« Top-down or bottom-up? | Main | The verdict from Rome »

28 October 2006

ICTs for better governance: a step too far?!

East Timor’s prime minister, Jose Ramos Horta, told us that his mobile phone number is publicly available for any of his citizens to contact him directly. So he shouldn’t have been too surprised when his phone went off as he touched down in Rome:

“It was someone who wanted me to send the police to his village to solve a problem. I called my police department and issued orders to send some help to that village.”

I think this is a great story. But I guess it might be less feasible for a country like India which has a population of 1.2 billion!

Posted on 28 October 2006 at 07:03 PM in Communication for development, Mobile phones |

Tags: governance, ict policy, mobile phones, wccd

Comments

The comments to this entry are closed.

The i-Witnesses

  • This blog is written by Murali Shanmugavelan, with help from the i-Witness team (Victoria Room and Nicky Lewis).

    It's a place for journalists - particularly in developing countries - to read commentary and share insights about the information society, what it means for ordinary people in the global South, and how it can be reported in a meaningful way.

November 2007

Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
        1 2 3
4 5 6 7 8 9 10
11 12 13 14 15 16 17
18 19 20 21 22 23 24
25 26 27 28 29 30  

Archives

Categories

Recent Posts

Recent Comments

i-Witness resources


  • Check out Panos London's i-Witness microsite, packed with reporting tips, topic briefings, background information and links, and experts for interview...
    > i-Witness microsite

Small print

  • Panos London is not responsible for the content of external websites. This blog presents the personal views of the author, which are not necessarily shared by Panos London.