About my Work

Blog & weblink of the week

Blogs I Follow

Datalinks of the Week

Governance Maps

Selected Papers

Some Brief Articles

Some Sites I Like

Voice and Human Rights

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Eyes Wide Open? Olympics, Netizens and Web Governance

Friday, August 15th, 2008

A week has elapsed since the opening of the Olympics. China (along a few other countries), is showing that they are also a world athletic power to reckon with.  But I was also making the point in my previous blog entries that the Olympics (or the August lull…) should not give license to governance going […]

Beijing Olympics and Governance: Eyes partially open?

Wednesday, August 13th, 2008

The Russian invasion of Georgia, the leadership and human rights crises in Zimbabwe and Darfur, the coup in Mauritania, and even corruption in sports were some of the disparate problems touched in my last blog entry – challenges which did not get any better over the past few days while medals continue to accumulate in […]

Beijing Olympics and Worldwide Governance: Eyes Wide Shut?

Monday, August 11th, 2008

The majority of the world’s population watched the magnificent opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games.  Many are sports fans, yet many wanted to witness China’s ‘coming out Party’, showcasing to all (in case some did not know) that China is a world power, and its people are capable of great things. One of the […]

Empowering people through Web 3.0 + Gen Y + m-governance

Thursday, July 31st, 2008

As the Fortune Brainstorm Tech near Silicon Valley was getting going last week, I contributed a blog entry on ‘Governance-on-the-Go’, or ‘GonGo’, emphasizing the need to move away from static  ‘e-government’ towards the highly mobile citizen becoming center stage in the next phase of IT interface with governance.  The blog entry and the contributions I made during the BrainstormTech drew some […]

‘Governance-on-the-Go’, or GonGo: the citizen at the center of an IT-enabled governance breakthrough?

Tuesday, July 22nd, 2008

I am now at the Fortune BrainstormTech, which aims to relate innovations in technology to larger world problems it can solve.  The event just started, featuring fascinating evening panels with tech leaders (here).  One of the sessions I will co-lead tomorrow, with Ross Mayfield of Socialtext, is on governance.  In this forthcoming interactive lab we will try to advance the […]

Democracy and Development: Rejecting the Extremes

Friday, July 18th, 2008

     We recently released the new Governance Matters study, with its accompanying set of Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI),  covering 212 countries since 1996.  It is no secret that this research project that I started with Aart Kraay over a decade ago is not uncontroversial, having generated  debate among academics, some government officials, and within the World Bank.  The data […]

‘Governance Matters’: A new blog on governance at the World Bank

Monday, May 26th, 2008

     With the just launched ‘Governance Matters’ blog, the World Bank has now fully joined the governance blogosphere.  The idea was afoot for many months. There was initial pushback by a few higher ups.  But support from many quarters and persistence prevailed, helped by the growing recognition of the importance of blogging in today’s world.  And this personal blog I have hosted for a […]

Human Rights, Aid Effectiveness, and Development: a few findings for debate today, and tomorrow…

Thursday, May 15th, 2008

     Today, May 15th, an initiative called Bloggers Unite for Human Rights, was launched. The international NGO on Human Rights, Amnesty International, is partnering with BlogCatalog.com, the bloggers’ social network, so to raise global social awareness on this important issue.  Bloggers around the world are being asked to post about human rights.  Hundreds of postings […]

Obama vs. Clinton: distraction from world reality?

Tuesday, May 13th, 2008

I don’t get it. Late in the evening I watch CNN news.  For the past week it has been saturated with interminable reporting on the Obama-Clinton democratic candidate contest.  Many pundits have been paraded and asked for opinions on trivia. Obscure (until now) ’superdelegates’ have been interviewed, even if it is to say that hey […]

Threat to sports: corruption or politics?

Monday, May 12th, 2008

     Corruption in sports has often been big news.  Whether related to match-fixing in soccer, involving referees, goalies or other players — be them in Italy, Germany, Kenya, Brazil, China, or elsewhere —, or in cricket, or in other sports.  Or buying the votes of some members of the International Olympics Committee (IOC), so to give the award to the the briber’s city.  Or judges making backroom deals in figure […]

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