Rethinking open government as innovation for inclusive development: Open access, data and ICT in South Africa

Paul Plantinga and Rachel Adams

African Journal of Science, Technology, Innovation and Development, 2021, vol. 13, issue 3, 315-323

Abstract: Open government has come to be closely associated with innovation for inclusive development (IID). These two areas of practice and research have converged around similar mechanisms aimed at achieving inclusive development outcomes including: open interaction between government, technologists and end-users in the design of policies and services; open, market-oriented approaches to delivering public services and meeting the needs of citizens; and a central role for information and communication technologies (ICTs) in policy development and innovation activities. We argue, however, that an uncritical adoption of open, ICT-oriented practices risks shifting responsibility and trust for governance and development outcomes to largely unaccountable global and national network enterprises. Taking South Africa as our primary focus, including its new White Paper on Science, Technology and Innovation (STI), we note a renewed interest in adopting open government practices in relation to IID. More significant, we suggest, is the emergence of ‘grassroots’, hybrid civic-technology innovation networks at the fringes of formal open government initiatives. This article considers new questions that arise around how these grassroots movements sustain meaningful interaction with mainstream STI processes, how public officials may engage with such movements in order to meet national development outcomes, and the role of ICT in these spaces.

Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/20421338.2020.1746046 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:rajsxx:v:13:y:2021:i:3:p:315-323

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/rajs20

DOI: 10.1080/20421338.2020.1746046

Access Statistics for this article

African Journal of Science, Technology, Innovation and Development is currently edited by None

More articles in African Journal of Science, Technology, Innovation and Development from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().