Collaborative Government Blog

As many of you already know, The Kansas Collaborative was nominated last year for the IBM Innovations Award in Transforming Government. This was an international competition and though we did not win, the efforts of The Collaborative caught the attention of the Ash Institute at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. As a result we were invited (as the founders and project managers of The Kansas Collaborative) to participate in the second international meeting of the Global Network of Government Innovators March 31 – April 2, 2008. Kathleen attended as the representative of The Kansas Collaborative and was joined by over 450 participants from the private and non-profit sectors, as well as federal and sub-national governments from more than 50 countries.

This was truly an international event including presentations from Vicente Fox Quesada, former President of Mexico, and Thomas Vilsack, former Governor of Iowa.

There was so much information to absorb so here is just a sampling of the insights from this gathering of global innovators.

• It takes both market-based economics and transparent government to grow the economic prosperity of countries. Corruption and lack of transparency in government are the biggest obstacles to development. The rule of law is a critical precursor to transparency and freedom of information.
  
• Citizen participation in government is key. There are important differences in citizen engagement between developing and developed countries. 68% of participants felt their country’s local governments engage citizens effectively or moderately effectively with 31% reporting minimally effective engagement or none at all.
  
• Facilitating innovation within government requires a mindset that encourages reasonable risk-taking and allows for mistakes. How these are handled in an atmosphere of transparency is important to determining if innovation continues or not.
  Certainly The Kansas Collaborative and your involvement provide one avenue for transparency and reasonable risk-taking.

We are committed to using these insights as well are our membership now in the Ash Institute’s 7,000 member network of Global Government Innovators to inform and share the work of The Kansas Collaborative with a global audience. Thanks to each of you for your support and continued participation.

Until next month…

Kathleen and Joel