What we do
What
Developments in technology and innovation mean that government and citizens can interact like never before.
Globally, citizens have fast-increasing access to tools that enable them to monitor government performance and express their views on government performance in real time.
Making All Voices Count is about seizing this moment to promote transparency, fight corruption, empower citizens, and harness the power of new technologies to make government more effective and accountable.
The aim of Making All Voices Count is not only to bring about change during the lifetime of the programme, but also to leave a legacy of learning that helps to ensure that future governance programmes that seek to capitalise on the transformative potential of innovation and technology are more informed, inclusive and impactful.
How
By making grants to support innovation and technology that has the potential to support better governance.
Through research that helps to build a base of evidence about what works and why in using innovation for accountable governance.
Working with policy makers, opinion formers and influencers to ensure that our learning has impact across the sector.
What we have funded
Since the inception of the programme in 2013, we have made 178 grants:
- 57 innovation grants, for projects focused on finding and testing new ideas
- 38 scaling grants, taking proven concepts to scale
- 61 research grants, building our knowledge of how technology is being applied across the wider governance field, and supporting practitioners to learn about how their own projects are working
- 15 Global Innovation Competition awards, for innovation projects
- 7 tech hub grants.
As at March 2017, 42 projects had been completed and closed, while 135 projects were ongoing.
Where
Making All Voices Count works in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Ghana, Mozambique, South Africa, Nigeria, Liberia, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Indonesia and The Philippines.
Who
The programme is a partnership between three organisations:
- Hivos: supporting people who are systematically blocked from rights, opportunities and resources
- Ushahidi: pioneering technology-for-development organisation
- Institute for Development Studies (IDS): global institution for development research, teaching and learning, and impact and communications, based at the University of Sussex in the UK.
Making All Voices Count is supported by four donors: DFID, USAID, Sida, and the Omidyar Network (ON).
Programme documents and learning reports
Read our programme Strategy Synthesis here and our Research, Evidence and Learning strategy here.
During the programme, we have convened three learning and inspiration events. Download Bridging and Bonding and Transforming Governance here, and look out for the report of the third event in May 2017.
Catch up with our achievements and emerging outcomes in our year 4 semiannual report here.
