Ed. Note: Last week, we celebrated Sunshine Week here in America. It goes without saying that technology has fundamentally impacted how government works around the world. Samantha Power, Senior Director and Special Assistant for Multilateral Affairs and Human Rights, highlights similar good government efforts underway in countries around the world.
While “Sunshine Week” may be an American invention, the momentum for greater transparency and accountability in government is a global phenomenon. In countries around the world, governments and civil society groups are taking new and creative steps to ensure that government delivers for citizens and to strengthen democratic accountability.
President Obama witnessed this extraordinary innovation first-hand during his trip to India in November. He attended the first-ever “Expo on Democracy and Open Government” and sampled the ways in which technology was being used by Indian citizens and civil society groups to expose corruption. One group showed him the way Indians could use a simple SMS code to obtain background knowledge on political candidates – their financial assets, any criminal backgrounds, etc. He also saw a ground-breaking website, www.ipaidabribe.com, where Indians posted their tales of having been forced to pay a bribe, in refusing to pay a bribe, and in “not having to pay a bribe” – stories celebrating Indian public servants’ refusal to succumb to corruption.
Fonte: White House