The current vaccine rollout has displayed that technology is not a silver bullet for governance, especially in a developing country like India. Solving other structural governance issues is key to unleashing the potential of technology in the effective delivery of services. With this in mind, Sharmadha Srinivasan and I argue that technology is not a silver bullet for governance in the Data Governance Blog.
Excerpts from the blog: “The current vaccination programme for a significant proportion of its population – age 18-45 years – requires compulsory registration on its online platform, CoWIN. There are no offline options to register for an appointment. Using technology in such a way only serves to exacerbate the issue of access to vaccines by the general population, given the country’s digital landscape.” “…simply adopting data collection tools such as mobile phone surveys or using Geographic Information Systems for analysis will not solve the problem by themselves. Without tackling the structural capacity constraints to collect such data such as lack of skilled personnel, multiplicity of data collection systems across initiatives, etc., no technical system can be successful in improving service delivery.”
Read the blog here.