Global Innovation Competition 2016 Ideas

Which sub-theme question will you be answering and how? Refer to manual for the sub-theme questions :

1.How can we engage youth and marginalized populations in transitional justice and human rights issues addressing legacies of conflict through the use of technology?

2.How can technology be used to increase access to information within justice sector?

Describe the problem that your idea/project wants to address. :

Marginalized citizen and the youth face barriers in access to information and means to exercise their rights. The lack of “voice” of disadvantaged groups is a challenge at the core of pro-poor advocacy on ICT access. it compromises their ability to advocate for their own communication needs.Farmers are among the marginalized group who face human rights violations due to low levels of accountability in policy implementation as beneficiaries they lack ability to hold duty bearers accountable.

How does your idea/project engage local, regional or national governments as a means of increasing citizen engagement and/or government responsiveness? :

The federation has structures called consultative fora formed through representation of various groups elected by officials at the local level. The consultative fora enable farmers and government officials at various level to gather and develop common position on variety of issues affecting them from the ward level to the national level.The outcome of such consultations will then be shared to the beneficiaries through the SMS platform.

How does your idea/concept engage with gender equality and/or the rights of disadvantaged groups? :

Majority of the target group own and understand how to use a mobile phone which makes it easier to engage them through the platform.The project will use the SMS technology to enhance their access to information so that they are empowered to hold duty bearers responsible.

Which sub-theme question will you be answering and how? Refer to manual for the sub-theme questions :

How can we strengthen the role of citizen participation in planning and budgeting to ensure inclusive and participatory governance?

Through the seven-staged process, PB is a model that seeks to organize and amplify citizens' voices to come up with development priorities in their localities and advocate for the inclusion of these priorities in the county budgets. It also involves the citizens in social auditing of projects by county governments thus promoting transparency and accountability.

Describe the problem that your idea/project wants to address. :

Even with the new Kenya constitution (2010) providing for active citizen participation in various governance processes, this has not been meaningfully achieved according to various sources. The newly created county governments use non participatory means of consultations to get citizens views that lack any form of feedback mechanisms. Access to information on budgetary matters by citizens especially within counties is also a problematic. Most counties lack policies/laws that guide participation.

How does your idea/project engage local, regional or national governments as a means of increasing citizen engagement and/or government responsiveness? :

Through the model, citizens get to identify and prioritize the development needs in their localities and present them to county officials for inclusion in specific financial year budgets.

The project will also engage directly with the National Executive and legislative arms of government in dissemination information on budgets, expenditures and audits to the citizens of counties involved. This in particular involves information that county governments withhold for various reasons.

How does your idea/concept engage with gender equality and/or the rights of disadvantaged groups? :

Provision for inclusion of historically marginalized groups has been incorporated in the project design through; accessibility of information - not relying heavily on the written that necessitates particular levels of education and physical ability; hosting separate citizens assemblies for particular marginalized groups; taking cognizance of the distorted voice of dominant groups and facilitating consensus building processes as a default to solving contentious issues when they are raised.

Which sub-theme question will you be answering and how? Refer to manual for the sub-theme questions :

Project to be implemented will answer question on how access to information on devolution can be improved to increase citizen awareness& government responsiveness.Citizens will use a website to access data on budget &spending.County officials will be trained to access & resolve customer complaints.County heads e.g.governors will access statistics of best & worst performing departments &know how to demand for faster services.SMS reminders will be sent to citizens to attend budget planning forums.

Describe the problem that your idea/project wants to address. :

1. The devolvement from local authority to adoption of county governments in Kenya has a major fallback in allocation of revenue and spending. E.g. hospital curtains worth USD 74,000 in Meru County.

2. Citizens are not actively involved in decision making processes especially during budget planning. A majority of them do not know how much revenue their county has collected and spent.

3. Citizens do not have an avenue to air grievances when they pay for a service and it is not delivered to them.

How does your idea/project engage local, regional or national governments as a means of increasing citizen engagement and/or government responsiveness? :

1.Engaging counties e.g Kiambu to provide figures of collected revenue & spending then making the data public for citizens assessment.

2.Train county customer care representatives on using the platform & responding to complaints.

3.Train officials e.g. governor to assess statistics of speed of service delivery by departments.

4.Working with counties e,g Kiambu to access contacts collected using system @iLabAfrica has implemented & alerting citizens via SMS to attend forums e.g. budget planning.

How does your idea/concept engage with gender equality and/or the rights of disadvantaged groups? :

To ensure success of this project, we shall highly involve the community. Through the revenue collection system @iLabAfrica has implemented in Taita Taveta and Kiambu counties, we have a database of contacts of various self-help groups comprising of women and disadvantaged members from the community. Project champions will be selected and trained to sensitize their communities on using the various tools to air grievances and why they should take part in forums e.g. county budget preparation.

Which sub-theme question will you be answering and how? Refer to manual for the sub-theme questions :

How can we improve access to information on devolution so that we can increase citizen awareness and government responsiveness to citizens needs?

The project will pick 4 bio sanitation facilities in the slums of Nairobi where women will operate a menu of ICT choices (online mapping, mobile telephony, podcasts, community based FM radio stations, online portals) to coalate, and analyse Geo-referenced information in respect to the setting of priorities, county government budgeting and social audit

Describe the problem that your idea/project wants to address. :

The constitution delegates the responsibility of service delivery to the county government and outlines the need to have the marginalized communities and groups participate in county government decision making process. In the people’s settlements women, youth, children and people with disability are ignored in these processes and activities that prioritizes projects that need to address their individual problems like, sanitation, health, water and infrastructure

How does your idea/project engage local, regional or national governments as a means of increasing citizen engagement and/or government responsiveness? :

1. Through the e-government platforms women will be trained to interact, contribute and communicate issues emerging from the community.

2. The issues prioritized through the ICT centers will be presented to the ward development committees for resource allocation.

3. On legislative processes they will target the Members of County Assembly (MCA) to present views on policy processes.

4. The voice champions will also collect views of the public and petition MCAs on misuse of public resources.

How does your idea/concept engage with gender equality and/or the rights of disadvantaged groups? :

The project will enhance democracy and women participation through electronic connectivity to gather information on public service delivery, budgeting, planning and implementation of development projects in line with gender concerns. The women will also use their mobile phones to interrogate projects that don't meet gender balance thresholds as stipulated in the constitution. The ultimate goal is to ensure the marginalized groups are included as equal members spaces of leadership and governance.