Monthly Archives: October 2012

Corruption Perception: Experts vs. The Wisdom of the Crowd

Transparency International famously publishes a Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) every year, which ranks countries by perceived corruption levels, gleaned from an amalgamation of ‘expert’ surveys and country assessments produced by around a dozen institutions (e.g., the Bertelsmann Foundation; the Economist Intelligence Unit; Freedom House; Political Risk Services International; the World Economic Forum’s “Executive Opinion Surveys”).…

Zimbabwe Traffic Cops: Custodians of the Law or a Law unto Themselves?

On October 12, 2012, commuters from Chitungwiza, a small town about 40 km out of Harare, were left stranded when commuter omnibus operators — know locally as “Kombi Drivers” — staged a protest against “hefty bribes” that the traffic officers were allegedly demanding from them. These bribes have been cutting into the profit and making…

Indaba’s User Interface: Engaging, Effective, Efficient

Whenever anything new emerges in the webosphere such as a platform, website, blog, browser, etc., its user interface (UI) must be well designed, allowing users to easily and quickly navigate where they need to go. Of course many of you already know this, but doing it can be harder than it sounds when needs are…

Closing the Implementation Gap

In every country, sound laws are a key foundation of democratic governance and economic development. Crafting such laws, however, is only part of the path to success. The other half is making sure that the laws are properly implemented – which is often more challenging. When laws and regulations are not properly adopted, such discrepancy…

Come to our Ideathon!

What are you doing the day after Halloween? We are hosting an Ideathon in our new OpenGov Hub from 6:30 to 8:30pm and you should join us. We understand that many of you have half-baked ideas that you want to present to others for feedback, meld with others’ ideas to make them whole, or just…

Africa Rising: the Highway Africa Conference 2012

“Africa Rising” was the theme of the 2012 Highway Africa Conference, held in Grahamstown, South Africa in September 2012. The Highway Africa Conference has been held for the past 16 years as a way to bring journalists together from across the globe to share new ideas and to reflect critically on journalism, media, technology and…