Disclaimer:
Please be aware that the content herein has not been peer reviewed. It consists of personal reflections, insights, and learnings of the contributor(s). It may not be exhaustive, nor does it aim to be authoritative knowledge.
Overview
Prepared by (Name of the experimenter)
Cristhian Parra
On date (Day/Month/Year)
20/05/2024
Current status of experimental activity
Completed
What portfolio does this activity correspond to? If any
Participation, social capital and trust
What is the frontier challenge does this activity responds to?
Builiding innovation capacities
What is the learning question(from your action learning plan) is this activity related to?
What is the space of opportunity to design, develop and implement binding participatory processes in decision-making processes of interest for citizens at different levels (community, city, region, country)?
Please categorize the type that best identifies this experimental activity:
Pre experimental (trial and error, prototype, a/b testing)
Which sector are you partnering with for this activity? Please select all that apply
Civil Society/ NGOs, Academia
Please list the names of partners mentioned in the previous question:
GirlsCode, in partnership with the digital platform Decidim, the National University of Itapúa (UNI) and the Autonomous University of Encarnación (UNAE).
Design
What is the specific learning intent of the activity?
The Citizen Bootcamp was an intensive four-week program, mostly online, that connected professionals with experience in software development, with students and amateurs, who participated in online training sessions and personalized mentoring. The participation of the enrollees was measured and at the end of the program a satisfaction questionnaire was completed.
The Civic Technologies Hackathon was an intensive meeting, in the style of a marathon, teams collaborated for two days to develop demo versions of a citizen participation platform, based on the open source platform known as Decidim.
In order to evaluate this experience and obtain lessons from it, we use two methods of data collection: 1) an online evaluation survey addressed to the people who were part of the Hackathon: participants, judges, mentors and coordinating team, 2) observations collected through participant observation and 3) recommendations from the consulting team.
With the two training programs in the format of Bootcamp and Citizen Hackathon, for the customization, installation, agile development, and demonstration of a digital platform for citizen participation, using open code, the aim was to create a small temporary space for learning and exploring the possible answers to the question: what are your real barriers and opportunities in contexts such as local governments in Paraguay?
What is your hypothesis? IF... THEN....
IF we train interested youth with some background knowledge in the use of civic technologies for participatory governance THEN we can develop new experiences and use innovative tools at local levels that broaden the scope of participation
Does the activity use a control group for comparison?
No, it does not use a control group
How is the intervention assigned to different groups in your experiment?
Non-random assignment
Describe which actions will you take to test your hypothesis:
The survey was applied after the end of the Civic Technologies Hackathon. The answers were analyzed by three people from the team and classified in a matrix, where we identified the Opportunities for Improvement, described the Strategy that this improvement, and gave a value to the impact that it could mean.
In the same way, the barriers to the development of citizen participation platforms identified by the participants were systematized and were classified as:
Institutional, technological and citizen
What is the unit of analysis of this experimental activity?
Participants and tutors of the training program
Please describe the data collection technique proposed
It consisted of 19 questions applied through a digital questionnaire and was answered by 27 people in total. Of them, 19 were participants, 5 mentors, 2 judges and 1 from the coordinating team.
What is the timeline of the experimental activity? (Months/Days)
4 months
What is the estimated sample size?
10-49
What is the total estimated monetary resources needed for this experiment?
Between 10,000- and 20,000 USD
Quality Check
This activity is relevant to a CPD outcome, This activity offers strong collaboration oportunities, This activity offers a high potential for scaling
Please upload any supporting links
What are the estimated non- monetary resources required for this experiment? (time allocation from team, external resources, etc) If any.
Results
Was the original hypothesis (If.. then) proven or disproven?
Partially proven
Do you have observations about the methodology chosen for the experiment? What would you change?
For the learning objectives we set ourselves the methodology tools worked well
From design to results, how long did this activity take? (Time in months)
8 months
What were the actual monetary resources invested in this activity? (Amount in USD)
Does this activity have a follow up or a next stage? Please explain
First, as a follow up to this activity, we organized a Hackathon of civictech, where teams of students and activists adapted versions of Decidim (decidim.org) to various civic engagement challenges. Two of these teams later on worked on internships with us, one of which focused on the development of a prototype for the National Planning Secretary, focused on territorial planning.
These engagements made it easy for us to propose the use of Decidim as part of the participatory process for the upcoming National Development Plan 2050, currently in the process of being implemented.
Is this experiment planned to scale? How? With whom?
Please add any supporting links that describe the planning, implementation, results of learning of this activity? For example a tweet, a blog, or a report.
Considering the outcomes of this experimental activity, which of the following best describe what happened after? (Please select all that apply)
This experiment led to partnerships, This experiment led to adoption of new ways of working by our partners
Learning
What do you know now about the action plan learning question that you did not know before? What were your main learnings during this experiment?
What were the main obstacles and challenges you encountered during this activity?
This learning cycle consisted precisely in identifying the barriers. Within institutional barriers, the lack of political will, the lack of promotion by the state and the lack of support to carry out civic technology projects stand out. Regarding technological barriers, the digital divide, which is expressed in the lack of Internet access or low quality of available connectivity, is positioned as one of the most cited by those surveyed. During the Hackathon and Bootcamp, we were also able to observe that there is a steep learning curve associated with existing open-source platforms for digital engagement, which also generally offer little documentation in Spanish. Finally, among the citizen barriers, the digital divide emerges, which is expressed in the limited skills and experiences of the use of technologies by citizens, who also find it difficult to find motivation and confidence to dedicate their time to actively participate in the community. governance of their territories and communities.
Who at UNDP might benefit from the results of this experimental activity? Why?
Who outside UNDP might benefit from the results of this experiment? and why?
The citizens of the municipalities where more participatory practices are incorporated for decision-making are the final beneficiaries of these training and public innovation processes.
Did this experiment require iterations? If so, how many and what did you change/adjust along the way? and why?
What advice would you give someone wanting to replicate this experimental activity?
Can this experiment be replicated in another thematic area or other SDGs? If yes, what would need to be considered, if no, why not?
How much the "sense" and "explore" phases of the learning cycle influenced/shaped this experiment? In hindsight, what would you have done differently with your fellow Solution Mapper and Explorer?
What surprised you?
The need for face-to-face on the part of the participants is a factor to take into account when we consider exploring the use of civic technologies to broaden the scope of participation. The implication of our learning is that integrating technology must occur in hybrid participation processes that configure what we could call multimedia or hybrid communities: groups of citizens who participate through multiple channels. The challenge of developing digital platforms becomes even greater when considering that there are not only structural barriers to citizen participation and digital divides, but also the need to properly integrate the analog and digital world.
16Peace, justice and strong institutions
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