WS #86 The Role of Citizens: Informing and Maintaining e-Government

Summary

This discussion focused on the role of citizens in informing and maintaining e-government systems. Panelists explored various aspects of citizen participation, including creating secure channels for engagement, building trust in e-government initiatives, and addressing human rights concerns.

Key points included the importance of secure digital identities and data exchange networks for effective e-government. Panelists emphasized the need to involve citizens as co-creators rather than just end-users of these systems. They discussed strategies for engaging youth and marginalized communities, such as leveraging religious centers and civil society organizations.

The conversation highlighted the importance of proactive government services, where systems anticipate citizen needs rather than requiring complex application processes. Panelists also stressed the need for legal frameworks to support e-government initiatives and protect them from political changes.

Accessibility was a major theme, with suggestions for designing systems that cater to elderly and disabled users. The role of the international community in advising on e-government was debated, with some cautioning against imposing external solutions.

Challenges discussed included data quality issues, the digital divide in rural areas, and the need to build digital literacy. The panel concluded that while progress is being made in many countries, there is still significant work to be done in creating inclusive, secure, and effective e-government systems that truly serve all citizens.

Keypoints

Major discussion points:

– Creating secure channels for citizen participation in e-government design while addressing security concerns

– Building citizen trust in e-government initiatives, especially in places without existing systems

– Forms of citizen participation beyond just using e-government systems (e.g. digital petitions, online voting)

– Including citizens as stakeholders to address human rights concerns around data collection/processing

– Designing e-government systems to address needs of vulnerable populations

The overall purpose of the discussion was to explore ways to meaningfully involve citizens in the development and implementation of e-government systems, while addressing key challenges around security, trust, and inclusion.

Speakers

– Sienna Byrne, Moderator

– Florian Marcus, Head of Sales and Partnerships at Cybernetica

– Noha Abdel Baky, Instructor at the Pan-African Youth Ambassadors for Internet Governance

– Asha Abinallah, Founder and CEO of Tech and Media Convergency (TMC)

– PeiChin Tay, Senior Policy Advisor on Government Innovation at Tony Blair Institute for Global Change

– Dr. Adel Abdel-Sadek, Director of the Arab Center for Cyberspace Research-ACCR

E-Government and Citizen Participation: A Comprehensive Overview

This discussion explored the critical role of citizens in informing and maintaining e-government systems, focusing on various aspects of citizen participation, security concerns, trust-building, and addressing human rights issues. The panel, comprised of experts from diverse backgrounds, offered insights into creating effective and inclusive e-government initiatives.

Creating Channels for Citizen Participation While Addressing Security Concerns

The panelists discussed various strategies for involving citizens in e-government initiatives while maintaining security:

1. Secure Digital Infrastructure: Florian Marcus, Head of Sales and Partnerships at Cybernetica, emphasised the crucial importance of secure digital identities and data exchange networks as the foundation for effective e-government systems.

2. Secure Participation Channels: Marcus recommended implementing secure digital petitioning and online voting systems to increase citizen participation.

3. Balancing Security and Participation: The panel acknowledged the challenge of finding the right balance between security concerns and increased citizen participation in e-government design.

4. Legal Frameworks: Dr. Adel Abdel-Sadek, Director of the Arab Center for Cyberspace Research-ACCR, stressed the need for political support and modernised laws to facilitate digital transformation.

Forms of Citizen Participation Beyond Mere Use of E-Government Systems

The discussion highlighted several ways citizens can actively participate in e-government initiatives:

1. Co-creation: All speakers concurred that citizens should be viewed as partners and co-creators in e-government design, rather than just end-users.

2. Youth Involvement: Noha Abdel Baky from the Pan-African Youth Ambassadors for Internet Governance and Asha Abinallah, Founder and CEO of Tech and Media Convergency, both stressed the importance of youth as primary users and influencers of e-government tools. They advocated for giving youth leadership roles in these initiatives.

3. Engagement Platforms: Asha Abinallah suggested creating platforms to engage citizens and explain the importance of their participation.

4. Digital Feedback Loops: Pei Ching Tay from the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change proposed using technology to create digital feedback loops between citizens and government.

Including Citizens as Stakeholders to Address Human Rights Concerns

The panel discussed approaches to ensure e-government systems respect human rights and include all citizens:

1. Stakeholder Identification: Asha Abinallah emphasised the importance of identifying stakeholders and engaging citizens from the start of any e-government initiative to build trust.

2. Human-Centred Design: Tay and Abinallah both advocated for a human-centric design approach to policymaking, emphasising the importance of understanding and addressing specific stakeholder needs from the outset.

3. Integrating Youth Considerations: Abinallah stressed the importance of integrating youth considerations into national ICT policies.

4. Addressing Potential Risks: An audience member from Russia raised concerns about the potential risks of e-government systems in non-democratic countries, highlighting the need to consider human rights implications in different political contexts.

Designing E-Government Systems for Vulnerable Populations

The panel discussed various approaches to ensure e-government systems are accessible and inclusive:

1. Universal Design: Florian Marcus suggested making interfaces accessible by default for elderly and disabled users.

2. Proactive Services: PeiChin Tay advocated for proactive services to reduce administrative burdens, particularly for vulnerable populations. Marcus provided an example from Estonia, where the government proactively offers services to new parents.

3. Rural Infrastructure: Noha Abdel Baky highlighted the need to improve digital infrastructure access in rural areas to bridge the digital divide.

4. Engaging Marginalised Youth: In response to an audience question, Asha Abinallah discussed strategies for engaging marginalised youth in Tanzania, mentioning current digital infrastructure challenges and government initiatives.

5. Digital Literacy: The panel acknowledged the challenge of making e-government systems accessible to those with low digital literacy.

Role of the International Community in E-Government Development

An interesting point of disagreement emerged regarding the role of the international community:

– Florian Marcus advocated for minimal international interference, cautioning against imposing external solutions.

– Noha Abdel Baky saw a significant role for the international technical community in creating innovative solutions tailored to local needs.

This difference in perspective highlights the complex balance between leveraging international expertise and respecting local autonomy in e-government development.

Throughout the discussion, panelists emphasized the importance of ongoing citizen engagement, adaptive policymaking, and collaboration with civil society organizations to ensure e-government systems meet the diverse needs of all citizens and contribute to more responsive and effective governance.

Sienna Byrne: Thank you so much for joining us for Workshop 86, the role of citizens informing and maintaining e-government. I’m here today joined by panelists Asha Abinalla, founder and CEO of Tech and Media Convergency, Florian Marcus, head of sales and partnerships at Cybernetica, Noha Abalbaki, instructor at the Pan-African Youth Ambassadors for Internet Governance, Dr. Adele Abel-Sadeq, director of the Arab Center for Cyberspace Research, and PeiChin Tay, Senior Policy Advisor on Government Innovation at Tony Blair Institute for Global Change. To kick things off, I would like to pose our first question relating to how we can most effectively create channels for citizen participation and the design of e-government systems while still addressing security concerns. So the way that this panel will work is ideally as a roundtable. So panelists are going to engage in conversation and we’ll leave time at the end also for questions from the audience and input or thoughts on what we shared. If anyone would like to start by addressing that first question. I mean, considering the very square nature of this table, we will try to make it a roundtable so we’ll do our best.

Florian Marcus: So I guess if we want to talk about secure participation of citizens in all echelons of digital government or what I would prefer to call a digital society, we need to talk about secure digital identities which are universal so that I can be sure that when I am logging into my bank or into my digital state portal that the government actually knows who it is talking to as well and that I get the services to which I am entitled. So to make it more personalized as a platform. as a service provision for me. And then also, based on that, data exchange, of course, is super important that you have a secure, decentralized data exchange network where all the different government authorities can talk to each other and exchange data to provide the services that you deserve. But beyond that, I think I would leave it to my participants first, and then potentially chime in if we go into further details.

Sienna Byrne: Great, so on that first question, how we can effectively create channels for citizen participation in the design of e-government systems while still addressing security concerns. Noha, do you want to talk about youth involvement?

Noha Abdel Baky: Thank you, Sienna. I’m Noha Abdel Baky. So youth are the main users of, like, they are the primary users of any tech solutions or any digital tools provided for them. So we are the first responders, the ones who influence other age groups to use these tools. So if we are going to tackle the security perspective of it, it needs to be done through secure channels, not necessarily social media. Even if it’s done through social media, it needs to be done maybe anonymously or by using multi-factor authentication or just to verify that it’s not a scam. Or like in Egypt, we have verified accounts for each ministry or governmental body on all social media channels. So as youth, it’s our role to raise the awareness for the other citizens on how to communicate effectively and securely with the governmental bodies through the available channels. For example, in Egypt, there is also a hotline where you can call the digital Egypt. initiative and raise your concerns or open a ticket with them so it’s not only through social media but yeah we need to raise like the security precautions when we communicate with the government.

Sienna Byrne: Now jumping to Asha – I’d love to hear your answer on question one as well bringing your perspective. You can hear your own voice through the headsets for everyone who is taking them off.

Asha Abinallah: I love the fact that the feedbacks are complimentary but for me I would like to remind as an when I look at my country and the state of development where it is the first channels will be creating all those platforms and to make sure that proper channels and platforms understand that there is this mechanism when the mechanism is being created because we now have a state where the government is creating mechanisms to bring people on board not necessarily strategically focusing on different groups but just generally so the first step would be creating platforms for the youth and citizens to be interested in and understanding why it is important for them to engage and also enticing the way that we can reach where our fellow participants are that now they can create a community of youth who can sort of bring other people or other youth on board or in the peer group to be able to use the e-governance system. Thank you.

Sienna Byrne: Thank you. I know we’ve had some technical difficulties but I’m hoping that PeiChin Tay are you online with us? I’ll repeat the question again but we would love to hear your response to to question one, how can we most effectively create channels for citizen participation in the design of e-government systems while still addressing security concerns?

PeiChin Tay: That’s great. The audio works on my side. Hi, everyone. Sorry, I can’t be there with you in person. I hope you’re all having a great time. So I’m PeiChin Tay from the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change. We do a lot of research around e-government. And I think technology definitely brings a lot of opportunities for civic engagement now, because it really does reduce barriers to scale and creating digital feedback loops that are really important for policymakers. There are a number of online tools these days, such as government portals, e-petition platforms, systems, and so on. All these different tools allow citizens to voice their opinions and to contribute to decision-making without physical barriers, which is a key challenge in some of the countries. And governments are also developing and launching open data initiatives and using technology to release data publicly. And this really empowers citizens to be able to access data, to be able to analyze, critique, and to hold officials to account. So in terms of the actual channels, I think we need to leverage on technology to ensure that there is inclusive input and to create platforms that would allow citizens to provide input anonymously and or securely. So I think POLIS is an example of a really popular consensus-generating platform that crowdsources ideas from the public. And bearing in mind that a lot of social media does have that polarizing effect, POLIS is there generate consensus. And this has actually led Taiwan to help policymakers in issues such as how do we regulate Uber and so on. I think in addition to security and privacy, I think generating consensus is a really important part of that journey, and I think encouraging citizen participation is one side of the equation. But equally, it’s helping policymakers to make better decisions and to achieve regulatory outcomes.

Sienna Byrne: Thank you. That’s a great answer. Dr. Adel will be speaking in Arabic and Nohal will be providing a brief translation afterwards.

Dr. Adel Abdel-Sadek: Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much for this invitation. Because of this subject is very, very important for to re-understanding the real network between or relationship between citizens and the government. I will translate into Arabic. I will translate into Arabic. in the process of improving the government’s decision-making and improving the idea of governance or government governance. Then, the process of designing programs for the electronic government should look at the citizen as a partner and owner, as well as a controller and a practitioner of constitutional rights in compliance with the government and executive bodies. To draft the framework of creating secure and transparent communication channels between the citizens and the governmental bodies, and to consider the opinion and feedback of the citizens when designing the tools, the e-governmental tools and services, as the citizen’s right to be a partner in creating those tools.

Sienna Byrne: Thank you for that translation, Noha. Just building off of question one, one thing that I want to pose to the panelists is, going back to what you said earlier, Asha, how can we build citizen trust and e-government initiatives in places where we don’t have these systems up yet, and where this is really a future opportunity and something that we’re really having to build from the ground up? How do we introduce this? How do we get stakeholder buy-in? And more importantly, what metrics should citizens be basing their trust in e-government on? Thank you. Anyone who wants to take that, please feel free.

Asha Abinallah: So I think the first thing that we take for granted is the understanding of individuals. I would say the first step is instead of just going into doing that by having the metrics of their understanding, their perspective, if they’re positive, if they’re negative, because I think that it’s the best way of introducing a new aspect into the community, especially when it has to do with technology. You know, sometimes as the governments, when they bring on solutions, they bring on initiatives and introduce it to the communities, they know that the government have decided. They don’t feel like they’re part of it. So the first step would be you have to make sure that the citizens are engaged. And I know sometimes it’s very confusing when you talk about citizens. We are, at Tanzania, we are over 65 million, 65 million in population. And the active internet users is just 35 million. So people who’ve registered. So when it comes to active, you might find it’s lesser than that. So how do you reach all these participants? Then you go to the next step, identify the stakeholders. Which stakeholders, which platforms has the target audience you’re reaching? In most cases, sometimes we tend to forget maybe the religious centers. You know, religious, for us as Tanzanians, and I think in most communities, religion is a very important aspect. If you could find ways to find youth through religion, especially as in, especially maybe when it comes to whether it’s mosques, whether it’s churches, you find the youth who would reach a larger number of youth. I think that’s a plus. When you go to universities, you go to CSOs that work with the youth, I think that’s the best way. So how do you reach that? You do a stakeholder mapping. You just don’t. Maybe you just don’t draw a list and say, as long as we’ve reached this category, then that is fine. The key metrics, going to the key metrics, it should be you need to identify a group which, by the time you’ve done engaging with them, you can measure their understanding, their influence, their interest. And that is very easy. We have social media right now. If the citizens are not talking about it, if the users are not talking about it, they are not aware. Because if they are aware, they will in one way or another, whether it’s memes, whether it’s joke, however way they would do that. The other challenging thing is we consider research very, very academically. And I know we have a PhD on board, but when it comes to research, usually it’s just taking something like you just have to go to the academic, have a study on something, and shelf it. How can research be incorporated in a way that it could be friendly and guide their overall process of engagement?

Florian Marcus: Yeah, if I could take it from there. One of my research projects that we just finished up is called EGoff for Youth. You can Google it as well. We just published an over 60-page report. It’s been very fun, basically identifying how youth actually want to be interacting with the government. And what we found extremely low interest in was outreach via social media, because youth don’t want to be talked down upon. They don’t want, I don’t know, economic ministry for kids version on Facebook or something, where they speak to everybody like they’re 15 years old. What you already mentioned as well was that citizens want to feel like they are being heard. And right now that is not the case because most countries don’t account for citizen opinion in their processes. I’ll give a very simple example. If a ministry in most countries decides that it wants to digitalize a service, then usually it will just go ahead and do that. In Estonia and some other countries where public-private partnership is extremely strong, there is a stipulation that says, hey, if there is a project that goes in the direction of service development, you must involve stakeholder groups. If it goes in the direction of e-health, you must talk to patients, to social insurance, to the hospitals, to the nurses, and so on and so forth. So you just have to bake that into your procurement procedures. And if you don’t, well, then that’s probably where one of the problems lies. And the last point that I would add is if we expect citizens to care about the services that government provides, then they should probably be good. And truth be told, in most countries that is not the case right now. And especially if we talk about youth being the ones that bring other generations into the fold, well, youth have to be convinced first. And if youth think of stuff like Amazon that predicts the next thing that they want to buy, or on Instagram within, like if you scroll through Instagram or TikTok, within five minutes the algorithm knows exactly what you want and, you know, what interests you and what you scroll through. And so based on that, they will make recommendations for the next, well, for the rest of your life actually. And government doesn’t do that. Government says, here’s a PDF online, print it out, please fill it out, scan it back and send an email. That’s not user-friendly, that’s like 1998, right? So what we have been doing in Estonia for the last five to ten years is what we call proactive government services, where, I can give a personal example, we have a baby daughter, she’s almost one and a half. half years old. She was born, she got a personal code like a citizen’s number the day that she was born. Her citizen’s number gets connected to my citizen’s number and the one of my wife because we are the legal guardians, the parents. And then the next day we get a notification on the state portal that says congratulations on the birth of your child. We know that by our own laws you are entitled to child benefit payments. To which bank account do we send the money? There is no more application, there is no more searching for the right authority blah blah blah blah blah. So it’s it’s about trying to not even copy the private sector but just get a tiny bit closer than we are at the moment because government will always be slower than private sector. It has to be because of ethical guardrails. That’s fine but we don’t have to be 20 years behind. That’s a quick thought from my side.

Sienna Byrne: Thank you for that response. Would anybody else like to answer this question? I think we have time for about one or two more responses before we move on to our next question. Yes. Feel free to go ahead Dr. Adel.

Dr. Adel Abdel-Sadek: Yes yes. Thank you very much for this information. I think if we wanted to have a good effective channel to design the e-government system, I think we can take in our consideration many aspects such as the e-government system should be coupled with the national need and what is there people need to have or what is the real hopes, real needs to development in the future. Also I think there is also a very important item in this how to know the challenge. What is the challenge we have? What is the opportunity? I think it is very important to have a good solution to solve our problem, to connect with the citizen, to apply e-government. So we are now to transfer from e-government to smart government. I think it is very important to have a smart government to have ability to use as many of technical tools, especially with the rise of AI to apply with and how to handle with the citizen and how to use the boots and AI to deal with the citizen. I think also it is very important to have a good connection between citizen and the government. Also, I have also other item considered on, we should have one national strategy to e-government or smart government. It is very important because it is a make a connection and compromise between the old views, the old idea and how to move our vision to have a development by apply the e-government system. Also, I think also the political support, I think is a political support, especially in our developing countries, it is very important because of it easier to be easy, the tools and easy to apply. And also it is very important to support the leaders to apply the e-government system. Also, I think the e-government and the digital transformation, it is a big challenge to the laws. How to modernize the laws we have, how to make laws and organize the activities on cyberspace because it is related with the trust, as a citizen, if he has the trust in the ecosystem of digital development and digital transaction, it is very important to encourage citizens to deal with the e-government service. Also, especially in our countries like Egypt, we don’t focus on the service by e-government, it is just a service, not to control the citizens. I think it is very important to make a comparison between the service by government, it is the duty for the government, or it is the control on the citizen. I think it is very important to have a culture of digital transformation, it is very good to encourage people to have their inputs about the service and to use many tools. Also, the government should be available many tools, like focus groups, like conferences to raise awareness about what the e-government system has.

Sienna Byrne: Thank you so much Dr. Adel, we really appreciate your response to that. We’re going to have to move on to question two now. Question two is, what form should citizen participation in e-government take beyond the mere use of e-government systems? This goes back to what Florian was talking about earlier regarding proactive government service delivery. Florian, if you would like to take this first question. Yes.

Florian Marcus: Yeah, I mean, there are several things that we can do. Number one, what you could have is something like a digital petitioning system. So right now we’ve got online petition systems all around the world where, I don’t know, you enter your email address and then you can sign whatever, the problem with that system that is being used around the whole world is, of course, that you can create many email accounts. Many of us have several email accounts and we can create 10 more within 10 minutes. And then we can give 10 signatures for whatever petition we care about. And if there is ever a petition that you actually do support but maybe government doesn’t like, they will always be able to put into question like the legitimacy of the number of signatures that you have collected. We have seen this in countries all around the world. This is not one specific kind of government that does this. And the way that we can circumvent this is to say, well, as I said at the start, you all need a universal electronic identity with a digital signature that we can all sort of understand that this person truly gave the signature at this point in time and you can’t hack it somehow. And as a result, the politicians will be able to see that yes, there are legitimately 20 million signatures from 20 million real people for this kind of petition. So this will be a good start. Number two, some experience from Estonia perhaps, what we also see being experimented with in other countries at the moment is online voting. So we had a discussion yesterday and another workshop about the topic a tiny bit already as well. In Estonia, you can vote online since 2005 with your electronic identity. Again, the whole source code for the system is open source. If you have any worries about how your vote is being counted or not then you can check the source code online and that makes it very transparent for international observers as well. So we have international observers in our country not just for the physical counting of votes but also for the digital counting of votes. And then yeah last but not least what I said already about public-private partnership that just forces the companies to get stakeholder groups into the room and ask them how they would like the services to develop. I think that’s a good good good direction.

Sienna Byrne: Thank you Florian I think I would also like to offer Paige in the opportunity to respond to this question since I know this is really in your realm of expertise. What form should citizen participation in e-government take beyond the mere use of e-government systems?

PeiChin Tay: Yes okay yeah so I think policymakers really need to see citizens as co-creators and not just end-users because there’s a lot of complex challenges and governments do not have all the answers. So you know especially when we look at we did a lot of research in the gig economy or digital platform economy for example and that is where we really see government lagging behind because they don’t really have the tools to regulate for new businesses and don’t really know how to deal with it apart from relying on the tools you know of the 20th century. So for instance Uber entered the market in the US in 2011 and it wasn’t until almost a decade later that there was any regulation taking place. So I think there are two main things here which is governments need to gain insight in order to frame the problem in a more accurate manner especially when it relates to new models and new services and new challenges and secondly they need to have the right tools to be able to approach some of these complex policy issues. And this is where citizens can come in really useful as co-creators of solutions, and to contribute ideas and feedback in the development of new policies, perhaps. And this is why we at the Tony Blair Institute have been working with human-centered design agencies on very specific worker-centered projects. Because one of the things that came out as a key challenge in the gig economy is that the workers often do not have a voice. They’re often just at the receiving end of new technologies and algorithms that is there to sort of determine their pay and experience and so on. Which is why sort of taking a worker-centered and human-centered approach in policymaking has been really fruitful.

Sienna Byrne: Thank you. Thank you. Would anybody else here, or Florian, would you like to go ahead and respond to that?

Florian Marcus: Actually, I wanted to ask a question to Pei-Qin. You mentioned at the very start that the citizen needs to be understood as a co-creator. And I totally agree the question is not whether, yes or no, but how. I mean, we have a million working groups and a million multi-stakeholder everythings, and it’s all great. And we have a million reports that come out of all the different working groups and nobody reads it and nobody cares. So the question is like, how do you actually want to effectuate change in that sense? To give you perhaps also like something that failed in Estonia. We had a discussion in government roughly 10 years ago about whether we can tie the success of, or failure of digital service delivery to the salaries of public servants. So guess what? If you make a new tax declaration and you get the budget to develop it as you see fit, but if it’s off. then maybe you should get punished for that and if it does really well and all of like within the next two years 100% of people do it online because it’s so good then maybe you deserve a raise as well beyond the regular inflation or whatever adjustment so even in Estonia that was shut down for obvious political reasons but but like how do we make sure that politicians are forced to listen to what we say?

Sienna Byrne: PeiChin, I’ll give you the opportunity to respond to that if you have any suggestions on that.

PeiChin Tay: Yeah, in the ideal world we’ll be able to force politicians to do the things that we will love to do but it’s a sort of you know organization that is sort of part think-tank I think there is a number of influencing methods that we use and in our research we take as I said a very strong sort of human centered approach so we engage workers and not just kind of giving them a survey right I mean I think one of the risks here is also the survey fatigue and people don’t really know what you do at the end of that survey and how it’s being implemented so the sort of close feedback loop is often not there so how we engage workers is really taking the very strong ethnographic approach you know it could be even things like you know we shadow them because they may not always be able to express that sort of full breadth of their insights in a survey form and I think it’s very important that we take a very sort of open view initially when we’re trying to scope up the problem statement because most of the time we don’t know what the problem is or it could be you know there are a thousand problems staring in our face and we don’t really know how to prioritize them so I think kind of taking a very open approach especially in the beginning we use the sort of a double diamond methodology and then we sort of converge that to identify some of the key challenges again together with workers and not just typical stakeholders such as government and private sector. We give workers at the seat of the table when it comes to suggesting solutions together with all these different stakeholders. And this is where the sort of core design and methodology really comes to life. And it really sheds useful insights that we wouldn’t be able to uncover otherwise. And then obviously we use these insights to try to influence policymakers.

Sienna Byrne: I think we’re okay. In the sake of time, we’re going to move on to question three now. How might citizens be included as stakeholders in the design of e-government systems to address human rights concerns surrounding the collection and processing of citizen data? And I think we’ve touched on this briefly kind of in earlier responses, but I would love to hear a little bit more specifically any ideas or design initiatives that have given greater transparency or even kind of ideas that people are having on this topic. Yes. I think the first thing… Okay. I think Asha is going to respond to this one, Dr. Adele, and then we’ll move to you afterwards. So Asha, go ahead.

Asha Abinallah: The first thing we are supposed to do is give them leadership roles. According to attributes, like identify them and give them leadership roles. And I would say in most cases, leadership, when it comes to youth, it really has to be something they are passionate about. As in, not because I’m here, I’m at IGF, I go back home, I take my son to be the leader of maybe an initiative which I think there is an opportunity. You know, when we talk about responsibility, we normally point fingers at governments. But in normal cases… if you are here, like if you are in this room, I think you are a step ahead of so many people in your country, so you are a leader already. So as a leader, how are you making responsibilities and decisions to engage the youth? I think that’s a very important question, not just the government. But the other aspect I would like to point out is that there are so many global platforms that are there. And when we are in our own countries, we are sort of, you know, you live like kindergarten toys. You want to start an initiative about youth, which is brand new. How do you map out, as a country, as a government, as a working group, how do you map out the existing relevant bodies and platforms of the youth and make sure that it is shattered in your organization as well? Because that way, when you start something, when you branch out something which is new in the community, I’ll just give an example. There is youth IGF, there is AI, there is artificial intelligence. Again, there is maybe youth artificial intelligence. So how do you make sure that, as a leader, you start the same initiative identifying, as a government, you start the same initiative, identify which, maybe which hub is there or which community is there that can establish that kind of platform, which would be instrumental. The reason I’m emphasizing on that is because there are mechanisms. There are youth chapters which are successful in other countries, not successful in other countries, and when you branch out, these youth tend to learn from one another. Like, it is easy to fast-track their intended goal instead of starting with something entirely brand new. The other aspect I would like to talk about is legal framework. I think we shouldn’t take it for granted. When the government decides, because a certain leader understands the importance and it is not integrated in the legal framework, then when they leave, everything goes out, everything falls. So they need… So, I would say, you know, we have to consider the digital transformation from a kid has to consider the youth. It needs to be in policies, policies when you talk about the national ICT policy, the youth have to be there and I’m really glad that my country, Tanzania, has considered that. When you talk about the digital transformation from a kid has to consider the youth. So, I would say those are some of the ways that could be done and implemented. Thank you. Thank you. So, I would say, you know, we have to consider the digital transformation from a kid has to consider the youth. So, I would say those are some of the ways that could be done and implemented and implemented. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, e-colon. Good afternoon, everybody. Yesterday, I’m really proud of where we are as a country. The government system is very, very impressive. I’m personally very impressive, with the e-governance system. But, when you have a government that is very well informed and really understands how the e-governance system works, you have to have an active civil society community. You have to have an active civil society community. So, now, the civil society is a very important actor when it comes to propagating human rights. So, you want to propagate for human rights, whether it’s digital human rights or human rights in general, you really have to have an active civil society community. The active civil society community will hold the government accountable. They’ll hold them accountable when it comes to accessibility. So, all of these issues are going to come together, so we need an active civil society community and if you are not an active civil society, then we’re going to try to take action. We have to make sure that the infrastructure is not only for the person with disabilities, but for the person with disabilities, and especially in technology, we are talking about the blind and the deaf, if they’ve been considered in the infrastructure of the e-governance which has to be accessed to. We have to make sure that there are mechanisms that can tangibly point out the challenges and opportunities, and that there are not actors, whether private or CSOs that are holding them accountable. They’re comfortable. They do anything and everything because they know that they’re doing okay, and they’re doing right. I would say, and speaking for Tanzania, I would say the ICT ministry is one of the ministries which is so very lucky to do whatever they want, because the space when it comes to CSOs, I think it was we were not as active as that, and I’m really glad that in 2024, we launched the Internet Governance Working Group to address that. So I think that’s a very important aspect. But the second one, I wish that we take it for granted when it comes to corporate companies, especially mobile companies, or maybe banks. When you have banks and mobile companies that are very close to the government, as in like their bodies, the youth people, they use the citizens, it’s become very dangerous, because then you just provide data, just provide information, and, you know, it may, as petty as it might seem, somebody can just go there and want to access information about their husband or their wife, you know, sometimes they can be in danger. Those are things which are so much taken for granted, but they cannot be sorted by the government themselves, so we need an active civil society that makes sure that it has identified the challenges that are there. entered into the space, but not only identified, capacitated itself to the extent that it understand what it needs to address. Thank you.

Sienna Byrne: Thank you. And Noha, would you like to go? I think we’re gonna open for questions in about five minutes. I think we’ll have to get through the conversation. Oh, go ahead. If you would like to ask a question, then we can address, of course. We’ll go ahead and pass you a microphone.

Audience: Okay, thank you very much. I would like to answer your previous question. I’m from Russian Federation. I’m completely not related to the government, but I would like to answer your question about how to protect citizens in not very democratic countries. I would like to say this is very difficult, because even in non-democratic countries, digital services might be very well-developed. Russia is a rich country. It has very well-developed state services portal, which celebrates for 15 years today. By the way, but the greater example is that if a government or ministry is not accountable, they could even randomly, not on bad will, not on a will of abuse their citizens, they could easily violate human rights. The best example we have that’s, maybe you still remember that’s COVID passes, which was usually been like QR codes, which was very fine or something like. Once Russian state services portal decreased by two times from one year to health year, all such COVID passes. It definitely was kind of bug. And actually, it was required for pressurizing for people to extend it back to one year. Government and ministry and developer are not accountable in any way. Maybe it’s reasonable not just to work with civil society because well on this. And this way in your political activities are not very well accepted, but in this case you have to be very political active. Also to push your government. So civil society is not enough. You have to work with your politicians. You have to work with elections. Thanks.

Sienna Byrne: Going off of what you just said I I want to ask what do we think the role of the international community and particularly the international? Technical community who’s providing advising services and expertise to governments as they seek digital transformation What is their role? Kind of ensuring that these systems are not, you know conducive to human rights abuses?

Florian Marcus: I may not be saying what you’re expecting me to say. I remember very clearly from my bachelor studies in political science a wonderful course about American democracy promotion abroad and people not being a big fan of it in some countries understandably. I would say that we have to stay the hell out of whatever country is whatever it wants. Yes, of course, there’s a consideration for human rights and so on but that’s table can turn very quickly and then Western countries, which are also not perfect democracies either in some sense. So I would say what we can do as the technical community both on a private sector basis, but also non-for-profit and international organizations is just to give guidance and provide forums like this one to exchange ideas to share what has worked in our country. It may not work in your country, but it can and and to just use that as a as a forum for for cultural exchange first and then technical implementation second. The truth is also that there is no one-size-fits-all solution, so I’m very relaxed about the conversation, perhaps more than some others might be at the table.

Sienna Byrne: Noha, would you like to share your perspective on this?

Noha Abdel Baky: Yeah, so yeah, the technical community of course has a big role to create innovative and new solutions tackling on-ground problems, like they can work in parallel with entrepreneurs or civil society organizations to understand the local need or the real problems that need to be addressed and put them in context of the emerging technologies that can be effective in resolving those issues and offer these solutions for the government to implement. For example, we in Egypt, we have a great initiative created by the government, it’s called the Governmental Innovation Lab, where they encourage entrepreneurs to recommend solutions or create new solutions in the e-gov sector. So yeah, the technical community can help with integrating AI, data science, blockchain and other technologies with these solutions of course.

Sienna Byrne: Moving now to our last question, in the sake of time before we open up to further discussion and further questions from the audience, how might e-government systems be designed to address the needs of vulnerable members of the population? And this goes beyond just human rights concerns, we’re talking about people who I think have different abilities in terms of using e-government systems, people who may be hearing challenged or visually challenged, things like that. Does anyone want to start by addressing that?

Florian Marcus: I would say one thing before just because of the last point that you mentioned, one problem for politicians is also that they are often being driven by their populations to adopt the latest buzzword technology. You mentioned blockchain AI, IoT, why do we use AI, why do we talk about the implementation of AI if the data quality of most governments around the world is so bad that AI cannot make any good decisions? You know, trash in, trash out, that’s very simple. So just sometimes government is also being driven in some sense in the wrong direction. About accessibility and an inclusion of people with disabilities and so on, for example, if you think about the health care portal, it would be primarily used by people who have trouble reading because they are elderly and so on. So why not make the default font for users over 65 just automatically ten times as big? Why not make those areas where people with disabilities would be primarily users, why not focus proactive services there? So as an example, if I know that you get a retirement or disability benefit, why don’t I make that proactive first, that you don’t have to apply, that you don’t have to go to the bank to cash the check or something, so that you make that as low interaction as possible. So that would be one way that we can do this.

Sienna Byrne: Thank you. I think, why don’t we move now to PeiChin. Would you like to address this question for?

PeiChin Tay: I actually had a similar point around proactive services, because I remember when I was working in the London regional office before this role and basically the job was around how do we skill up the population, you know, that had a very low literacy rate. And we were always very concerned about the people who were so-called hard to reach. But then we had this conversation with the colleagues. Basically, the hard-to-reach people are the people who need public services the most. And these are people often categorized as low-income and those who have disabilities, or very low digital literacy, or living in remote areas. And they often encounter barriers that would prevent them from fully benefiting from government programs, you know, such as not having a digital ID in the UK, or not even having bank accounts and so on. So for them, the government considers them hard to reach. But actually, the discussion basically pivoted the whole point, which is, for these people, the government is hard to reach. So therefore, the whole idea of private services is really important, because we need to reduce the administrative burden on these people. They don’t have time to navigate, you know, a web of bureaucratic intricacies. And even sometimes for myself, when I used to live in the UK, it was very difficult to actually understand what I am eligible for and how I apply for it. And I would consider myself to be somebody who is quite digitally literate. So actually, we need to be really radically thinking about that, and kind of reducing all these barriers and hurdles, especially for people who need it the most.

Sienna Byrne: Thank you so much. I think we are about at time here now. But I think we have time maybe for one or two questions from the audience to close things out. I see we have someone back here. Let’s hear it.

Audience: Yes. Yes, hello, good afternoon. My name is Matilda Moses Machauri from the PAYAG and from Tanzania. I have a question. So, we talk about this e-governance and everything, but what are the strategies that you are going to use to engage the youth, especially from the marginalized group, to engage themselves in this e-governance that you’re talking about? So, if we start to get this digital governance, what are the strategies that you’re going to use? And especially for this marginalized group, of course, I want to know, for it to be sustainable for everyone to use, you know, for sustainable for everyone to be able to engage in it, especially for African youth mostly, marginalized community completely. Thank you.

Sienna Byrne: I’ll pass it off to the panelists who wants to take that.

Asha Abinallah: Yeah, for the Tanzanian government, you know, it’s very strange. I did say that they’re doing very well and this is an excellent example. When it comes to infrastructure, internet and digital infrastructure, Tanzania is covered by 60 percent, 60 to 65 percent. Like, it’s covered, we’re talking about fiber, but the infrastructure is only accessible at 38 to 40 percent. It’s telling a lot that, one, the people are not really literate. Secondly, the infrastructure is not there to be consumed by the community. Secondly, the government, through a regulator, they have a program known as UCSAS. It is intended entirely to reach out to the rural. So, I will say, we were talking with this conversation, digital transformation, it started in 2021 when we had the funds from World Bank and EU. I would say we are in progress, we are getting there. It’s not perfect, but it is something that is being worked upon. The newly launched is also has also identified the intent and when it and and the government is also they also want to make sure every Tanzanian has a digital identity and this they wanted by by end of 2020 for which I know won’t work I think I think I think they will have to move it forward so yes it is not perfect but something is being done I wish I could explain further and we can talk about it because the time is limited

Sienna Byrne: thank you so much and yes unfortunately the time is limited and we are now at time but thank you so much for that question and it was a pleasure hearing everyone’s ideas and speaking with everyone today you you.

Agreement Points

Importance of citizen engagement in e-government design

Florian Marcus

Noha Abdel Baky

Asha Abinallah

PeiChin Tay

Dr. Adel Abdel-Sadek

Secure digital identities and data exchange are crucial

Youth should be primary users and influencers of e-government tools

Creating platforms to engage citizens and explain importance of participation

Leveraging technology to reduce barriers and create digital feedback loops

Viewing citizens as partners and owners in e-government design

All speakers emphasized the importance of actively involving citizens in the design and implementation of e-government systems, recognizing them as key stakeholders and partners rather than just end-users.

Need for proactive and accessible e-government services

Florian Marcus

PeiChin Tay

Develop proactive government services that predict citizen needs

Provide proactive services to reduce administrative burden

Both speakers advocated for proactive government services that anticipate citizens’ needs and reduce administrative burdens, particularly for vulnerable populations.

Similar Viewpoints

Both speakers emphasized the crucial role of youth in e-government initiatives, advocating for their active involvement as primary users, influencers, and leaders in the design and implementation of these systems.

Noha Abdel Baky

Asha Abinallah

Youth should be primary users and influencers of e-government tools

Give youth leadership roles in e-government initiatives

Both speakers stressed the importance of creating a robust legal and technological framework to support e-government initiatives, emphasizing the need for secure digital identities and updated laws to build trust in the digital ecosystem.

Florian Marcus

Dr. Adel Abdel-Sadek

Secure digital identities and data exchange are crucial

Ensure political support and modernize laws for digital transformation

Unexpected Consensus

Human-centered approach to e-government design

PeiChin Tay

Asha Abinallah

Take a human-centered design approach to policymaking

Identify stakeholders and engage citizens from the start

Despite coming from different backgrounds, both speakers emphasized the importance of a human-centered approach to e-government design, focusing on understanding and addressing the specific needs of various stakeholder groups from the outset of any initiative.

Overall Assessment

Summary

The main areas of agreement among speakers included the importance of citizen engagement in e-government design, the need for proactive and accessible services, the crucial role of youth in these initiatives, and the necessity of creating robust legal and technological frameworks to support e-government systems.

Consensus level

There was a high level of consensus among the speakers on the fundamental principles of e-government design and implementation. This consensus suggests a strong foundation for developing effective e-government strategies that prioritize citizen engagement, accessibility, and security. However, the specific approaches and implementation details may vary depending on local contexts and resources.

Different Viewpoints

Role of international community in e-government development

Florian Marcus

Noha Abdel Baky

I would say that we have to stay the hell out of Whatever country is whatever it wants Yes, of course, there’s a consideration for human rights and so on but that’s table can turn very quickly and then Western countries, which are also not perfect democracies either in some sense

Yeah, so yeah, the technical community of course have a big role to create innovative and new solutions tackling on-ground problems, like they can work in parallel with entrepreneurs or civil society organizations to understand the local need or the real problems that need to be addressed and put them in context of the emerging technologies that can be effective in resolving those issues and offer these solutions for the government to implement.

Florian Marcus advocates for minimal international interference in a country’s e-government development, while Noha Abdel Baky sees a significant role for the international technical community in creating innovative solutions.

Unexpected Differences

Approach to citizen engagement in e-government design

Asha Abinallah

PeiChin Tay

Give youth leadership roles in e-government initiatives

Involve citizens as co-creators in policymaking, not just end-users

While both speakers advocate for citizen involvement, their approaches differ unexpectedly. Asha Abinallah focuses specifically on giving youth leadership roles, while PeiChin Tay proposes a broader co-creation approach involving all citizens. This difference in focus was not anticipated given their shared goal of citizen engagement.

Overall Assessment

summary

The main areas of disagreement revolve around the role of international community in e-government development, the specific approaches to citizen engagement, and the focus of proactive government services.

difference_level

The level of disagreement among the speakers is moderate. While there are some differences in approach and focus, there is a general consensus on the importance of citizen participation, proactive services, and addressing the needs of vulnerable populations in e-government design. These differences in perspective can potentially lead to a more comprehensive and nuanced approach to e-government implementation, as they highlight various aspects that need to be considered.

Partial Agreements

Both speakers agree on the importance of proactive government services, but they differ in their focus. Florian Marcus emphasizes predicting citizen needs for efficiency, while PeiChin Tay focuses on reducing administrative burden for vulnerable populations.

Florian Marcus

PeiChin Tay

Develop proactive government services that predict citizen needs

Provide proactive services to reduce administrative burden

Similar Viewpoints

Both speakers emphasized the crucial role of youth in e-government initiatives, advocating for their active involvement as primary users, influencers, and leaders in the design and implementation of these systems.

Noha Abdel Baky

Asha Abinallah

Youth should be primary users and influencers of e-government tools

Give youth leadership roles in e-government initiatives

Both speakers stressed the importance of creating a robust legal and technological framework to support e-government initiatives, emphasizing the need for secure digital identities and updated laws to build trust in the digital ecosystem.

Florian Marcus

Dr. Adel Abdel-Sadek

Secure digital identities and data exchange are crucial

Ensure political support and modernize laws for digital transformation

Key Takeaways

Secure digital identities and data exchange are crucial foundations for e-government systems

Youth should be primary users and influencers of e-government tools

Citizens should be viewed as partners and co-creators in e-government design, not just end-users

Proactive government services that predict citizen needs can improve user experience

Human-centered design approaches are important for developing effective e-government policies

E-government systems need to be designed with accessibility in mind for vulnerable populations

Building trust in e-government initiatives requires engaging citizens from the start and ensuring transparency

Resolutions and Action Items

Implement secure digital petitioning and online voting systems to increase citizen participation

Give youth leadership roles in e-government initiatives

Develop legal frameworks to institutionalize youth participation in e-government

Improve digital infrastructure access in rural and marginalized areas

Unresolved Issues

How to effectively engage citizens from marginalized groups in e-government initiatives

Balancing security concerns with increased citizen participation in e-government design

Addressing data quality issues in government systems before implementing AI solutions

How to make e-government systems accessible to those with low digital literacy

Suggested Compromises

Focus on proactive services in areas primarily used by people with disabilities or elderly to balance accessibility needs

Use a mix of online and offline engagement strategies to reach both digitally connected and marginalized populations

Collaborate with civil society organizations to hold governments accountable while still promoting e-government adoption

So if we expect citizens to care about the services that government provides, then they should probably be good. And truth be told, in most countries that is not the case right now.

speaker

Florian Marcus

reason

This comment cuts to the heart of why many e-government initiatives fail to engage citizens – the services themselves are often not user-friendly or valuable enough.

impact

It shifted the discussion from theoretical ideas about engagement to the practical reality of service quality. This led to further discussion of proactive government services and user-centered design.

Policymakers really need to see citizens as co-creators and not just end-users because there’s a lot of complex challenges and governments do not have all the answers.

speaker

PeiChin Tay

reason

This reframes the entire relationship between citizens and government, suggesting a more collaborative approach to policymaking.

impact

It sparked discussion about how to meaningfully involve citizens in policy design, beyond just surveys or feedback forms. It led to examples of human-centered design approaches in policymaking.

The first thing we are supposed to do is give them leadership roles. According to attributes, like identify them and give them leadership roles.

speaker

Asha Abinallah

reason

This comment proposes a concrete way to empower citizens, especially youth, in e-government initiatives.

impact

It shifted the conversation from theoretical discussions of participation to practical strategies for empowerment. It led to further discussion of how to identify and support youth leaders in digital governance.

For these people, the government is hard to reach. So therefore, the whole idea of private services is really important, because we need to reduce the administrative burden on these people.

speaker

PeiChin Tay

reason

This insightful comment flips the perspective on ‘hard to reach’ populations, highlighting how government systems often fail to serve those who need them most.

impact

It reframed the discussion around accessibility, leading to more focus on proactive services and reducing barriers for vulnerable populations.

Overall Assessment

These key comments shaped the discussion by moving it from theoretical concepts of e-government to practical considerations of implementation and user experience. They highlighted the importance of quality services, citizen co-creation, youth empowerment, and accessibility for vulnerable populations. This led to a more nuanced and practical conversation about how to design e-government systems that truly serve and engage citizens.

How can research be incorporated in a way that could be friendly and guide the overall process of citizen engagement?

speaker

Asha Abinallah

explanation

This is important to make research more accessible and actionable for improving e-government initiatives.

How do we make sure that politicians are forced to listen to what citizens say?

speaker

Florian Marcus

explanation

This is crucial for ensuring that citizen input actually influences e-government design and implementation.

How can we address the needs of people with disabilities in e-government systems?

speaker

Sienna Byrne

explanation

This is important for ensuring e-government systems are accessible and inclusive for all citizens.

What are the strategies to engage youth, especially from marginalized groups, in e-governance?

speaker

Audience member (Matilda Moses Machauri)

explanation

This is crucial for ensuring e-government initiatives reach and benefit all segments of the population, including those who may be currently excluded.

How can we address the lack of digital infrastructure in rural areas?

speaker

Audience member (Matilda Moses Machauri)

explanation

This is important for ensuring equal access to e-government services across all geographic areas.