Global Citizen Engagement
by David Preston
Electronic service delivery channels are transforming the way citizens conduct transactions with and receive services from their governments. Taxes are filed online, census information is collected by e-response, and wait times at border crossings can be checked using web-enabled cell phones. But the way that citizens exchange ideas with government is not changing as quickly – the typical methods are still town hall meetings, phone calls, and notes/letters to the local representative.
How can governments better engage their citizens? Habitat Jam and the World Urban Forum offer some lessons learned.
In 1950, one third of the world’s people lived in urban areas. By 2000, it was half. By 2050, the prediction is it will be two thirds – with three billion in slums.
In developing countries, urban centres face water and sanitation challenges, a lack of shelter, poverty, the spread of AIDS and the lack of urban governance. Even in developed countries new city dwellers face challenges in accessing adequate housing, schools and health care. They also face issues resulting from power, transportation and waste management infrastructures that have not been maintained or increased to match the growth in demand.
To develop strategies to effectively address these problems, governments and aid agencies need to be able to communicate with their citizens in a collaborative forum. They need to engage in inclusive and active dialogues to more clearly understand the problems and help these people become champions for change in their own communities.
In 1976, Canada recognized the need for dialogue on the challenges and hosted HABITAT I. This first global conference on human settlements led to the United Nations' creation in 1978 of HABITAT, which has evolved and grown with the increased recognition of the need to focus on urban sustainability. Canada has continued to play a leading role, and this past June, Canada hosted the World Urban Forum 3 conference in Vancouver.
Championing dialogue
In preparation for the World Urban Forum 3, the Government of Canada, in partnership with UN-HABITAT and IBM, invited the world to join Habitat JAM – a first of its kind online discussion on urban sustainability. The goal of Habitat JAM was to bring together tens of thousands of people from around the globe in real time over the internet to discuss and debate key issues about urban sustainability. Organizers hoped that the online collaborative discussion would transcend the usual barriers – organizations, governments and borders – and provide a platform for a global discussion.
The global collaboration event in December 2005 provides a glimpse into how governments might engage with citizens. For three days politicians, academics, concerned citizens, and the urban poor participated in Habitat JAM, a real-time, online conversation that resulted in 4,000 pages of dialogue, and over 600 ideas for improving the lives of people living in our cities. Over 39,000 people from 158 countries participated.
The online discussion was divided into six forums on topics ranging from improving the lives of slum dwellers and sustainable access to water to a discussion on the future of our cities. Forum moderators, ranging in backgrounds from elected officials to authors, and leading thinkers in urban sustainability, hosted the discussions. The majority of the participants were those most affected – the people living in cities around the world.
Online discussions are not unique. However, Habitat JAM brought together an unprecedented number of people who might otherwise have never been able to share ideas and information. Even JAM organizers were overwhelmed by the response – in towns where running water and electricity are sparse, citizens made every attempt to participate in the conversation, desperate to get their opinions heard. In Kibera, one of Africa's largest slums, hundreds lined up for hours for the opportunity to type their messages into computers set up for the event. In the slums of Delhi, India, more than 10,000 people gathered to express their views and discuss urban and health issues – issues that can only be solved through broad, global consensus and collaboration.
Organizers from this event then participated in Habitat JAM, bringing with them, for the first time, the voices of the urban poor from around the world.
For World Urban Forum 3, 10,000 people from over 100 countries gathered in Vancouver in June 2006. The discussions during Habitat JAM helped shape the agenda for the conference, and the concepts and ideas that were raised during the online event became part of the discussion at the physical event.
One key to the success of the online JAM was the post event analysis of the dialogue that took place. During the event, automated text analysis tools were used to identify and classify trends. These ‘hot topics’ and evolving themes were posted during the event to help structure the online dialogue. This analysis continued after the event, and the JAM team poured through the data and identified 600 concrete ideas for improving the lives of people in our cities. The 600 ideas were further distilled into 70 ‘actionable ideas’ that were documented in a workbook and CD.
The purpose of the workbook was to provide conference attendees with a set of ideas that could be implemented once they returned home. The ideas were broad ranging, but all could be ‘actioned’ at a local level. The content could also be viewed online. Habitat JAM provided the means for people to identify common problems, and share solutions at a global level.
A New Page in the History Books
Through the use of technology, global collaboration is possible – citizens from all parts of the world can come together to contribute ideas and expertise to solve a worldwide problem. The online discussions that took place through Habitat JAM, along with the issues addressed during the World Urban Forum 3, are the proof. So is the fact that the discussion was inclusive and democratic – participants came from all walks of life and were recognized without hierarchy. Seventy-eight percent of the participants in Habitat JAM were from groups that are typically under-represented in public consultations – women, youth and slum dwellers. Even people who had never used a computer before were willing to participate when access to the technology was provided.
“JAMs enable a kind of mass collaboration and problem-solving that has simply never before been possible on a global scale," Irving Wladawsky-Berger, VP Technical Strategy and Innovation for IBM said. "This is innovation that matters for the world.”
Broad-based citizen engagement is possible. The new communication tools that are rapidly becoming part of our personal and professional lives are having an increasing role in how individuals get their voices heard by their elected officials. In short, technology is bringing us closer – helping us to communicate and work with each for a common benefit.
David Preston is the Canadian leader for social services and social security for IBM Canada. Over the past 20 years, he has worked for IBM in Ottawa providing consulting and application development services for government clients. He was the project executive responsible for delivery of Habitat Jam (dpreston@ca.ibm.com).
SIDEBAR
What is JAMming technology?
A ‘JAM’ is a groundbreaking internet event. It’s a massive online discussion that develops actions out of a multiplicity of perspectives and expertise. This large-scale combination of technology and strategy can elicit participation from thousands of individuals from all walks of life from anywhere in the world – people ‘meet’ who never otherwise would. Subject-matter experts and moderators guide participants to build on each other’s ideas, and text-analysis tools capture and play back key themes. The theme analysis and qualitative research conducted after the ‘JAM’ is completed and combined to produce action plans and insight into the perceptions and priorities of the JAM participants.
