New, multidisciplinary ways of doing
The risks and rewards of digital transformation in the African context present a need to leverage digital technologies for benefit in cities and municipalities. Local authorities need to see themselves as strategists and enablers of the complex systems that result from such a transformation, and be prepared to anticipate emerging technologies, large datasets, and the disruption this may present.
Digital transformation, regardless of sector or state, calls for innovation and new ways of doing things. It requires adaptation, to be able to keep pace with an ever-shifting real world context, shifting citizen needs, and with the new digital tools and services that can help to meet those needs. It requires multidisciplinary ways of working, across sector and organisational size, to create partnerships that can keep up step with evolutions in context, need and technology. It also requires local authorities become capable of innovation, of rethinking services by putting citizens at the heart of design, implementation and monitoring. Those able to do so will be at a major advantage in terms of relevant services truly designed for their user or beneficiaries. From participatory budgeting37, a form of citizen participation in which citizens are involved in the process of deciding how public money is spent – as is the case in cities such as Matola – to co-design, in which a diverse range or participants is involved in exploring, developing and testing responses to shared challenges38, co-production methods are becoming recognised as meaningful methods for modern local authorities to design, test and roll out new services, policies or ways to create an enabling environment for the local innovation ecosystem.
”In the public sector, co-design holds great promise to “generate more innovative ideas, achieve economic efficiencies, foster cooperation between different groups, reinvigorate trust between citizens and public servants, and have transformative effects on participants’ agency and wellbeing.“
37. https://www.local.gov.uk/topics/devolution/engaging-citizens-devolution/approaches-civic-and-democratic-engagement-0
38. The promise of co-design in public policy (Blomkamp2018) https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-8500.12310
