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276 WORLD DEVELOPMENT REPORT 2016
lawbreaking politicians. Municipal audits in Brazil
and Mexico show that targeted digital transparency
initiatives can provide salient and credible information
on corruption and on the quality of candidates
that is easy to understand and attribute to individual
politicians. Widely disseminated before an election,
such information can influence voters’ decisions. But
such initiatives are contingent on a supportive legal
framework—such as right to information laws or
disclosures of conflicts of interest and assets—or on
independent supreme audit institutions that may be
absent in these country settings. Civil society advocacy,
in partnership with traditional media, is necessary
to uncover abuse and to make this information
available and understandable to voters.
Transitioning countries: Building capable
and accountable institutions
By introducing an automated complaint
management system we took a noose and put it
around our own necks. We are now accountable!
—A manager of the Nairobi water utility
Countries transitioning digitally have invested in
the automation of core government administration,
such as digital identification, financial and sectorspecific
management information systems, and on
government-to-citizen and government-to-business
services. They can increase the impact of these
investments through complementary policies and
strengthen performance orientation in bureaucracies.
Strengthen government delivery systems
These countries should continue to expand e-government,
particularly digital identification systems
and the business and citizen-facing services like
online registration of businesses, e-filing of taxes,
e-procurement, and citizen service centers. But these
investments should be conditional on enacting the
complementary reforms of regulatory changes,
improving interdepartmental and interagency cooperation,
and streamlining procedures. Digital technologies
can strengthen project management through
better monitoring of the different stages of the project
cycle. By making procurement and contract monitoring
more transparent, they can also give agencies
flexibility in negotiating contracts with vendors,
relaxing the procurement rigidities that cause many
ICT projects to fail (box 5.11). Examples of appropriate
technologies and complements appear in table 5.7.
Institutionalize user feedback on service
quality
Incorporating citizen feedback into policy makerto-provider
management routines can be a powerful
mechanism for tackling petty corruption and improving
services, as in the Dominican Republic, Kenya,
Nigeria, and Pakistan (chapter 3). It works especially
well for private goods and services that are easy to
Box 5.11 Increasing the impact of e-government systems
Better project management: The U.S. Office of Management
and Budget in 2009 introduced the IT [Information
Technology] Dashboard, a public website that provides
detailed performance information on major IT investments
by the federal government. That information is then used
to review problem projects at monthly TechStat meetings
between the federal Chief Information Officer and the
respective agencies. The Government Accountability Office
found that these reforms improved the transparency and
oversight of government IT spending.
Flexible and transparent IT procurement: E-government
projects often fail because of rigid procurement rules. But
making procurement transparent can ensure that discretion
is not abused. The European Union allows agencies to negotiate
with multiple bidders and award the contract to the vendor
with the best revised bid. The greater discretion would
not be possible without the greater monitoring, accountability,
and trust afforded through the e-procurement system.
Public-private partnerships: A number of middle-income
countries have implemented e-government projects
through public-private partnerships, minimizing the
risks of failure associated with misaligned incentives and
limited government capacity. Such partnerships are feasible
for revenue-raising services, for managing citizen
service centers, as in Brazil and India, and for government
e-procurement systems, as in the Indian state of Karnataka.
Sources: U.S. GAO 2014; Kenny 2014; Krishna 2015, for the WDR 2016.