Steven Livingston

Governments hoping to evade responsibility for war crimes and rights abuses are having a much tougher time of it these days. Denying entry to nettlesome investigators is still standard while many places are simply too dangerous to investigate. But even where investigators cannot go, digital technologies can sometimes overcome barriers to investigation.

A recent Harvard Kennedy School report published by the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy underscores how various digital technologies undermine attempts to hide abuses and war crimes. Commercial high-resolution remote sensing satellites, some capable of distinguishing objects on the ground as small as 30-cm across, allow human rights groups to document military forces deployments, mass graves, forced population displacements, and damage to physical infrastructure.

How sustainable are technology-based initiatives? Certainly in some cases they are intended as short-term solutions, such as is the case with post-disaster deployments of GIS platforms like Ushahidi.

But in other instances the ICT initiative must be relied on until the emergence of consolidated statehood. Until states around the developing world have fully functioning agricultural extension services, for example, farmers must rely on programs such as the Grameen Foundation’s Community Knowledge Workers.

It is too soon to say whether digital initiates of this sort have the staying power to serve as long-term alternatives to a fully functioning state exercising proper and accountable administrative capacity. There are also important questions about the scalability of ICT initiatives. Different NGOs and community groups pursue similar initiatives in different areas, and sometimes even in the same community. This creates a patchwork of uncoordinated efforts.

A final concern is found in what might be called governance displacement. To the extent ICT governance initiatives are successful in offering an alternative to a consolidated state, they may sap the motivation to improve state-sector governance capacity.

[Livingston is Professor of Media and International Affairs at The George Washington University]

[Commentary] In this post, I offer examples of the use of technology that at least partially address governance shortfalls in areas of limited statehood.

Put another way, I describe how technologies are used to provide for public goods, such as security, sanitation, drinkable water, and economic opportunity. Where states are consolidated, agricultural extension services, for example, provide farmers with information essential to the important work of feeding families and communities. Where states lack that capacity, NGOs use available technologies to fill the governance void.

For instance, the Grameen Foundation’s Community Knowledge Workers initiative serves more than 176,000 farmers living beyond the reach of state services through a network of more than 1,100 peer advisors. Using mobile technology to connect the advisors with the latest developments and to other farmers, smallholder farmers get accurate, timely information to help them meet their goals. M-Farm in Nairobi similarly provides Kenyan farmers with the latest crop pricing information and other valuable knowledge needed to sustain viable operations. International Trade Centre, a joint agency of the World Trade Organization and the United Nations based in Geneva, offers a variety of similar services -- called Trade at Hand -- to farmers around the world.

[Livingston is professor of Media and International Affairs at The George Washington University]

[Commentary] How do improvements in information and communication technology (ICT) effect governance? Many have studied the role of the Internet in governance by state institutions.

Others have researched how technology changes the way citizens make demands on governments and corporations. A third area concerns the use of technology in countries where the government is weak or altogether missing. In this case technology can fill, if only partially, the governance vacuum created by a fragile state.

[Dr. Steven Livingston is professor of Media and International Affairs at The George Washington University]