Connecting citizens to their governments: lessons from ICT-based governance initiatives in Indonesia

In recent years, Indonesia has seen significant growth in the number of initiatives that aim to tackle governance challenges through information and communications technologies (ICTs). Established by both the government and civil society organisations (CSOs), these have sought to increase public accountability, improve the delivery of public services, and strengthen the capacity of civil society to engage in accountability work. Some of these have been successful, helping to strengthen public accountability and contributing to the emergence of transparent government practices and better communication between the government and civil society. However, many initiatives still fail to achieve their desired impact, are unsustainable, or are used only minimally by the groups they aim to reach and involve. To improve understanding of why some ICT initiatives fail, this research compared ten ICT-based governance initiatives in Indonesia, with a focus on Open Data initiatives. The authors explored how successfully they interact with their ecosystems to achieve the desired changes in governance practice. Key themes covered in the paper: ICTs for governance; ICT ecosystems; public service delivery.