News | March 2, 2015

Today, the Making All Voices Count team announces ten ideas that will compete at the Global Innovation Week in Jakarta for a grant from a pool of £300,000 and mentoring from our South to South Lab.

In September 2014, we put out a call for bold solutions to amplify citizen voice and promote good governance in 12 countries across Africa and Asia.

Director of Innovation, Daudi Were encouraged applicants to:

Think big; think radical. Look at old problems with new eyes and listen to the stories largely untold.

This call was met with solutions from across the globe, with over 25,000 public votes on the submitted ideas. After scrutiny from the Global Innovation Competition team, we are pleased to announce the final ten innovations for Ghana, the Philippines, Bangladesh, Mozambique, Kenya, South Africa, Pakistan and Indonesia:

Mozambique: Face2Face: Widening Local Dialogue in Mozambique

Through social media, community radio and ICT, Face2Face will track the experiences of people using Mozambique’s new Right to Information Law to obtain public information. The project will publicly highlight and challenge the barriers that still remain in getting information that is now legally supposed to be in the public domain.

South Africa: The Citizen Justice Network (CJN)

The CJN will investigate and highlight unreported miscarriages of justice in rural South Africa. It will train local activists to compile reliable reports and find ways to raise them in local and national media, and provide a platform to help marginalized communities know their rights and gain better access to public justice services.

Ghana: Action Voices Ghana 

Setting up a toll-free phone line in local languages, Action Voices Ghana makes sure that people can talk about their experiences of government services anonymously and at no cost. The team will collect questions and issues from citizens across Ghana, analyses the topics and trends that are being highlighted and use them to help inform civil society, media and government itself.

Pakistan: Responsive Governance via Active Youth Engagement

The project team will work with a group of youth activists to measure and benchmark performances of elected officials and tackle issues of corruption in Pakistan. The youth activists will capitalise on high internet penetration in the country, and use the vibrant and active Pakistani social media sphere to systematically track and publicise political issues, transparently highlighting both achievements and failures.

The Philippines: Balangay: A cloud-based info-system for disaster

The Balangay team have designed an open, cloud-based information system that aims to improve the implementation and accountability of disaster preparedness, response and relief actions in the Philippines. This project brings together a range of stakeholders, including the government, to create a public resource on disaster information and provide a functioning forum for reliable communication between local government units, NGOs and communities in emergencies.

Bangladesh: Safe Factories in Bangladesh

This project aims to make labour conditions more transparent in Bangladesh and support the implementation of new laws on working conditions. The tool, DemoChat, will function as an anonymous electronic suggestion box for factory workers to report health hazards and worker abuse. It will also send out free weekly SMS surveys to workers in order to prompt information that can support better communications between workers and owners, as well as combat labour law violations.

Kenya: Know Your Rights M3 Mobile Messaging to the Masses

The aim of this project is to connect people with their government through mobile tech so they can easily understand their rights and put forward their own priorities for improving access to legal frameworks in Kenya. Using the expertise of leading global content provider LexisNexis and mobile surveying platform GeoPoll, the project will assess public information requirements through opinion polls and surveys, and provide tailored responses, including information on legal issues and rights infringements.

Indonesia: Volunteer Network Platform on Climate Change Info

Working existing networks of youth volunteers in East Java, this project will collect information on climate change in affected communities and distribute this information publicly through a web platform and SMS gateway. The project targets disaster-affected communities and provides them with a platform to ask questions and get the answers they need to adapt to and mitigate against climate change. It will also link these communities with government to enable them to have a more active voice in government climate change policies.

Indonesia: A Voice for Women to Deepen Indonesian Democracy

This project aims to support sustainable dialogue between local government and ordinary people in Indonesia through a combination of appropriate tech – both face to face discussions, as well as mobile and online platforms – to ensure everyone in the community can have their say. The project will emphasise the representation of women and provide direct and, where appropriate, anonymous feedback avenues. Working together with village authorities, this project will capitalise on the new Village Law legislation, which provides an opportunity to determine local policies at a local level and change how women in Indonesia interact with policy makers.

Nigeria: BudgIT: Tracking Budget in Nigeria States

Building on the www.tracka.ng site, which measures government performance in rural and urban areas, this project will make data relevant and accessible for Nigerian citizens, and improve their ability to track and influence service delivery in their local area. Through social media tools, this platform will bring people together to share photos, videos, experiences and data on existing government service projects within their area. It will use this interaction to improve wider public understanding of and interaction with service delivery data in Nigeria, and to raise public priorities in the national sphere.

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