A Missing Link in the Rights Struggle: Political Process Monitoring
There is a lot of talk about political activism in the tech for development and democracy space. We often discuss capturing evidence or documenting abuses using cameras and phones; citizen journalism and citizen reporting using blogs, SMS or other social media; crowdsourcing reports on to web-based maps; or circumventing repressive regimes to gain access to the Internet - often to share the evidence or access the social platforms we use to share our experiences.
Lots of great technologies, lots of courageous activists and citizens, and lots of international support for these efforts.
However, it seems to me that a big piece of the puzzle isn't very clear - how are these technologies and political activities supposed to bring about the desired poltiical change? What process do these actions support? What is the theory of change?
This post attempts to fill in some of that gap by explaining a common approach that NDI coaches groups to use in combination with all these great technologies: political process monitoring.
Our Citizen Participation (CP) team, experts in political process monitoring, recently published more on this topic on our website - following are the highlights and the technology linkages. NDITech team member Katherine Maher is working with our CP team to identify innovative ways to blend ICTs into this area of programming, I'm sure we'll hear more about this on this blog in the coming weeks and months.
Here is what we know so far:
There are several varieties of “political process monitoring” that NDI trains groups around the world to engage in - government budget monitoring; participatory budgeting and expenditure tracking; legislative monitoring; shadow reporting on government performance; policy implementation monitoring; and election-related monitoring. Details and examples of each are available on our website - from a tech perspective there are basically three steps to typical political process monitoring:
- Collecting, compiling and analyzing information;
- Developing and disseminating findings; and
- Using the findings to raise public awareness and government responsiveness.
Technology can play a key role in each of those stages.
To illustrate how this might work, a fictitious program example follows.
NDI works with political parties and a wide variety of civic groups - whether in emerging democracies or more closed societies. These might include human rights groups, election monitoring groups, youth groups, groups focused on corruption, women’s rights, or worker’s rights organizations, for example. NDI does not take positions on their issues, but instead supports them in their efforts in advocating for their causes.
Let's pick one of those as an example. Let’s say we have a set of NGO partners who are working to document human rights abuses under a repressive regime. Their goal is to bring about political rights and democracy, and they are committed to the long term effort this may require.
However, an upcoming political event - such as an election, holiday, or anniversary of a past political event, – is expected to provide an opportunity.
For the brief moment when the world’s attention - by which we mean CNN and BBC - will shift to their country, there will be domestic and international pressure on the regime to loosen their restrictions on political rights.
The group's plan is to document abuses experienced by their activists and citizens in the time between today and this event. When international attention is upon them, they will then share the information they are collecting, to expose the regime’s abuses both inside and outside the country. This is their possible moment of opportunity.
In this situation, the NDI team would typically provide support to the activists in the form of a data audit. This includes identifying which kinds of political processes to monitor to support their goals, what type of evidence they should gather, and how to incorporate established organizing methods or practices.
This allows groups to best organize themselves to gather the evidence, analyze it, and then communicate it effectively.
After this assessment, planning for the tech challenges begins. In the first stage, data gathering, the data being collected can range from basic, paper-based information collection to sophisticated rich media. Paper reporting is often sufficient in traditional election monitoring, while photo or video evidence may be necessary to document human rights or other kinds of abuses.
In repressive regimes, the unique political and security environments always require careful planning when designing appropriate procedures and technology solutions. Beyond simply collecting the data, moving and storing data often presents additional challenges and complexities.
There is no single approach, tool or technology that can be used – each specific environment requires a customized approach.
Once a group has sorted out how to collect and move the data, the analysis stage begins. Typically, groups set up databases to crunch the numbers. These databases may provide reports, graphs, or other tools to interpret the data and produce findings.
When rich media, such as video, is involved, work becomes more complicated. Very often this involves more advanced technical skills, such as editing and cataloging, in order to find and highlight the most compelling content. Building these kinds of tools often requires technical skills and financial resources that are out of the reach of activist groups.
Finally, there is the third stage: the sharing of collected data. This requires a holistic communications strategy that employs both offline and online techniques, using traditional and new media as appropriate.
Technology components might include a web platform as the repository to house the content, and appropriate online outreach tools such as email campaigns and social media. New and more affordable visualization and data mining tools are also making communicating increasingly effective. These tools are used in addition to offline activities such as press conferences.
As I've mentioned in other posts, it takes good methodologies like structured political process monitoring, combined with strong organizations and good technologies to maximize the political impact of these kind of movements.
Pictured above: Phillipine youth group and NDI partner called First Time Voters (FTV) - working on an election program to monitor candidates on campaign promises on youth priority issues and make their reports public online.