Wouldn’t it be nice if we could cut through traffic jams and directly receive government services through an app on our smartphones while sipping coffee in the comfort of our homes? If you happen to live in a technologically advanced country, this is nothing out of the ordinary. We see no reason why we are denied similar privileges. Apart from the governments in least developed countries, the rest have successfully integrated public services using the Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) to allow citizens access to a range of public services using one-stop digital platforms. Now, the advanced economies are upping the ante and redefining democratic governance by embracing e-democracy—the use of ICT to support a democratic decision-making process.

E-democracy emerged as citizens started to question traditional forms of representative democracy and started rooting for an arrangement where a citizen’s direct participation in policy-making processes is possible. With the gap between the political elites and the citizens, many call for a renewal of democratic societies through active citizenship, feeling political parties have not adapted with time and are unable to respond to their demands. In order to remain relevant, governments came up with an innovative solution called e-democracy. The concept of electronic participation (e-participation), affordable high speed internet, and open data are the pillars of e-democracy.

Shifting paradigms

The very idea of participation is based on a specific understanding of democracy and citizenship. E-participation is the use of ICT in the legislative decision-making processes with a goal of enhancing citizen participation to yield better legislations. Many countries have effectively used social media tools like Twitter, YouTube and Facebook to engage with the populace. The cost of engaging with citizens using modern e-participation platforms is also much smaller than that of physically taking part in participatory events. 

In 2000, Estonia declared access to the internet a basic human right. In 2009, France did the same, followed by Costa Rica in 2010. The same year, Finland made access to a broadband connection of speed 1 Mbps (Megabits per second) a legal right. The Finnish government took this radical path because they felt the internet is a fundamental part of the society, and guaranteeing a citizen’s right to access quality and affordable broadband internet is the only logical way forward.

This year, the Euoprean Union (EU) will legally guarantee broadband internet under changes in the EU universal services rules. Many countries in the EU are likely to be unhappy with the coming change, because the union wants them to pay for guaranteed internet and not private telecos. An overhaul of EU telecoms law, scheduled to be tabled in September, will also have a proposal of a new EU-wide target of 100 Mbps internet speed by 2025. Closer to home, Indian IT minister Ravi Shankar Prasad is planning to consider a

policy for increasing the minimum broadband speed to 2 Mbps from 512 kbps (kilobits per second).

Open Government Data (OGD) is another area where western democracies have excelled. The United Nations defines Open Government Data as “government information proactively disclosed and made available online for everyone’s access, reuse and redistribution without restriction.” Many governments have already opened up their data for public scrutiny. They are doing so to promote transparency, but also for economy’s sake. They want to encourage citizens to reuse and remix the data so as to promote a breakthrough understanding that could potentially catalyse radical innovations and generate huge socioeconomic benefits. Research shows countries that have adopted OGD have higher degrees of accountability and transparency in national government, parliament, and judiciary. As many as 128 UN member states now provide data sets on government spending in machine readable formats that are available online. Other countries have not been able to do so probably due to a lack of political will. After all, opening up government data is a political decision, especially when it comes to how much information to share.

Breaking the mould

If the Government of Nepal is serious about promoting ‘Opening Government’, first and foremost, it needs to create an oversight authority, whose role should be to formulate binding regulations for implementation, incorporate public perspectives into policy implementation and create processes that ensure data quality. Above all, the oversight agency needs a leadership capable of ensuring that government agencies at all levels share information among each other and also with the public via the internet. The authority should also create awareness about how society as a whole can use and reuse the data to its advantage. Building capacity of bureaucracy will be another important task, mainly because civil servants do not fully understand the potential of opening up data.

Free and open access to information is key to a healthy democracy. If and when used correctly, e-democracy provides the tools necessary for citizens to actively engage in political life. Allowing people to seek and receive public information empowers them to fight corruption, fully participate in public life, and helps exercise their fundamental human rights.

It seems Nepal is still backward when it comes to making important decisions about national and local political leadership because electorates are still required to physically visit a voting booth to cast a ballot. It would be great if people could vote over the internet using e-voting technologies. Internet voting is much quicker, offers accurate results, and eliminates potential human error from manual counting. There is no reason why Nepali citizens should not get to vote over the internet. After all, we are living in the 21st century. It is time for the Election Commission to wake up and smell the coffee.

Kathayat is Associate Professor at Kathmandu Engineering College; Shah is the co-author of ‘Strategic IT Planning for Public Organizations: A Toolkit’ published by the UN in 2009