Rethinking Development

Back in the days when tweeting was what birds did, a cloud was something in the sky, an app was what you sent to the university admissions office, and Google was simply a misprint for the word which means 10100, who’d have thought that mobile phones could improve the daily lives of the world’s poorest people?

Yet today, mobile communications and social media have brought political transformation through the Arab Spring. Patients in Uganda use SMS texts to report low medical supplies. Farmers in India make mobile phone calls to check crop prices. Citizens of Pakistan use their phones to report evidence of corruption.

The opportunities which this new technology brings to international development work are the focus of a new public-private partnership, Making All Voices Count, launched yesterday here in Washington.

Created by the British, American and Swedish International Development Agencies, in partnership with the Omidyar Network, this new alliance aims to use mobile and web technology to empower citizens, amplify their voices, and help them hold governments to account.

The idea reflects a growing international consensus that clean, accountable, competent government, together with absence of conflict, rule of law, and open markets and trade are necessary for sustained economic progress. The British Prime Minister, David Cameron, has called these elements the “golden thread of development” essential to addressing the root causes of poverty.

This approach also lies at the heart of the British Government’s commitment to the Open Government Partnership (OGP). Founded just a year ago by 8 different governments, including the UK and the US, the OGP now has 47 more members.

It is becoming an extraordinarily effective means of securing firm commitments from governments to promote transparency, empower citizens, fight corruption, and make the best possible use of new technologies. The UK will use the G8 presidency in 2013 to further champion these efforts.

The UN Secretary General has set up a High Level Panel, co-chaired by the British Prime Minister, and the Presidents of Indonesia and Liberia, to advise on the post-2015 development agenda.

The new framework will need to finish what the Millennium Development Goals started. But, as the Prime Minister made clear at the meeting of the High Level Panel he chaired in London in October, a central focus must be the aim of ending absolute poverty in our lifetimes.

That means emphasising the quality of education in developing countries, not just enrolment numbers; focussing on open societies, open governments, and open economies; ensuring that natural resources are managed sustainably; and making the maximum possible use of mobile and web technologies to ensure that the voices of the poorest and the most marginalised are heard.

Despite the economic difficulties which we, like so many of our partners, are experiencing, the UK is sticking to its promise to the world’s poorest communities to spend 0.7% of our national income on development from 2013. We owe it to our taxpayers and to those who receive these funds to ensure that they are put to good use.

The Making All Voices Count initiative, our co-Chairmanship of the High Level Panel, and our commitment to the Open Government Partnership are all part of our determination to ensure that they are not disappointed.