Background

Tags: Worldwide, Knowledge Platform

Citizens are agents of change and development

Equitable and sustainable development depends on open and vibrant democracies. Citizens are the central actors in public and political arenas. Their ability to hold governments to account and to participate fully in democratic processes is contingent upon the opportunities to freely assemble, associate and express opinions– including the right to seek, receive and impart information. But citizens agency is not only the purpose – or the ends – of development and democracy, it is also its most effective means. People can make things happen. The focus of our efforts should thus be: how can we enable these citizens to act upon their potential?

Technological revolution transforms societies and changes the power distribution Societies are transforming in true information societies, largely facilitated by the rapid introduction of technology. This dynamic influences strongly the way people work and live, their position in society and their interaction with information and knowledge. Traditional boundaries of location, time, volume, medium and distance are disappearing. One of the essential advantages of the rapid introduction of Internet, mobile phones and web 2.0 technologies is that it gives unprecedented possibilities to individual citizens to access information, voice opinions, and participates in debate, society, and government more direct and more intense. Development is very much an affair of access to power. The new (information) society that is ‘trying to be’ shakes up the traditional power balances and cultural and societal dimensions. It affects the power balance between men and women, old and young, rich and poor and urban and rural. Changes are happening, people are experimenting with the emerging technological possibilities. How can technology be used to enable citizens – especially those on the wrong end of the power distribution - to act upon their potential?

Developing countries are changing too, perhaps even more fundamentally. The introduction of technology in developing countries, the pace, the impact, differ per region and country. In general the introduction has been slower than in developed countries in general, and especially in Africa. But sometimes they have been leading for example Africa is leading in innovative payment services like M-Pesa and airtime-for-cash transfers. Next to that Internet cafés (and mobile phones) facilitate access to the smallest villages, many countries are experimenting with e-government services, and India is connecting every village to the Web and considering the introduction of digital identity cards. New forms of distribution and interaction and complemented by citizen journalism are reversing the roles of sender and recipient. But are these developments truly impacting citizens agency? For instance the social movement in Costa Rica against the Free Trade Agreement was facilitated by new technologies, but would their impact have been different if they did not have access to new media? Will the power unevenness’s change in developing countries if the transformation into information societies really picks up speed, as it is doing now mostly as a result of the rise of mobile technology?

Are young people an entry point for bringing agency, technology and engagement together? Youth are often seen as potential agents of change for reshaping their own societies. Considering their size in terms of numbers in developing countries - by 2010, the global youth population is expected to grow by 116 million, or 11 percent, reaching almost 1.2 billion, 85% of the world’s youth reside in developing countries – unleashing the potential of even a part of this group promises to substantially impact societies. Youth are more naturally equipped with the skills to make use of the potential of ICT and actually are seen as the driver of this transformation. They are even called digital natives due to their ease with technology. Nevertheless, exploratory studies by Berkman and Open Society Institute show that that use of technology is not automatically linked with political or social issues. It also showed that not all youth had the same inclination or possibility – the latter especially in developing countries – to make use of technologies. The challenge is to enable those that are able and motivated to unleash their potential. The question thus arises: How do we support young citizens that are intrinsically motivated to become drivers of change? How can the technological possibilities within the information society enable this further?