the engineering of consent -- the message is there must not be pre determined solutions. 

Me: If I understand you correctly, yes, but pushing it beyond just information gathering. The central tenant of this is that you need different types of expertise and view from many parts of the problem to come up with a solution to a complex problem. I am proposing that we build processes and approaches that bring these different points of view together. I also believe there is a lot of value in deliberation by people with a view of the system. The very act of guiding people through a problem solving process will lead us to better solutions. Right now each group (in many cases) is tackling the problem from their own angle and do not have the knowledge or expertise from another actor to improve their action.

Friend: Secondly is this any different from the much maligned "special interest groups " on a broader scale?

Me: It is kind of like special interest groups. But it is different on two dimensions. [Many of] the people I want a part of this aren't necessarily organized - it may be a Sudanese man in Scarborough who runs a shoe shine shop. He has an important perspective to add to how Canada is operating in the Sudan and South Sudan.

The second difference is that these are more "special understanding/capability groups [and] individuals” [people or organizations with a particular value to add] rather than “special interest” groups. People coming together not because they have an interest that they are advocating for, but they are bringing a particular value add to contribute to the problem solving and/or action.

I do agree that special interest groups play a very important role and can often be game changers. Civil society has a massive role in societal problem solving. My interest is in bringing together others who aren't associated with interest groups - and bring them together with the government, with folks from other countries, and with folks from interest groups  - and have them deliberate and take action together. 

Policy Forum on Global Development: What can open government contribute to community and economic development?

Several weeks ago in Calgary, Alberta, tangentially with the Engineers Without Borders annual national conference, I co-hosted an event called the “Policy Forum on Global Development.” I co-hosted with two other teams at EWB: the aid effectiveness advocacy team based in Toronto, Ontario, and the Governance and Rural Infrastructure team based in Tamale and Accra, Ghana.

The topic of the event was “How can an open government contribute to community and economic development?” We aimed to have a focus on both the larger questions of the ‘why’ behind open government and the ‘what and how’ of open government. Our other aim was to bring together a diverse set of people from around the world to discuss the question. We were very lucky to have participants and speakers from Canada, the USA, Finland, Ghana, and Malawi.

Here is a picture of the forum: Joonas Pekkanen, one of the panelists who spoke on a panel with Ms. Lois Brown and Mr. Samuel Yebeoh, is on the screen at the top left of the photo. Joonas spoke about his Open Ministry work in Finland. You can find more about his exciting work on Open Gov in Finland here.  Joonas tweets here @joonaspekkanen

Here is the definition of ‘open government’ that we shared with participants prior to the event:

‘An open government is one that works with its citizens, civil society, and other actors to collaboratively solve important problems faced by their society. [1]

Open government is built on three intertwined foundational principles:

Information and data transparency: the public is easily able to locate, understand, and use information about governmental activities (eg. Decision making, policy formulation, service provision, results).

Public engagement: members of the public, equally and without discrimination, are able to influence, develop, contribute to, monitor, and evaluate governmental activities.

Accountability: There are robust policies, mechanisms, and practices that enable the public to hold the government accountable for its actions and commitments.

Open government is not the same as open data. The provision of open data alone does not make a government open. For instance, governments can provide open data on politically neutral topics and remain opaque on others, or lack mechanisms for citizens to hold them accountable.

Similarly, governments can pursue the foundational principles of open government without utilizing the new technologies that they are often associated with, such as the internet. However, technologies are important tools that can support governments in their pursuit of openness.’

Instead of sharing my own commentary in this post (I’ll do that shortly in another) I would like to point you towards several other places on the web where thoughts have been shared about the event:

Linda Raftree, one of the panellists  shares the ideas she presented on this post: http://lindaraftree.com/2013/01/18/open-data-and-critical-consciousness/

Ms. Raftree also did us all a favor and shared what she thought were the most interesting points from the day-long discussion here: http://lindaraftree.com/2013/01/16/16-thoughts-on-open-government-and-community-and-economic-development/

Ms. Lois Brown, the Parliamentary Secretary to Canada’s Minister for International Cooperation also spoke on a panel during the event. Because the event was held under Chatham House rules to encourage honest discussion, I cannot share what Ms. Brown spoke about. What I will do however, is point you towards the speech she gave to the entire conference delegation. It can be found on her website here: http://www.loisbrown.ca/media_/riding-news/keynote-speech-at-engineers-without-borders-national-conference

I wasn’t in the room for Ms. Brown’s speech, but what I did hear, is that she received at least three rounds of applause from the audience for the Canadian government’s commitment to aid transparency through the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI). The audience was full of 600 young Canadian activists, who just a year and a half before, were holding events and meeting with Members of Parliament across Canada to advocate that Canada sign onto IATI.

[January 30th addition: Owen Scott (of Development Gateway), has written a post about the event as well. Check it out here: http://www.developmentgateway.org/news/how-can-we-make-open-data-meaningful-citizens ]

If you are interested in hearing more about this policy forum or have comments on any of the outcomes or content, please do leave a comment or get in touch.

Thanks to both Samantha Burton and Merlin Chatwin for the fun we had in organizing this event together.

Merlin tweets here: https://twitter.com/MerlinChatwin

Sam tweets here: https://twitter.com/ASamBurton I tweet at @ianfroude

[1] Our definition of open government is based on a number of widely-cited sources, including: Open Government Partnership, Open Government Declaration, September 2011; Harlan Yu and David G. Robinson, The New Ambiguity of “Open Government”, UCLA Law Review Discurse 59:178 (2012); Beth Noveck, What’s in a Name? Open Gov and Good Gov, Huffington Post, 4 June 2011; Nathaniel Heller, A Working Definition of “Open Government’, 22 May 2012.

E-petitions: my thoughts

As a bit of a background, here is (roughly) the process for a paper petition (from my experience doing campaign work with Engineers Without Borders Canada):
If an organization or individual is running a campaign or wants to share their opinion with Canadian politicians or parliament they would generally need to follow the following steps:
1. they would need to distribute their hard-copy paper petitions across this vast country (or at least have people print them off from where ever they are)
2. have them signed at various points across the country
3. then have them mailed back to the organizer (or directly to the sponsoring Member of Parliament)
4. and then to a Member of Parliament before they can be presented in parliament.

Electronic petitions (e-petitions, those petitions that can be 'signed' online) would save a tremendous amount of time and logistical effort for both organizations and individuals. Currently however, electronic petitions cannot be presented in the Canadian Parliament.

My rationale in support of e-petitions is quite simple. We live in a age where electronic communication is the norm and if communication mediums aren't online people very often view them as slow and cumbersome. 

Organizations and individuals need to be enabled to share their policy recommendations or opinions, and paper positions take too much time to circulate, sign and compile for the average campaign or individual petition effort to be successful.

Many third-party petitioning sites already exist (and are likely signed by thousands of Canadians every day, although I don't have specific numbers) and despite the fact that these petitions can influence because of their sheer number they still lack an important influence mechanism: they cannot be presented in the Canadian Parliament.

The United Kingdom and the Government of Quebec (a province in Canada) already have tools and rules like this in place. 

With that, it make clear sense to me why we should move this political engagement medium online to complement the use of paper petitions.

A Canadian Member of Parliament, Kennedy Stewart has a motion put forward to change the rules around e-petitions, recommending that the government of Canada build an online platform for petitions and allow e-petitions to be presented in the House of Commons.
--
There are other less central reasons why I am in support of e-petitions:
- I assume it will be easier for Canadians who are living abroad to sign a petition that is electronic rather than paper. There are nearly 3 million Canadians living in countries around the world who should have the opportunity to have their opinion heard.
- I believe that increasing the variety and number of ways a citizen can be engaged in their democracy is a positive step forward.
- It sends a message to Canadians that the government is, or at least wants to listen.

Gap-filling at DFAIT by other actors?: citizens and civil society?

A few quick thoughts that came to mind as I read a recent article on the CIC website: http://opencanada.org/features/the-think-tank/essays/why-diplomacy-matters-more-than-ever/

If this is true: that HQ capacity for background and scenario notes and other items is decreasing; is there potential to fill this gap by capitalizing on other actors in society to produce some of these items?

There are limitations to this of course, mainly that other actors look through lenses that are very different than that which a government looks through, but is there a compromise to be made? 

If a shortage of money, or at least not a prioritization of the value-add of headquarters, will cause diplomats and diplomatic staff to have to spend more time in their office, then can some of these activities be off-loaded to university researchers, volunteer interns, etc. I'm sceptical that they would meet the same level of professionalism or do the items in the same way as would have been expected from the HQ, but it might help fill the gap.