a critique of the econsultations conducted by the uganda parliament ict committee
TRANSCRIPT
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A Critique of the eConsultations conducted by the Uganda Parliament ICT Committee
By Wairagala Wakabi, researcher with the Collaboration on International ICT Policy for East andSouthern Africa (CIPESA),www.cipesa.orgKampala-UgandaEmail:[email protected]
Abstract
Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) are enabling governments to expeditiously reach
out to citizens who are at times excluded from public deliberations and policy-making processes. From
the offer of electronic services, to provision of information and the gathering of citizens opinions, ICTs
are facilitating swift and cost-effective communication between public officials and the public. One of
the areas that is gaining currency in developed countries is eConsultations, or the use of ICT to elicit
public opinion on policies or activities.
But while eConsultations have great benefits, they are only beginning to be employed in developing
countries such as Uganda, where a myriad of challenges are ranged against them, including low literacy
rates, minimal internet usage, and exorbitant bandwidth costs.
For eConsultations to succeed, some prerequisites should be navigated carefully. Although there are no
well-established models on evaluation of eConsultations, we conducted an extensive literature study
through which we identified factors prevalent in some contemporary models. We then studied the
consultations conducted by the Ugandan Parliamentary ICT Committee on three bills, testing how these
measured up against some of the factors we had identified in the literature.
The paper concludes that although the eConsultations carried out by the Ugandan Parliamentary ICT
Committee do not measure up to most of these identified factors, they are enabling some people to
provide meaningful input to policy-making, and they present a learning experience which Ugandan
public institutions could build on to increase ICT-based communication within government and withcitizens. The fact that few Ugandans are online subtracts from the potential effect of the eConsultations
as a tool for promoting eParticipation, and we argue that at the moment the eConsultations do not
appear to be reaching groups of Ugandans that are normally left out of deliberations and consultations.
A Critique of the eConsultations conducted by the Uganda Parliament ICT Committee
Introduction
Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) are enabling Governments to engage more
effectively with some of their citizens at a time of dwindling citizen participation in democratic affairs.
This 'eParticipation', which enables citizens to engage with fellow citizens as well as with their leaders
through the use of ICTs, therefore holds much promise for countries such as Uganda which are trying to
increase the efficiency, accountability and inclusiveness of government.
Governments are increasingly developing new methods to provide easier and wider access to
government information and to achieve broader and deeper consultation with citizens (Whyte &
Macintosh 2002). One of the main forms of enabling eParticipation are online consultations, or
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eConsultations, which are defined as the use of ICT to involve the public through different forms of
interaction with our democratic institutions, with the intention to elicit inputs that contribute to more
sustainable or robust decision-making (Peters, J. & Manon A. 2008).
According to OECD (2001), information, consultation and active participation provide government
with a better basis for policy-making, enabling it to become a learning organisation. At the same time, it
ensures more effective implementation, as citizens become well informed about the policies and takepart in their development.
It is widely recognised that eConsultations could play a fundamental role in addressing the so-called
'democracy deficit' which sees citizens in many countries excluded from participation in the governance
and democratic affairs in their countries (OECD 2001; Dalton, R. J. & Kuechler, M. 1990). Indeed, as
Peters, J. & Manon A. (2008) posit, eConsultations can present the different perspectives on an issue
and facilitate a deliberative exploration, allow the public to engage in civic discourse and dialogue, and
close the gap between citizen expectations and what leaders actually deliver.
A number of researchers (Whyte and Macintosh 2002; Muhammad, R.1995; Arnst, R. 1996) argue that
participation in the top down incumbent democracy is largely characterised by voting, by normalisedinteraction within structured groups and by orderly civic involvement. But these researchers add that
under the so-called incumbent democracy, the top-down orientation often leads to failure, with electoral
reforms and devolution of power to regional assemblies having minimal effect on voter turnout. These
democracy deficits, in turn, are some of the scenarios that eConsultations seek to respond to.
This paper critiques the eConsultations conducted by the ICT Committee of the Parliament of Uganda
using a number of benchmarks prevalent in contemporary literature. The evaluation focuses on the
consultations on three bills: 1) The Interception of Communications Bill, which took place during
February and March 2009; and 2) The National Information Technology Authority (NITA) Bill,
conducted during April-May 2009, and the Cyber Laws Bill discussed during February to April 2009.
The Problem
Public organisations face a challenge of communicating effectively with citizens. This is because there
are various publics that need to be reached, and diverse messages to be communicated. ICT-based
communication, by being fast, cost effective and increasingly ubiquitous, holds much promise for
easing the public sector organisations communication, besides improving transparency and
participation. But in spite of the potential, the use of ICT in public sector communication in Uganda is
fairly new and largely undocumented. eConsultations are indeed a new phenomenon in Uganda, and
this paper therefore sought to review how this mode of communication and consultation was fairing in
its infancy stage in Uganda.
Whyte & Macintosh (2002) argue that democratic participation must involve both the means to be
informed and the mechanisms to take part in the decision-making. They add that over the last decade
there has been a gradual awareness of the need to consider new tools for public engagement that enable
a wider audience to contribute to the policy debate and where contributions themselves are broader and
deeper - enhancing deliberation so as to better inform and influence the policy process.
In the same line, OECD (2001) defines three types of interaction between governments and citizens that
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aim to entrench democracy, and which communicating with the use of ICT makes easier to achieve. The
first is 'Information', which involves government producing and delivering information for use by
citizens. This is one-way participation and does not involve citizens providing feedback or producing
information and taking part in debates. On the other hand, under the 'Consultation' stage, there is a two-
way exchange of information; government defines the issue for consultation, sets the questions and
manages the process, with citizens asked to submit opinions on the issues at hand.
A more advanced stage, according to OECD, is 'Active participation and this is defined as a
relationship based on partnership with government in which citizens actively engage in defining the
process and content of policy-making. This stage is a step higher than 'Consultation' because it
acknowledges equal standing for citizens in setting the agenda, proposing policy options and shaping
the policy dialoguealthough the responsibility for the final decision or policy formulation rests with
government (OECD 2001).
Increasingly, eConsultations are being used by state organs, including Parliaments, to engage citizens
and to get their views on a range of policy issues. The UK Parliament, for instance, regularly runs a
number of eConsultations. The mode in which the UK Parliament carries out eConsultations is different
from the way the Uganda ICT Committee does theirs. The UK has an online presence where citizenscan read what others are saying, see the issues the Government is seeking views on, and make their own
submissions. On the other hand, the Ugandan Committee relies on a list-serv that is not government-
owned.
During the March-to June 2009 period, for example, seven e-Consultations were carried out according
to the UK Parliament's e-forums website. The subjects of the consultations were: 1) Securing the future
of the Post office 2) Attitudes on UK's aid to the poor 3) What students think of the university
admissions' process 4) Traders views on the performance of retail markets 5) Improving the
performance of the House of Lords 5) Challenges facing prisons officers 6) Why women, disabled
people and people from ethnic minorities are under-represented in the House of Commons (Parliament
Forum 2009).
List-servs, such as the one the Ugandan committee uses, have been reported to offer some advantages
which some online participation tools might not have. Critics argue that one of the drawbacks of
eConsultation is that it does not always provide the opportunity for the community to hear the concerns
of other members and can often hinder one's sense of engagement in the process. However, argue the
critics, the consultation method that addresses this problem is the listserv or online forum where
citizens and hosts of the discussion can all participate in the same discussion via email.
Chadwick (2006) observes that the relative anonymity of the online world renders individuals less
accountable for their action so they feel empowered to speak up against more powerful actors because
they have less fear of punishment. Besides, e-consultations provide the opportunity for individuals to
participate who would not usually be interested in the traditional methods of consultation, for example
community meetings, longer workshops or large group interventions which can take days to complete.
Additionally, the e-consultation process can provide flexible options for input, such as allowing citizens
the choice of when and where from to participate from (Gehring V.D (ed) 2007; Chadwick 2006)
In spite of their several merits, e-Consultations have their own downside, which means that they are not
always a magic bullet for enhancing citizen engagement and participation. Language difficulties,
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insufficient computer skills, and difficulty in comprehending text can be big challenges.
For Uganda and many other developing countries, the problems go beyond these, and many resolve
around the fact that few citizens (in Uganda's case only 8 percent of the population) are online. There
are a myriad reasons why: low bandwidth, high costs of internet access, shortage of local (language)
content, low levels of literacy. So the use of online methods of citizen engagement would have to be
minimal and to involve the same population that largely has access to other forms of information andparticipation mechanisms. This therefore tends to undermine eConsultation and eParticipation
generally.
The Ugandan ICT Committee often conducts online communication on bills and issues that are under
consideration by the committee. The consultations are conducted through the I-Network listserv, the
multi-stakeholder mail discussion group on ICT issues. How it works normally is that the chairman of
the committee writes to the d-group introducing and explaining the issue they need citizens to provide
views on. The Committee chairs moderates the discussions for a period of time, and at the end of the
discussions gives a round upand then later on feedback on the summary of the views collected and
how the Committee has taken them into consideration.
Methodology:
Whyte and Macintosh (2002) indicate that there is a clear lack of an accepted framework on how to
evaluate and measure the impact of e-democracy systems in general and e-consultations in particular.
Equally, the OECD while pointing to a number of best practice guidelines developed by some
countries, also acknowledges that there is no universal guideline for assessing eConsultations.
However, there is widespread literature on some success factors for eConsultations, and even a model
by Whyte and Macintosh. The factors which were used in this paper are picked from various literature,
representing those that are prevalent and applicable to the sort of consultations which the Uganda
Parliament's ICT Committee carries out.
The methodology for this paper included a literature review on eParticipation, on eParticipation indeveloping countries such as Uganda, as well as on eConsultations. The literature review aimed to
understand the current debate and practice on eParticipation and eConsultations. The literature review
enabled the author to identify from the literature some factors that help eConsultations to achieve their
objectives. After identifying some of these factors, the Ugandan consultations were then critiqued
against these benchmarks. The results are presented in a table that captures how the consultations on
each of the three Bills faired against the benchmarks. A discussion of the performance of the Ugandan
consultations against some of the identified best practice follows.
Results
This section presents the results of the evaluation of the eConsultations which are carried out by the
Uganda ICT Committee. The first part of the section lays down the major factors identified in literature
as contributing to eConsultations achieving their objectives. The second part then tests these factors
against the Ugandan consultations.
Evaluation benchmarks for eConsultations
An evaluation framework for eConsultations developed by Whyte and Macintosh, 2002 list various
factors that could be studied. These include whether the eConsultation process was conducted as
planned; whether the consultation objectives and what was expected of the citizens made clear; how
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well the consultation reached the target audience; and how appropriate the information provided was.
Other factors are whether feedback was provided during and after the consultation; and finally, if there
was an impact on policy content.
McNutt K & and McKay C (2008) argue that for eConsultations to achieve their objectives, there must
be four prerequisites: public awareness, issue literacy, willingness to provide feedback and political
will. Additionally, according to Peters, J. & Manon A. (2008) for public involvement to be consideredgenuine, it must be able to contribute to the decision-making process. While this should not mean that
the public should make the ultimate decision, its input must be considered and used by those requesting
public involvement. There are a range of other eConsultations best practices in literature, and here
below we present the ones that predominate in the literature reviewed.
Table 1 showing some of the predominant eConsultations best practices identified in literature
Best practice Explanation
Provide balanced
information
This information should allow for thoughtful consideration of the issue
without the hosts of the eConsultations being seen as biased or paternalistic
Use information from
eConsultations fordecision-making
The opinions generated in eConsultations should be taken into account by
the hosts in reaching a decision. The eConsultations should not be meretokenism.
Host of eConsultations
should provide feedback
eConsultation hosts should provide full transcript of the consultation,
summarize input and respond to citizens priorities and policy concerns
Use simple language Use simple, straight-forward language and style and tone that allow for users
to easily understand the message and respond to it
Issue literacy A basic knowledge of the policy issue being consulted on is necessary for
participants to provide meaningful feedback.
Identifying target
populations
Existing email networks can be used to advertise consultation events, and
that hosts of eConsultations could consider creating email contact lists to
broaden the pool of participants
Table by author based on factors identified in various literature on eConsultations
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Fig 2: Performance of the Ugandan consultations against various eConsultation evaluation
benchmarks (ratings done by author based on study of the consultations history against benchmarks
in literature)
Interception of
Communications Bill
Cyber Laws Bill National Information
Technology AgencyBill
Provide
balanced
information
The Committee
explained the rationale
for the Bill as explained
by the security minister
but voiced concerns
regarding misuse of the
law and violating
privacy
Committee did not
provide balanced
information. There
are various bills
(computer misuse, e-
transactions,
signatures) lumped
together in the
eConsultation
without each beingexplained
General information
about the bill was
provided but not
implications. The
information was not
deep and sufficient
enough to support
informed discussions
Host of
eConsultatio
ns should
provide
feedback
The host provided
feedback on what views
were generated, and
how they were
integrated
The host provided
feedback on what
views were
generated, and how
they were integrated
The host provided
feedback on what
views were generated,
and how they were
integrated
Use simple
language
Very simple and clear
language used that made
the issue understandable
even to lay people
Probably due to
complexity of various
bills covered,
Committee didnt
give plain language
information
To a large extent,
simple language was
used but explanations
were insufficient
Issue
literacy
Great issue literacy
though this related only
to tapping phones not
other communications
There was minimal
issue literacy
Average issue literacy.
More could have been
done by the Committee
Use
information
from
eConsultatio
ns fordecision-
making
Committee took up most
of views from the
eConsultations and used
them to bar the security
ministry fromprogressing with the Bill
as it was
The Bill is yet to be
handled by the
Committee so it is yet
to be seen
The Bill was passed
and largely reflected
many of the views that
came up in the
eConsultations
Identifying
target
populations
Very high awareness of
the bill which
discussants renamed the
phone tapping bill
making it relevant to
members of the
Committee failed to
explain the gist and
implications of these
bills. Few readers
seemed
knowledgeable
Information provided
was not comprehensive
for an average person
to know what was at
stake
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eConsultations and
therefore drawing much
debate
judging from number
& quality of
responses
Discussion
The eConsultations being conducted by the ICT Committee are able to reach a great number of the
stakeholders and experts in the Ugandan ICT community. This community is always eager to provideinput to legislation that affect the sector, and the diverse skills and experiences of its members means
that if the eConsultations are conducted diligently then the Committee will be able to get very useful
views while at the same time enabling citizens to play a role in making policies and legislation. At the
moment there does not appear to be any other forum at which the Committee can effectively and
efficiently gather the kinds of inputs, or have the kind of interactions with sector players and citizens, as
is the case with the eConsultations.
According to our findings, sometimes the Committee did not explain at length the issue to be discussed
as well as to highlight some of the areas they might mostly need input on. The entire Bills under debate
have been placed in a forum where eConsultations participants can view/download it. However, as per
the review we conducted the Committee did not always explained the Bills well, or the kinds of inputthey seek. This has been the case with the cyber laws bills, and this could have affected the very low
number of responses that were received on these consultations.
On the Committee reporting back to the members consulted, it was noted that always the Parliamentary
Service compiles the various responses that emerge from the eConsultations. The chairman of the ICT
Committee sums up the discussions at the end. Once the committee is through with receiving views
some of the additional ones are got from Government officials and other stakeholders during physical
meetings with the Committee - the Committee reports back to the eConsultations. The information is
integrated into the recommendations that the committee makes. Hence, it can be said that the
eConsultations are actually enabling citizens in Uganda to input into policy processes in the ICT arena.
With regard to the volume of responses, these are not always very many but quality was high and the
value of the views which the Committee receives is quite comparable to what the Committee receives
in face-to-face meetings. The eConsultations, besides helping the committee to garner the views of key
stakeholders, also achieve a double objective of getting its work and the Bills and Acts it handles
publicised. This in itself is a key prerequisite for effective eParticipation: a well-informed citizenry.
Among lessons learnt are that people seem happy to contribute if they understand the issues and how
they will be affected be these issues. In the case of the Parliamentary ICT Committee, the consultations
have been held on bills that are to be debated by Parliament, and understanding the implications of
these proposed laws has been critical in having meaningful discussions. Perhaps the most illustrative
example was the Interception of Communications Bill, which most discussants preferred to refer to as
the phone tapping bill. That set out the billas intrusive on peoples privacy; everyone could
understand how the bill was going to affect them, and so they took an interest in understanding it and
debating the proposals in the bill which they found objectionable.
Careful, well-thought moderation of eConsultations tended to help the consultations to achieve their
objectives of informing citizens and having them voice useful concerns which the Committee would
take into consideration while handling the bills. Where objectives seemed met to a larger extent were in
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cases where the Committee appeared more prepared by giving detailed information on the bills, by
explaining its implications, by always responding to the concerns raised by participants in the
eConsultations.
Unfortunately, the ICT committee does not always seem to systematically plan and structure the
consultations. Even with their shortcomings, however, they have provided the Parliamentary ICT
Committee with an opportunity to leverage on ICT to promote inclusive policy-making and at a widerlevel to promote greater participation of citizens in their governance.
Deepening and reforming democracy requires involving more people in deliberations. But for Uganda's
case, it does not seem that eConsultations are enabling a big group of excluded citizens to take part in
the public debate.
Besides, the fact that the consultations are not well-structured, and that they do not have a permanent
record available in the public domain also subtracts from their effectiveness. For Uganda,
eConsultations cannot come anywhere near face-to-face meetings in enabling those who are
marginalised or excluded to air their voices. They do not bring into public deliberation voices that do
not have opportunity to e heard under the traditional deliberative and participation mechanisms.Instead, they offer an extra platform to fairly well-educated and good income earners, who are already
aware of how to participate using the traditional off-line forums. One could therefore conclude that
eConsultations in Uganda remain an elitist forum which might be offering members of the middle class
an extra way to participate but might not be bringing into the fold any citizens that were previously
excluded. The Uganda ICT Committee's eConsultations are informing the policy process, because they
target an audience that is well-versed with the area of ICT and has a keen policy in influencing policy.
Conclusion
The eConsultations carried out by the Uganda Parliaments ICT Committee enable some people to
provide meaningful input. Citizens can input from the comfort of their office or homes, they have agreater amount of time to reflect on the issues at hand and could therefore be able to provide more
meaningful comments. There is a pool of information from the Committee - and from other members of
the discussion - at their disposal so they ideally could discuss from an informed position.
But it is clear that the eConsultations are at the moment not having more people involved than in
conventional consultations. Neither do they appear to be reaching groups of Ugandans that are normally
excluded from deliberations and consultations. The fact that there are few Ugandans online subtracts
from the (potential) effect of eConsultations as a tool for promoting eParticipation. But it in no way
renders them a useless tool. At the moment, the eConsultations are a good starting point and the
experience of the ICT Committee should encourage Parliament to extend eConsultations to wider
sections of Ugandans. The Ugandan Government, and Parliament, should also consider using more
mediums than the listserv that is currently used, with consideration being given to having a permanent
online forum for eConsultations as is the case with the UK Parliament.
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