SMS:Gov – Local Government Interface for Constituents via SMS Text Messages
In the twenty-third in our series of guest blog posts, Wayan Vota from Inveneo reflects on the potential of SMS – and FrontlineSMS – to hold local government to account in the developing world.
Local governments in the developing world face a serious communications problem. As Roomthinker tweets, there is currently no easy mechanism for constituents to communicate with their elected officials – in urban or rural and underserved areas:
Mass media can quickly inform or educate but radio, TV, and newspapers are usually state controlled by national organizations distant from local needs or decisions. And none of these media are two-way communications. Just one-to-many broadcast mediums.
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In addition, local governments can be ignorant about constituents’ changing needs and interests – especially marginalized communities that have been historically ignored or under-represented. Local governments may produce services that they find interesting or please national politicians without any feedback from the people they are expected to serve.
Yet there now exists a technology application that could give feedback on the needs of a community, even providing for targeted two-way communication between local governments and their citizenry. This technology is easy to implement and can be easily modified with changing needs: SMS text messaging.
SMS:Gov as 311
Local governments could set up automated SMS systems in their offices and then promote the phone number so citizens in need could text for local government assistance.
Using tools like FrontlineSMS, the local government would set us a simple menu tree for incoming text messages – each keyword would generate a particular response, leading to a new keyword. The system would track mobile phone numbers, allowing for a basic census of constituent needs and interests.
For example: someone texting “Weather” would receive a basic forecast & could respond with CropForecast, FishingForecast, or National Forecast for specialized weather forecasts in each area. This would both educate the respondents and track how many citizens were interested in each area.
Multiply this over the many local government services and a single FrontlineSMS instance could become an automated information service similar to the 311 service in New York, San Francisco, and Washington DC in the US, at a fraction of the cost.
SMS:Gov as Citizen Pulse
Smart politicians try to stay engaged with their electorate – keeping in constant communication with them to gauge their mood and needs. Yet how can a local politician know what his geographically dispersed constituents need and inform them of his efforts?
Again, using a FrontlineSMS system, officials can easily gather citizen input via SMS, grouping constituent interests by keywords. Then, based on those keywords, informing them of his actions in their interests. Think My Barack Obama, but via text message.
Try out live SMS:Gov
Intrigued? Then text “LOCALGOV” to this phone number +1.202.506.0148 and you can test out our live SMS:Gov demo. Yes, really! Try it yourself from anywhere in the world.
This post was originally published on the ICTworks blog from Inveneo in March 2010. Thanks to Wayan for kindly allowing us to republish.
This is a great initiative that could also be used by civic media & other civic engagement watchdogs.
Would SMS:Gov be able to include basic geo-tagging, to give additional geographic context & trends analysis of citizen concerns / priorities? Also, what other user metrics would you get: time, previous history on SMS:gov, etc, to help those managing SMS:gov understand how people are using the service?
Then, in the case of governments or non-profits using it, would it be able to provide short-codes to toll-free SMS lines, to lower the barrier to entry for ordinary citizens who may not be able to afford a multiple SMS ‘conversation’ based on a menu tree?
And, finally, could SMS:Gov trigger recorded audio call-backs for those instances where audio is more appropriate than text in semi-literate regions?
Cheers,
Justin
we are trying to promote the idea that district level government in Afghanistan need to engage population more proactively in the face of general disillusionment.
we work with a few district governements in southern afghanistan to assist constituencies to use government services. we have recruited and trained the a constituency caseworker in each district. The candidate was briefed that the role is not to initiate a broad array of actions resulting in a speedy, favourable outcome. When performing casework, the scribe cannot force an agency to expedite a case or act in favour of a client. Scribe role is to intervene to facilitate the appropriate administrative processes. the scribe have form which they fill out with details of each client/constituent. the form has three copies and one goes to the client. we are working to use frontline sms to automate the system. this idea came to me when working with telephone operators; there is alot of neglect on the part of staff in a place like afghanistan. they are not serious about details and can not be bothered to be accurate.
The idea is to make the inprocess form available via cellphone, so scribe can use client – or his cellphone when they don’t have – to directly input their detail into the database. we can automate the process this way. Client will be promoted to give regular feedback. District governor and related staff will be reminded about client status and scribe will be tasked to follow up on issues when hitting a barrier. The digitization of bureaucracy on an easy to use medium not only streamlines process but also makes up for lack of physical interaction as a result of worsening security situation.
We can make the form for data entry available via phones without using java enabled features. That we it can be available on all phones. The telephone which receives the form can send a simple hand-written SMS and our dB sms software can receive it. the data is not interpreted, validated or written in a database by FrontlineSMS. For this purpose we can develop a MySQL or MS Access database system to host the SMS data and to provide validation on the data received and to send an automatic reply to follow up with the sender, relate the problem to other stakeholders. For instance a client sends in form with a petition for Tazkira (birth certificate), the sender will receive an sms back, giving him the contact information for the Tazkira manager and working hours of the dept. the dB will also send a message to Tazkira manager informing him about the petition and any unusual notes.
For the functioning of the system we need two dBs, one at the front end and another at the back. The front-end database is the system that performs the validation and the queries would require adaptation for porting to another system.