Technology – but remember the costs of maintenance
The World Bank, in its blog, touched on a very positive topic, technology and anti-corruption. The importance and breadth of technology cannot be overstated. In the blog, World Bank points out the use of their program, GovTech, but the reality is most countries have the internal capacity to create technological solutions themselves. As they point out “Digital solutions enhance public service delivery by improving coverage, accessibility, and efficiency. GovTech also reduces corruption risks. For example, digitizing permit and license processing through government portals minimizes opportunities for bribery and favoritism.”
But, before we forget, and something nobody seems to mention, is the absolute necessity of building in maintenance and support into all technological solutions. Most of the new software and hardware solutions, which create systems significantly minimizing corruption, need to also to include long-term maintenance support. I have seen several systems in a number of countries, which have been donor funded, essentially collapse due to lack of ongoing ma funding and lack of infrastructure support. As systems break down, the benefits of a working corruption free system vanish as the citizenry has to find some way to receive services, and non-existent systems can create more chaos than simply corrupt ones.
What we must do, as practitioners, must pragmatically remind our clients that all the bells and whistles of glorious, technologically wonderful, IT solutions without corruption are ideal, they must always have the ongoing maintenance and support to keep the systems running smoothly.
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