Stockholm World Water Week Seminar to address how ICT can improve transparency and accountability. Nick Dickinson, author of Triple-S Working Paper ‘Using ICT for monitoring', to present.
Published on: 01/08/2013
Where: World Water Week in Stockholm
When: Wednesday 4 September 2013 at 9.00 - 12.30
Conveners: Akvo Foundation; IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre; Rural Water Supply Network; UNDP Water Governance Facility at SIWI; Water and Sanitation Program; Water for People; Water Integrity Network and WaterAid
Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has become increasingly pervasive in recent years across all sectors. In the water sector, the innovation of numerous low cost applications embracing the use of mobile phones, social media sites, e-learning platforms, user-friendly cameras and geo-referencing maps, has changed the way water is governed and increased transparency and integrity in the sector.
ICT is quickly changing relationships between stakeholders, facilitating the measurement and monitoring of interventions and enabling practitioners at a local level to use evidence to guide decision making and corrective actions. Despite this promising outlook, several challenges exist to use the full potential of ICT. Is there sufficient knowledge to apply the new technologies effectively? What has worked and how? Who has access to the information and are incentives in place for using information to improve services? What are the associated costs? Are we being diverted by the allure of emerging technologies from the real issues of data integrity and the improvement of services? These questions, and more, will be addressed in the seminar at World Water Week in Stockholm 2013.
Nick Dickinson of IRC will be presenting highlights from his Triple-S Working Paper: Using ICT for monitoring rural water services: From data to action.
