ICT innovations for public information
A knowledge sharing workshop in Bangladesh highlighted ICT innovations in South Asia for enhanced access to public information. The workshop was organised by OneWorld Foundation India and the World Bank Institute to create a knowledge base without frontiers.
Dhaka: A knowledge sharing workshop on ICT-facilitated Access to Information Innovations was organised by OneWorld Foundation India in collaboration with the World Bank Institute (WBI) on 14 June 2011 in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The workshop marked the culmination of OneWorld’s Knowledge Project ‘Learning from ICT-facilitated Access to Information (ATI) innovations in South Asia’ in partnership with the WBI’s Access to Information (ATI) programme. The WBI Access to Information Program seeks to connect key ATI stakeholders to identify and implement effective ATI initiatives.
The Knowledge Product is the next step in the ATI programme and aims to develop insights which can be transformed into initiatives to develop innovative information and communication tools which create a democratic access to public information across India and Bangladesh. The workshop aimed at building knowledge without frontiers.
Participants included Right to Information (RTI) specialists and civil society members from India and Bangladesh including the Chief Information Commissioner of Bangladesh, Ambassador Muhammad Zamir. He urged," Both the countries should exchange aspirations, share learning, be aware of challenges and set benchmarks to develop appropriate ways of circulating information, and ensuring its effective usage."
Outlining the state of Right to Information progress in South Asia, Venkatesh Nayak, Coordinator, Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative pointed out the importance of creating a demand for information among citizens. “It is necessary to make the uneducated and underprivileged masses aware about their ‘Right to know’,” he stated.
India passed its RTI Act in 2005 and Bangladesh in 2009. However, the usage of the Acts remains limited. Nayak believes it is crucial to generate awareness about the importance of access to information for enhanced government accountability.
Presenting their research findings, the OneWorld research team summarised lessons learnt from seven innovations successfully running in India and Bangladesh. These innovations, five from India and two from Bangladesh draw attention to the manner in which governments, civil society organisations and even individual citizens have leveraged information and communication technologies towards enhancing peoples’ access to information.
These innovations have helped citizens, particularly the poor and vulnerable, to exercise their right to information, voice public opinion, demand entitlements and engage in development.
I Paid a bribe (IPAB), one of the seven innovations documented was amongst the most well received initiatives at the workshop. IPAB is a web portal run by an Indian NGO Janaagraha for tracking countrywide corruption by collecting bribe data from citizens. During the panel discussion, Tahmina Rehman, Country Director of Article 19, expressed interest in replicating an initiative like IPAB in Bangladesh.
Naimur Rahman, Managing Director of OneWorld Foundation India stressed that the workshop aims to contribute to cross country adaptation and learning. “Such collective knowledge sharing will help both countries in taking a step further in using information and communication technologies for providing knowledge and information to people,” he stated.
Other initiatives presented at the workshop included Jaankari in Bihar, ICT Ecosystem for MGNREGS in Rajasthan and Daisy for All in Bangladesh.
