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Information and Service DeliveryThis monograph probes the role of
 information in service delivery by focusing on key sectors
 in Kenya and Ethiopia. Findings from comparative studies
 done in 2005-06 in the health, education, and water and
 sanitation sectors plus public and private partnerships
 (PPPs) illustrate the significance of information access to
 delivery of quality services. Linking information access to
 service delivery is instructive to deepen institutional
 reforms around transparency and governance. This volume
 contends that three constraints-governance, trust, and
 technology deficits-impede information flows for service
 delivery in Ethiopia and Kenya. Although these constraints
 are formidable, the cases reveal that reforms in the
 governance arena have began to make a difference in the
 domain of service delivery. Using local researchers for this
 study has contributed to the World Bank's vision and
 mission of strengthening knowledge production by local
 institutions, particularly in Africa, where the low rate of
 the input of indigenous voices in the development debates is
 a growing concern. Augmenting the corpus of knowledge about
 African issues by Africans also fits into the objective of
 capacity building: providing local experts the opportunities
 to research and highlight experiences on the ground. As more
 countries embark on public sector reforms that deepen
 transparent information mechanisms and better service
 delivery, the need for more of these studies will increase.
 What the authors of this study have articulated is a rich
 research agenda that ties information access and service
 provision-research that should help advance policy dialogue
 with actors involved in public sector and governance reforms.
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Municipal ICT Capacity and its Impact on the Climate-Change Affected Urban Poor : The Case of MozambiqueThe objective of conducting this case
 study on Mozambique is to uncover the pattern of municipal
 Information and Communication Technology (ICT) impact that
 may exist in other low-capacity countries with analogous
 political economy structures in relation to leveraging ICT
 in public sectors. The study concludes by suggesting
 measures to link the continent's ICT boom in
 citizen-based mobile telephony and internet usage with the
 rapid rise of public sector ICT phenomena as a promising
 means to plug service delivery gaps. In view of these
 highlights, this report stands to serve as a valuable
 resource guide to a wide audience of practitioners,
 including policy wonks, urban specialists; ICT and climate
 change enthusiasts, as well as social accountability
 activists. This report consists of five sections. Section
 one details the impact of climate change on
 Mozambique's urban poor while also providing an
 overview of the country's disaster response system. In
 view of the decentralization of much of Mozambique's
 ICT and other resources among municipal governments, section
 two sheds light on leveraging local government-level ICT
 towards enhancing urban climate resilience and disseminates
 awareness on the 'ICT- Action Plan for the Reduction of
 Absolute Poverty (PARPA)' framework. Section three
 describes the four ICT tools most widely being used towards
 climate-change adaptation, while Section 4 seeks to quantify
 the level to which municipal ICT growth is having an impact
 on urban climate resilience generally, and seeks to answer
 the question of whether it is having an equitable impact on
 the poor. Upon measuring the extent to which urban climate
 resilience is being enhanced and analyzing differential
 impact on the urban poor, section five recommends targeted
 reform in ICT-PARPA framework such that ICT impact is
 equitable for all communities, and postulates how such
 reform can be realized.
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Proactive TransparencyThis paper identifies four primary
 drivers of proactive disclosure throughout history. The
 first is the need to inform the public about laws and
 decisions and the public's right to be informed, to
 know their rights and obligations. The second is the
 public's demand for the information needed to hold
 governments accountable both at and between elections. The
 third is the demand for information in order to participate
 actively in decision-making. The fourth is the provision to
 the public of information needed to access government
 services, which has expanded significantly in the past
 decade with growth of electronic access to services or
 'e-government.' This paper attempts to advance the
 debate around that question by analyzing the multiple
 proactive disclosure provisions in national law and
 international treaties in order to identify the emerging
 global consensus on the classes of information which should
 be included in a proactive disclosure regime. The paper
 examines the practical challenges related to the
 implementation of proactive disclosure regimes and some of
 the lessons learned from which principles for making
 proactive disclosure work in practice can be derived. It
 concludes by identifying some future challenges and areas
 where additional research is needed.