How ER is your Egov

. we have entrered the 21st C in an appalling state where there are so few models of public servants serving not controlling;

we need commiunity gov strating with designs that are by and for youth and familiesto produce sustainable communities

however this isnt a reason for not using mobile identity systems the right way round; we need to hunt out the ones that start off well ; ensure citizens in yoyr countries know the good examples as the best way of not getting trapped by bad examples; pervasive quality certification going micro becoems a good thing as lond as we massively understand it and the public at every level of community hunts out the mis-users

very interesting www.gramweb.net : paper by some of the people working on this sort of model

please report to info@worldcitizen.tv links on anything on egov that you actually like as a citizen- we particularly look forward to reports from countries in south africa, nordica region and other places where we recall conversations over last 16 years of exploring the internet where citizens really loved something govs had done with e

this paper is a great record of every year's new thing of e- ; it is recorded by the educator who love e- more than any other we know of (though we always like to hear nominations for that title)

potentially very exciting

INDIA’Seconomy might be thriving, but many of its people are not. This week Manmohan Singh, the prime minister, said his compatriots should be ashamed that over two-fifths of their children are underfed. They should be outraged, too, at the infant mortality, illiteracy, lack of clean drinking water and countless other curses that afflict the poor.

Poverty has many causes, and no simple cure. But one massive problem in India is that few poor people can prove who they are. They have no passport, no driving licence, no proof of address. They live in villages where multitudes share the same name. Their lack of an identity excludes them from the modern economy. They cannot open bank accounts, and no one would be so foolish as to lend them money.

The government offers them all kinds of welfare, but because they lack an identity, they struggle to lay hands on what they have been promised. The state spends a fortune on subsidised grain for the hungry, but an estimated two-thirds of it is stolen or adulterated by middlemen. The government pays for an $8 billion-a-year make-work scheme for the rural poor, but much of the cash ends up in the capacious pockets of officials who invent imaginary “ghost workers”.

Suppose those thieving middlemen were obliged to deliver grain, not to poor people in general but to named individuals who could confirm receipt by scanning their fingerprints? And suppose those ghost workers had to undergo an iris scan before being paid? If poor Indians each had an identity number tied to unique biometric markers, it would be much harder for the powerful to rob them. Sceptics will scoff that the Indian government is far too incompetent to implement such a scheme. But the sceptics are wrong.

ID-ing the benefits

This month India’s unique identity (UID) scheme will enroll its 200 millionth member, having had almost none only a year ago (see article). By the end of this year, says Nandan Nilekani, a former software mogul who runs the project, the tally could stand at 400m, a third of all Indians. The scheme is voluntary, but the poor are visibly enthusiastic about it. Long lines wait patiently in the heat to have their fingerprints and irises scanned and entered into what has swiftly become the world’s largest biometric database.

For the poor, having a secure online identity alters their relationship with the modern world. No more queueing for hours in a distant town and bribing officials with money you don’t have to obtain paperwork that won’t be recognised if you move to another state looking for work. A pilot project just begun in Jharkhand, an eastern state, will link the new identities to individuals’ bank accounts. Those to whom the government owes money will soon be able to receive it electronically, either at a bank or at a village shop. Ghost labourers staffing public-works schemes, and any among India’s 20m government employees, should turn into thin air. The middlemen who steal billions should more easily be bypassed or caught.

That is just the start. Armed with the system, India will be able to rethink the nature of its welfare state, cutting back on benefits in kind and market-distorting subsidies, and turning to cash transfers paid directly into the bank accounts of the neediest. Hundreds of millions of the poor must open bank accounts, which is all to the good, because it will bind them into the modern economy. Care must be taken so mothers rather than feckless fathers control funds for their children. But most poor people, including anyone who wants to move around, will be better off with cash welfare paid in full. Vouchers for medical or education spending could follow.

Companies—and their customers—stand to gain from the system too. Mr Nilekani talks of India stealing a march on other countries if firms have an easy, secure way of identifying their customers. Banks will be more likely to lend money to people they can trace. Mobile-phone firms will extend credit. Insurers will offer lower rates, because they will know more about the person they are covering. Medical records will become portable, as will school records. Ordinary Indians will find it easier to buy and sell things online, as ordinary Chinese already do. Just as America’s Global Positioning System, designed for aiming missiles, is now used by everyone for civilian navigation and online maps, so might UID become the infrastructure for India’s commercial services.

They’ve got your number

India’s scheme holds three lessons for other countries. One is that designing such a scheme as a platform for government services, not security, keeps the costs down and boosts the benefits. Another is to use the private sector. From the start, Mr Nilekani harnessed the genius of Indians abroad, including a man who helped the New York Stock Exchange crunch its numbers and one of the brains behind WebMD, an American health IT firm. Both public and private actors (mostly tech firms that enroll participants and process data) are paid strictly by results. The cost of enrolling each person is a little over 100 rupees ($2). Many other poor countries could afford that.

And the third is that, alas, even a brilliant idea has enemies. India’s stubborn home minister, P. Chidambaram, is now blocking a cabinet decision to extend the UID’s mandate, which is needed for the roll-out to continue. Parliamentarians and activists have raised worries over India’s lack of strong privacy and data-protection laws; they also complain about the weak legal basis for the scheme.

These complaints have some validity, but not enough to derail the scheme. For instance, India plainly needs better data-protection laws, but even if the existing rules remained unchanged, the threat to liberty would be dwarfed by the gains to welfare: to people who live ten to a room, concerns about privacy sound outlandish. Some of the resistance is principled, but much comes from the people who do well out of today’s filthy system. Indian politics hinge on patronage—the doling out of opportunities to rob one’s countrymen. UID would make this harder. That is why it faces such fierce opposition, and why it could transform India.

Muhammad Yunus expresses faith in entrepreneurs at G20 summit

Posted on: November 23, 2011

Category: News

Microfinance Focus, November 4, 2011: Professor Muhammad Yunus was invited to deliver a key note speech during the G20 Young Entrepreneurs Summit held in Nice, France. Professor Yunus addressed an audience of more than 400 entrepreneurs from all G20 countries. In his speech, he shared his personal entrepreneurship experiences, his faith in young entrepreneurs to be the pillars of society and the need to include poor countries in the discussion process in making global decisions.

Professor Yunus being an entrepreneur himself started off creating the Grameen Bank that provides microfinance services to the poor who had little access to financial provisions. From that, he ventured into a wide number of social businesses such as Grameen Nursing College, Grameen Eyecare Hospitals, Grameen Shakti, etc.

He has always considered young entrepreneurs to be the most effective solution for the future. He said “In my opinion, G20 YES is a fabulous initiative, gathering so much energy and momentum from all over the world. Because of their creativity and leadership, provided that they commit to share the value they create, these 400 young entrepreneurs in this room can change the world.”

Professor Yunus is also a member of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) Advocacy Group, advising the Secretary General of the United Nations. Hence, he believes that the next generation of youths should be handed over the process of the MDGs as soon as possible. He believes that entrepreneurs will have a key role to play in fulfilling the MDGs, if they are committed to the social value created by their companies, and social business can be part of the solutions.

In his speech, he added that the G20 needed to broaden its scope to deal with the current world crisis. It can no longer remain a political forum with economic agendas. The G20 needs to create a social agenda as well. Professor Yunus proposes that ‘social business’ should be brought to the agenda of G20, as one of the concrete and effective solutions to be considered for immediate implementation so as to guide capitalistic investment towards social value and jobs creation, rather than sheer profit maximization strategies. A social business is a cause-driven business where profits stay within the company for its sustainability.

Lastly, Professor Yunus concluded that the G20 should be expanded into the G25, where poor countries from each continent should be included in the global agenda which they are part of. He added that “Their problems are inter-related with others, and their proposals of solutions should be considered by the most economically advanced countries in making global decisions. A G25 would be a big step toward ensuring that global social issues are raised, and MDGs implementation is fully shared on the global agenda. And finally, because fighting poverty together is the only way to bring long lasting peace in this world.”

Source: http://www.microfinancefocus.com/muhammad-yunus-expresses-faith-entrepreneurs-g20-summit

It explores how to make the invisible principles and practices of real wealth creation visible, and therefore useable. Our planet needs case studies underline the search for new win-wins that build ‘system integrity’
Trust-flow is the unseen wealth to invest sustainability in. Tranpsarently mapped it develops a goodwill gravity tyhat invites with roleplayer in a community to multiply goodwill while sustaining their own cashflow.. Trust is not some vague, mushy, abstract warm-hearted sentiment. It is an economic powerhouse – probably just as economically and socially important as oil.
The point is, there are specific things you need to do to get trust flowing, just as there are specific things you need to do to get oil flowing. And like oil trust has a dark side. Right now, the world is awash with the carbon emissions which threaten the stability and sustainability of its ecosystems. Right now, the world is also awash with the ‘carbon emission’ of trust – mistrust. Indeed it may well be that our ability to tackle the one issue – the threat of environmental catastrophe – depends on our ability to tackle the other issue: how to generate, deepen, extend and sustain trust.>br>But what is the best way of doing this? One thing is for sure. You don’t build and sustain trust via some sentimental exercise of goodwill to all and sundry. There are three very simple principles at the heart of effective trust generation.
First, trust is generated via win-win relationships. It’s virtually impossible to generate or sustain trust without mutual benefit for those involved. But beneficial outcomes are not enough in themselves. For trust to be built and sustained, both sides need to signal a demonstrable commitment to finding win-win ways forward. Such a commitment may require real changes to what we say and do. Second, real ‘win-wins’ are hardly ever purely financial or material. You don’t build trust simply by walking away with more cash in your pocket. Trust works at all the dimensions and levels of human exchange. Yes, it’s about financial and material rewards. But it’s also about purpose (what people want to achieve). It’s about politics with a small ‘p’: the use and abuse of power, the crafting and application of rules of fair play. And it’s about emotions: the sometimes overwhelmingly strong emotions, both positive and negative, that are generated when people deal with other peopleWhat’s constitutes a ‘win’ – a sense of real improvement – is therefore highly specific. It depends absolutely on the details of who the parties are, what they are trying to achieve, in what context. Building trus, therefore involves discovering these specifics. Just as oil doesn’t flow out of the ground, get refined and pump its way into motor vehicles automatically and without effort, so identifying and doing what is necessary to get trust flowing requires dedicated, skilled effort. It requires a disciplined, structured process, not a vague sentiment.

3) Third, even if we do steps 1) and 2) there’s still a good chance it won’t succeed. Why? Because it ignores an invisible third factor. In the real world, purely two way bilateral relationships don’t exist. There is always a third party whose interests or outcomes are affected by what the other two parties do but who is not a party to the contract. The environment is a case in point. Producers and consumers may both benefit from buying and selling to each other – but what happens if, in doing so, they destroy the environment they both depend on?

This raises a hugely important question. When two parties pursue win-wins and build mutual trust, are they doing so in a way which creates a win and builds trust for the third party at the same time? Or are they simply pushing the problems – and the mistrust – further down the line on to this third party? Building vigorous, healthy networks of trust is a different kettle of fish to ‘you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours’ win-win conspiracies. It requires a Map of all the key relationships plus careful consideration of knock-on consequences. It requires a different perspective.

These three simple, basic steps do not happen automatically. They need to be worked at. The territory needs to be deliberately Mapped and explored. What’s more, there are obstacles in our way – mental and practical obstacles that need to be cleared. Prevailing economic theories about ‘rational economic man’ for example, deny the need to commit to win-win outcomes. Instead, they promote supposedly ‘rational’ (i.e. narrowly selfish behaviours) which actively undermine trust The same theories insist that the only valid measure of human benefit is money, thereby excluding from consideration many of the biggest opportunities for improvement. Meanwhile many vested interests do not want to extend the circle of trust to third parties and complete networks because their positions of power depend on their ability to take advantage of the weaknesses of these third parties. That’s another job for Mapping: helping to identify and mount such obstacles.
The potential benefits of doing so are unthinkably huge. They start with a simple negative: the relief that comes from when you stop banging your head against a brick wall. Mistrust breeds wasteful, wealth destroying conflict that tends to feed on itself. Anger and hatred engender anger and hatred. Simply easing or stopping the terrible waste of mistrust would transform prospects for many millions of people. We desperately need to find ways of doing this. Then there are the positive benefits. Understanding the real nature of human wealth – all those dimensions of purpose, ‘politics’ and emotion as well as money and material comfort – means we can start being human again; human in the way we think, and act. What’s more, many of these intangible benefits won’t cost a penny. They’re there for the taking, if only we puts our minds to it.
But there’s more, because trust is also an economic superpower in its own right. In the pages that follow we will show conclusively that material and financial riches are also dependent on trust. In fact, we will argue the case for going one step further. We will say that material and financial riches are a by-product of trust: the visible fruits of invisible, intangible human exchange. Once you understand that sustainable cash flows are a by-product of sustainable trust flows, your understanding of what makes a successful business is transformed.
Separately, each of these three fruits – reducing the waste of conflict, unleashing the potential intrinsic benefits of human exchange, and energising the sustainable creation of material wealth – are massive in their own right. Put them together and they represent a vast new continent of opportunity.
As we said, this book is addressed to entrepreneurs and system innovation revolutionaries. Wherever you happen to be, whatever the change you want to make is, the principles explored in this book apply. The wish to change and the will to change are not the same as being able to change successfully. For that you need to understand your territory. You will need new Maps